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Talking wasn’t something that came naturally to her, just like it didn’t come naturally to Dorian. I’d been with them in a room that was so convoluted with feelings that it felt almost impossible to breathe. They stored all their feelings until they were running from themselves, and not getting anywhere because the more they ran the more the feelings ate at them—until they exploded. It was a routine I’d watched and been a part of our whole lives. But I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t watch her hurt herself.
I walked around the hospital aimlessly as I went through all the motions and saw my patients. I sat in what I’d come to think of as her chair and read Jack one of the books she’d left on his bedside table. I went through the procedure of bringing him out of his induced coma with his parents. Signed all the paperwork ready for tomorrow. I could tell that his mother was disappointed Quincy wasn’t there, or maybe that was just me projecting my feelings onto her.
The day didn’t drag, but it also didn’t go by at the usual pace. I missed bumping into her around the hospital. I missed seeing her running from patient to patient. I yearned for her smiles and passing touches. I’d worked on so many of the days she’d been off before, but the knowledge that we weren’t speaking made it feel like she was gone. It made the distance between us greater.
By the time I made it out of the hospital I was already two hours over my shift. I cancelled drinks with Jake and a couple of our other mates. Jake and I had met at UCLA as exchange students, we’d taken most of the same classes and we’d stuck together the three years we were out there. We’d both started our training at St. Ermin’s together until we went into specialty. Whilst I’d always had a thing for Neuro, he had a thing for Aesthetics. He was brilliant enough that he’d ended up practicing Cosmetic Surgery on Harley Street. The guy was so sought after that in order to go out for a drink we’d had to book it in his diary almost a month in advance. It was crazy.
Not to mention that the minute we sat at a bar it was like anyone with tits and a vagina within the City of London flocked to him. He was the living breathing definition of a bachelor. He was the ultimate playboy…and Molly’s godfather. Which made me feel a little guilty for cancelling on him, but I just didn’t have it in me to sit and watch women practically squirt at just one of his too perfect smiles. I’d witnessed women falling over each other to buy him a drink. It was ridiculous. The guy was ridiculous. He was also the only best friend I had left. And whilst the term best friend is juvenile, it was exactly who he was to me.
I stopped in to see Molly and ended up staying for a few hours as Jenna and Richard popped out to pick up something or another for the wedding. Both of the girls couldn’t stop talking about their trip. It made me happy that Quincy had worked it all out with both Richard and Jenna, even if I had to hear it from them. I knew she must’ve been terrified, but the fact that she’d come back today whilst the girls were at school and talked it out with both of them meant she was finally thinking rather than just feeling.
It bothered me that she hadn’t tried to call me or text me again, but I hoped that it wasn’t because she was pushing me away. Waiting may not have been my thing, but I could give her time. Limited time, but time nonetheless.
I collected my mail from the concierge desk and got in the lift. I checked my phone once more as it took me up to my floor. My fingers itching to reply to her message from over twenty-four hours ago but instead I stuffed it back in my coat pocket when the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened.
I stopped in my tracks as she paused halfway back to my apartment. My eyes going to her coat and bag by my door, to her golden waves and down to her bum as she spun towards me…slowly. Her gaze rising to meet mine as she bit her lip. She was nervous.
My feet felt like they were stuck in dry cement. I couldn’t move as my heart tried to beat its way out of my chest.
Calm the fuck down you idiot!
She looked how I felt. Exhausted and anxious. Her blue eyes wide and apprehensive. She tucked the long fringe on one side of her face behind her ear. Her other hand pulling on the blush sleeve of her jumper. She swayed as she twisted the white rubber toes of her Converse onto the shiny stone floor. She looked frantically from me to the duffle in my hand to the floor and the mirrored box behind me.
I stuck my hand out as the lift doors began to close and stepped over the dull metal threshold.
I took her in. She was so beautiful. Even when she looked a little out of sorts she still managed to make my body physically ache for her. It was the strangest, yet most amazing thing. I couldn’t ever recall feeling like that about anyone else. Not even Jenna, and we’d been pretty full on at the beginning. I don’t even know when it all dimmed down. It was like all the bubbles in our bath popped over time and we were just surrounded by tepid water in the end. It wasn’t bad, and it wasn’t good. It sort of just was. I couldn’t ever imagine things just being with Quincy. There was this thing—a connection— between us that had every part of me desperate to get closer.
She took a deep breath as her fingers knotted in front of her.
“You didn’t reply,” she said, her voice was shaky and raspy.
My brows furrowed as I took her in once again. The red printed glasses on the front of her semi fitted jumper emphasising her boobs.
Her hands tugged on the hem of the white shirt sticking out from under the jumper.
I ran my eyes back up her body until I met her worried gaze. “I didn’t.”
At my words her shoulders hunched as all the breath in her lungs seemed to be squeezed out through her gaping lips.
Call me sadistic, but I wanted her to feel the loss so that next time she would think twice a
bout walking away. We couldn’t have a relationship where she wandered off and came back when she was ready to. As much as I loved her, that was something I couldn’t live with. I couldn’t keep worrying about when things would get too much for her and she’d run off. I couldn’t be there for her like I needed to be if she didn’t stick around through everything.
I walked past her to my door and let myself in. I dumped my bag by the door and hung my coat on the rack. I looked out into the hall and watched as she pressed the button for the lift. The doors sliding back open almost instantly.
“Where are you going?” I called to her.
She turned around quickly. Her brown leather satchel hung on her shoulder and her black and white herringbone coat over her forearm.
Her shoulder shrugged as she shook her head and her eyes looked around as if to say I don’t know. The small beaded bow on the black and red Alice band in her hair catching the light like a halo. I hated seeing her like that—scared and unsure. She looked pained and vulnerable. I never wanted to make her feel like that. I wanted her to feel sure and strong—like the Quincy that came out in theatre.
I nodded her inside as the brass doors behind her closed again.
She looked over her shoulder and then back at me. Her eyes closed as she took a long deep breath.
Was she steeling herself?
I held the door open and stood to the side as she walked past me. She shook out her coat lightly and refolded it before putting it on the shallow sideboard and placing her bag on top. I wanted to throw them on the floor. That wasn’t her, that was Richard. I didn’t want his version of Quincy, I wanted the one that left her shoes in front of the door and her coat on a chair haphazardly. I wanted the woman who left a trail of mugs and glasses wherever she went.
