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But, of course, I couldn’t. And what I secretly loved about the roses was I think he was saying that he could be the kind of guy that had romantic gestures in his playbook.
Of course, the ER is in uproar with all this. Fabian slashing his arm, then this. There is no greater topic of discussion. The number of times I’ve interrupted a conversation where all I catch is some murmur about roses and romance, before it all goes quiet. I can’t tell them I found him in bed with another woman because my life would be discussed all over the hospital.
I caught two residents discussing it yesterday, and I growled at them about going back to talking about medicine and saving patients. They just laughed at me and told me they were enjoying my love life, and by the way, when was I going to forgive him? One of them even had the nerve to say that slashing a vein was an impressive feat.Seriously?
And I’ve talked to Janus. He was great, as he always is, goddammit. He didn’t try and plead Fabian’s case or even take his side. He told me what happened with Nadine at college, and I don’t think he’s lying or even supporting his friend; our conversation didn’t have that veneer. Everything Fabian told me stacks up. Janus did tell me that Fabian would never go there again, and given what I know about their relationship now, I can see that. Janus said he hoped we worked it out and that he thought what we had was “worth it.” Whatever that means. But I’m struggling to put aside the image I have of them together, and my own crazy idea is to talk to Nadine and work out for myself what she’s capable of. How much of a car crash would that be? And anyway, how would I find her?
So, when I round the corridor from a consulting room and see her standing at reception, seven days into my deliveries from Fabian, I stop dead. She’s waving her hands haphazardly at a nurse, and, taking a deep breath, I walk slowly down the hallway toward her. The desire to dive into the nearest room is enormous, and, as if she’s registered that someone is watching her, she turns and her mouth twists up in a sneer. The assessment I made in the first few seconds of meeting her feels spot-on: She’s as mean as all hell. How has she found me here?
“I don’t take kindly to being lied to, bitch,” she says, hand landing on her hip.
“Hello, Nadine,” I say, eyes narrowing.She’s on something.And I switch modes, ticking off the details—dilated pupils, slightly slurred speech—and any emotion I might have felt seeing her here disappears behind a curtain. My eyes flick to the receptionist, Dawn, widening my eyes, and she nods almost imperceptibly at me, before getting up from her seat to go and find assistance. My eyes drift back toward Nadine to find her smirking.
“You might think you’re with him, but he’s not yours,” she says.
I watch Dawn’s back as she heads up the corridor; I hope she didn’t hear that. But I’ve no time to think about how this is happeningyet againin my place of work. I step back and to the side, gesturing to Nadine to move into a room I know is empty, but she squints at me aggressively and doesn’t budge from reception, chin jutting out like she’s expecting a response. Nothing bubbles up.
She’s the one who made me back away from Fabian but seeing her here isn’t exciting any wild feelings.Fabian is right.I know what we have: something deep and warm that goes down to my bones. My heart expands until it feels like it’s filling my ribcage.
“How did you find me here? That’s clever of you,” I say. Flattery has worked in the past with the drug addicts that come into the ER.
She smiles smugly at me, like the cat that got the cream, and my heart sinks. If she’s been an addict a long time, then she’ll have seen every trick in the book.
“Fabian always underestimates me, like you are right now. He thinks I’m high all the time.” She cackles loudly, and several people turn around. “He figures I can’t concentrate, that I don’t realize what he’s doing.” She leans forward. “He left me alone in his apartment enough times for me to do some digging.”
Alarm bells ring in my head. Fabian’s paranoid, and she’s a loose cannon. She could exploit her access to Fabian in return for drugs. My blood runs cold. Maybe she’s found a way into his computer system: God knows what she could have gotten her hands on.
“Did you study computer science too?” I say.
She snorts at me. “If you think he does anything interesting messing around on those machines, you’re an idiot, girl.”
How little she knows him.
“It didn’t take a fancy degree to work out who you were, where you worked.” She wags her finger at me and cackles again. “Fabian had your picture in his phone and everything.”
I hope she’s had no deeper thought than finding his contacts, who he texts.
I switch tactics. “The problem is, Nadine, you lied to Fabian, and he doesn’t like being lied to.”
She waves a hand dismissively. “Guys are easy to manipulate, especially him. He enjoys sex, a lot of it, and I know how he likes it. It was good to do it again with him after all this time. He takes care of a girl in bed. I hope you don’t mind sharing.”
Her lip curls at me. Oh God, the reminder that she’s been with him in the same way as me makes me feel like I’ve swallowed acid. Did he take his time with her too? Ugh. I suck in air through my teeth, that image of her tucked under Fabian’s arm is like having little daggers stuck into my skin all over my body. I glance over her shoulder to find several people watching us, riveted.Jesus.
I take a deep breath and shake my head at her. “Still lying, Nadine.”
“I’m not fucking lying, you bitch. He’s mine. He’ll always be mine. He takes me back every time I turn up on his doorstep.”
“You haven’t been with him for over ten years,” I say, making an approximate guess.
“He’s still mine.” She folds her arms over her chest.
I wonder if she even grasps how much time has passed since they were at college together, how much she’s confirming with this conversation.
“He does things with me he’d never do with anyone else, things no one else would do with him,” she says.
My stomach churns. Do I need to listen to any more of her taunts? Dammit, I want one last attempt to get information out of her.
“Why did you sneak into his bed?”
