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I dragged out the question in a prayer. I could not handle being in an enclosed space with him. The clutter of my car was nothing compared to the emotional junk of our past rattling along through L.A. traffic.
“Fuck no,” he clipped immediately.
My flinch was hidden by jerky movements to look for my keys. My hands finally felt the fabric of my keyring. I clutched them but didn’t yank my hand out of my purse, or lift my eyes. I didn’t trust myself to do that.
“I’ll follow you,” he continued. “I’d appreciate it if you don’t drive like a maniac in order to make it easier for both of us.”
I almost laughed. Easier for the both of us would require Doc Brown and an industrial amount of plutonium.
“I don’t drive like a maniac,” I said, finally lifting my eyes up and pulling my keys out of my purse.
He was staring at me with folded arms and the designated ‘tough guy’ stance with slightly widened legs. An eyebrow raised from beneath his sunglasses was his only response.
I huffed, hating that yet another thing he somehow knew about me was that I’d failed my driving test three times. Because I’d told him, in the middle of the night, or the day, in that everlasting weekend we’d spent tangled up in bed and in each other.
“Whatever,” I snapped. “I’ll endeavor to do everything I can to make this easier for you.” The attitude in my voice surprised me.
It must’ve surprised Heath too, because something flickered in his expression. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, finally step all over the emotional eggshells we’d been pretending to be walking on. He closed it again. Took a visible breath.
“Much obliged,” he said and turned on his heel and walked toward his black SUV.
I watched him for far too long, checked out his ass when I shouldn’t have and then I got in my car.
* * *
“You said you weren’t gonna drive like a maniac,” a voice clipped at the same time my driver’s door was wrenched open.
“I didn’t,” I protested.
Heath stepped back in order for me to get out of the car. It was almost comical how much unnecessary distance he put between us in order to make sure there was no accidental brushing of our skin.
“You almost hit three cyclists, two buses and a BMW,” he said, voice tight.
I sighed. “Almost, but did not hit,” I clarified. “Maniacs hit things. Therefore I am not one.”
He did not appreciate this. “You ran three red lights.”
“They had an orange tinge.”
I locked my car, banishing my keys back into the depths of my purse and then bracing myself for another day—another moment—of Heath.
A grip on my hand paused my movements. Paused my fricking heart. Because it was Heath’s grip. Heath’s hand on my arm. And it wasn’t gentle, it was tight and almost violent, as was the movement that yanked me around to face him.
At some point, he’d shoved his sunglasses onto his head. The unobstructed view of his eyes hit me square in the chest. There was fury in them. Pure and utter rage.
“You drive like you bowl through life,” he accused. “Full of almost hitting things, near misses, almost disasters. You’ve been lucky, so far, Polly. But no one is lucky forever. The world doesn’t give almosts forever. One day, you’re gonna fuckin’ crash. I’m not gonna let you do that to yourself. So get your fuckin’ shit together and drive like you actually value your fucking life.”
“I do value my life,” I hissed back.
“Could’ve fooled me.”
I yanked my hand back from his, despite the fact his grip felt like home. “That’s the problem, Heath, I can’t fool you.”
And I pretended I didn’t see the emotion on his face before I turned around and stormed toward the hospital entrance.
* * *
We didn’t speak for the rest of the day. Which was good, since I didn’t know if I’d surprised another verbal assault from Heath.
He wasn’t pulling punches.
Wasn’t being gentle with my feelings.
But then again, I hadn’t been gentle with his when I’d married another man. So maybe I deserved it.
He had followed me silently from the car. He was my ghost in every sense of the word. Apart from the fact he was flesh and blood, of course.
But it didn’t really matter, he could’ve been incorporeal for all the difference it made. It’s not like I was going to touch him, kiss him, ever again.
So why was that all I could think about today? Even when I was reading to my kids in the rooms of the hospital? Even when I spent longer holding Ella’s hand—the little girl with leukemia who was still too ill to gather with the rest of the children in the reading room.
Even when I went out to get my favorite nurses donuts and the good coffee because I knew that their breaks weren’t long enough to leave the hospital. They were barely long enough to suck down bitter, scalding hot vending machine coffee and slurp some instant noodles.
