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Burying my face in my palms, I break down into tears. Two strong arms wrap around me and I inhale Maverick’s spicy and leathery cologne. It brings me comfort I so thoroughly need.
“Why? Why did this have to happen?” I sob against his chest. “She doesn’t deserve any of this. She doesn’t deserve it.” I’m crying in earnest now, letting the emotions I haven’t allowed myself to feel flow free for the first time in a long time.
Maverick pulls me closer and I wrap my own arms around his back, snuggling in closer to his comforting heat while he holds me as I cry. My shoulders bow, my face crumples, and I collapse against his chest. Grief bubbles up in me, great wracking sobs that seem to come from someone else completely, and a small, detached part of me listens to the anguished howls filling the small hallway of the hospital.
This one hug, this affectionate action from him, means more to me than anything. I’ve never felt so secure before, so okay to be vulnerable. It makes me want to stay nestled in his embrace forever.
He rests his chin easily on the top of my head, one hand rubbing my back slowly, soothingly, the other in my hair. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t lead her to make that decision. You didn’t do that. It’s not your fault, Noelle, and don’t you ever forget that.”
He leads me to the rows of chairs and I sit. “Here,” he takes out a handkerchief from his suit pocket and offers it to me.
I thank him and dab my tears.
He sits beside me and gazes at me. “You did the right thing, Noelle.”
I swallow and look away. “Somehow I’m not so sure about that. She’s always hated hospitals. Never wanted to be in one. Her dad died from a septic infection when she was five. Right here in this hospital.” A fresh wave of tears burns through me and I exhale. “I’m so scared. I’ve never been so scared.”
“Do you have someone you can call on her behalf?”
Shaking my head, I say, “No. She’s been estranged from her mother and sister for a long time. They couldn’t watch her do this to herself, so they just asked her to leave. They gave up trying to help her. Gave up on her.” I sniff. “She’s just been dependent on me ever since.”
“It must be very exhausting.”
I let out a lukewarm laugh. “You have no idea. Watching your best friend go through that, knowing that no matter how much you help, it’s never going to work, it’s just… painful.” My lips wobble. “I…I just don’t know what to do.”
“I know how you feel.”
I stare at him. “You do?”
“Yeah,” he says, running his fingers through his hair. Then he shuts his eyes and sighs deeply. “I, uh, I’ve been in a situation like this before.”
“What happened?”
He looks away and swallows. “My ex-wife. She, uh, she… had a lung infection.” His eyes are a million miles away. A lifetime away too, apparently. “She never wanted to go to the doctor. Always assured that it was just the air, you know, the one that comes with living in the city. I could tell she had some trouble breathing sometimes. Wheezing and coughing. She also got tired really easily.” He shrugs. “We lived in New York, at the time, so I felt that it was fair. She self-medicated herself with cough medication but after over a week, she was still the same or worse. She kept pulling back whenever I asked to go to a doctor, saying I was silly for worrying, that it was a flu, the pollution, allergies.
She gave me so many excuses. So many reasons for her symptoms.” He is shaking his head. “Eventually, after she tried every single option with no result, she finally agreed to go to a doctor and when he ran some tests, the results were bad. Really bad. She had lung cancer.” His eyes fill with tears. “And it had already spread. It was stage four by the time we finally knew what it was. There was nothing we could do except make sure she was comfortable and try to medicate for the pain. She didn’t suffer for long, thankfully.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. He went through so much. Poor guy.
“Yeah, well, like your friend, she didn’t want to go to a hospital. She hated hospitals and was kind of in denial for a long time.” He breathes out and blinks a few tears away. “I blame myself. Or did, for a long time. I should have made her go to the doctor sooner. I should have insisted, I should have paid more attention… But the shoulda, coulda, woulda game is one that has no winners. It can take you to a dark place. It took me a long time to realize that her choices were her own. I did my best with the information I had.” His eyes meet mine. “I told her multiple times to go to the doctor. I asked her to see someone. Short of forcing her or taking her there myself, I did all I could. And so did you.”
His eyes get that faraway look again.
“Seeing your best friend today—” he shivers slightly.
“—reminded you of her,” I say softly.
“Yeah.” He runs his fingers through his hair. “Yeah, it did.”
I stare at him, disconcerted at the revelation. Losing a partner is a terrible thing to go through. How was he able to go through life with the feeling of grief and loss and still come out better, unscathed? Did he ever heal from it? Is he still healing? Numerous questions are swirling in my head. A cold feeling of dread settles like a lump in my chest. If Abbie dies, what’s going to happen? No, she can’t. I’ll never forgive myself if that happens. I’ll never truly be okay. She’s more than a best friend to me. She’s my sister, the only person in the world who truly matters to me. Losing her is something I’ll never get over. Ever.
The brown of his eyes gazing at me fondly startles me, deep and intense, with hidden depths, like well-polished cherrywood, and his mouth, full and soft. I can’t help the sudden picking up of the pace of my heart in my chest. He is so close, too close. But even though this room has to be over a thousand square feet, I can’t move an inch.
The shadow of his stubble, now almost two-day’s growth, darkens his cheeks, and I find myself aching to run my own face over his skin, to feel the rough evidence of his masculinity on my smooth, feminine jaw. It’s an impulse I’m entirely unaccustomed to. Deep, raw. Primal.
Our connection is deep.
So deep.
