AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He laughed from the bottom of his soul so hard he was shaking in the chair.
"I did no such thing. I told him to drop you to the nearest police station and leave you there. Worse, I told him if he ever left my goddaughter with a stranger, I'd call CPS on him. I told him he was crazy. I told him he was sick. I told him everything. It's not my fault the idiot fell in love with you like a sick puppy."
Love. James loved me. He told me that many times, but somehow in all this hubbub, his words felt empty. Love seemed like a tool to keep me at bay.
My smile left my face, and I was left with a feeling of emptiness. I wanted him to love me.
"You think it's true? That he loves me, I mean."
"You're kidding, right? Sullivan would carve his heart out and give it to you to play with. It's weird, you know. I thought he loved Avery, his ex, but now I realize he didn't. I think now he sees it too. He gave her his money, his last name, his dignity, his balls, his money again, but never his heart. You? Babe, su corazón is your legal property." Zach paused to accentuate the gravity of his words. "Rita, if you leave, you're taking that with you whether you like it or not, and I will not like the pile of human mess you'll leave behind. So?"
"So what?"
"Are you leaving?"
"I'm standing here...I don't know. I'm trying to figure out my life right now." My voice was shaking because my inside was throbbing, trying to digest everything he just said.
"Please, I am begging you, figure it out with him. I don't want to have to take Sullivan on my honeymoon because he's depressed." We both laughed again. I couldn’t help it, the guy was funny. A funny jerk. And he had a way about him, easy going but hiding a lot of wisdom. It was easy to sit back and take a breath of air around him. God knew I'd been needing to breathe since the last time I felt James's arms around me. "Be true to yourself, Rita; you found something good here in Chicago. Real fucking love with a good fucking man. Who will bring you flowers just because and shit if you bail on James?"
Everyone knew he was doing the same thing, but London told me there was no way in hell Zach would come clean about having a habit so corny.
"He is a good man. A good, twisted, crazy man," I said, looking straight forward.
"But good overall." And I knew better than many how important goodness was in a man. "You know what Jessica would say?"
"To not give up on someone who loves me so much he'd eat my ass?"
"Umm...I was going for ‘you found your Wendy’, but yeah, I can picture her saying that too."
More laughter swayed us both. I raised my coffee cup, and he toasted with me to this. To ass eating and love. Beautiful. They were all right. I couldn’t turn my back on this, not before I found a reason to let go - a better reason than what I had now because a white lie, no matter how fucked up, was not enough. It simply faded.
We sat in comfortable silence, watching the people walking around, minding their day when two men walked our way looking like they were in the middle of a fight. One of them didn’t look older than twenty, and the other one, I recognized. It was that doctor that hit on me the first time I visited James at work. What was his name, Emil, Emmanuel?
He raised his voice to the kid, and Zach jumped out of his chair.
"Emmy, what the hell are you doing? You're in the middle of the damn hospital." Emmy, right. Look at Zach, all professional trying not to say the word fuck.
"Stay out of it, Ford, this is my patient."
"This is worse, you idiot, you were yelling at him." I bit my lip to not point out they were yelling at each other.
The young boy stepped in between them and put his skinny arms up.
"I am not your patient; my father is. Is this even legal? You keep asking me to give him my kidney. I already said no."
Emmy threw his hands up, frustrated and walked a few steps in a circle before turning to the kid.
"Your father is dying as we speak, and you are a match. You are young and healthy; the change in your lifestyle will be minimal after the surgery, and your mom wants you..."
"No, don't fucking bring my mom into that. She is...she doesn't know..." The boy was falling to pieces under our eyes, and it was painful to watch. Lucky for everyone, Zach put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down.
"Dr. Shaw, this is enough. The recipient is your patient, and you're prohibited from talking to any possible donor."
"You're expecting me to let my patient die because of some protocol?"
"I expect you to do it because I'm your boss."
They continued to bicker, throwing facts and big words at each other that neither the boy or I could understand, so he gave up and came to sit with me. I looked at him, searching his face.
