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I look into her eyes. “I’m fine.”
She studies my face. “If you’re not, you can talk to me.”
“I got a little dizzy when I stood up,” I tell her honestly. “I need to eat better, sleep more, and laugh a little.”
I need to move forward with my life because Gaines has. He’s out drinking champagne and having dinner at a nice restaurant.
“Do all those things starting now, Eloise.”
I adjust one of the buttons on the cardigan she’s wearing. “I will.”
Playfully, she tugs on one of the big red buttons on the white sweater I’m wearing. “Good.”
I crackopen my poetry book to page forty-two. I can’t read the poem that’s printed there. I may never be able to do that again.
The poem is a sweet promise to a lover. It encompasses everything I felt for Gaines. The hope for the future. The vow to never look back.
A tear streams down my face to dot the center of the page.
I don’t try and wipe it away because it’s fitting. It’s a reminder of loving and losing.
I glance down at his bedside table. That’s where I found the book sitting next to my broken diamond bracelet. It’s sitting atop a small blue velvet sack. I pick it up, noticing the clasp has been repaired.
I should send Gaines a text message thanking him for that, but I can’t. Not yet, at least.
I know I’ll cross his path again at a family gathering, but I’m hoping by then, my courage will have returned, and I’ll possess the strength I thought I once had.
I sit briefly to wrap the bracelet around my wrist. I push on the clasp and it snaps into place.
When I stand, my chest tightens. It’s not enough to stop me, though. I won’t let a broken heart destroy me.
I place the business card Gaines gave me with his key code on the nightstand and I walk out of his home and his life.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Gaines
I sendEloise another text message. It’s a repeat of the one I sent her thirty minutes ago.
Gaines: Please call me. It’s important.
I stand in the entrance to the ED and wait for a response from her. Nothing comes.
“Dammit,” I swear. “Please call me.”
“Why call when I’m right here?”
I glance to my left to find Evan heading toward me. I don’t offer a greeting. I just stare at him.
“What is it?” His face goes ashen. “What’s happened?”
I can’t fucking explain it to him or anyone because I am barred by law. I’m standing in the middle of a hellish situation that I can’t clearly see my way out of.
If that’s not bad enough, Logan rounds the corner in a sprint, headed toward the ambulance bay.
Jordan Whitman is hot on his heels. Striped red and orange socks are his accessories for tonight.
“Incoming,” Jordan yells to Evan. “Cardiac arrest. Twenty-three-year-old female. She fell down the steps at a subway stop. Trauma to her head, and ankle.”
