Blurred Lines

by Naughty Aphrodite

  His eyes closed after hers but just as he parted her lips to taste what he had missed for the last four years, a sharp call rang through the deserted hallway like a bell.

  “Caleb!”

  She jumped in shock, her hands falling from his chest, while he clenched his shut eyes in anger.

  “I-I need to leave,” she stuttered, and he watched as her eyes turned to meet those of Kate. He watched and saw no iota of recognition in her eyes as she looked at Kate.

  When she saw that he was yet to move, she pushed him back a few steps and hurried off, hiding her face with her hair and rolling her stand along.

  After taking a few moments to compose himself, Caleb turned around to face Kate.

  She looked as though she had just seen a ghost as she stared after the exiting woman and then back at him.

  “Was that Aisha?” she shrieked in horror.

  Caleb gave her a sour look and placed his hands in his pockets.

  “Answer me!” she yelled and grabbed his arm just before he could walk past her.

  He glared furiously into her eyes, his eyes blazing with suppressed hatred for her. “Does it matter?” he asked. “You won’t be able to kill her this time either way,” he said. “I promise you.”

  He jerked his hand from her grip and continued on his way.

  Chapter 6

  Joan returned to her room in a state of panic.

  She tried to calm her racing heart after all that had just happened, and eventually sat on her bed. She was deep in thought when the door opened to reveal the woman that had walked into them in the hallway.

  Joan stared at her and watched as she walked slowly into the room. She was gorgeous. With a short golden bob, a white chiffon blouse and expensive looking charcoal slacks.

  She walked in and kept staring at her, and Joan looked down at herself in confusion.

  “C-Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Don’t you know me?” the woman asked, her hands on her chest. She looked horrified.

  Joan shook her head. “No, I don’t. Do you know me? Have we met before? I apologize if we have, I’m kind of out of sorts.”

  The woman didn’t respond but soon enough, she turned around with the incredulous look of amazement and horror on her face and hurried away from the room.

  Joan could not stay here any longer, so she began to pack up her things. She changed from the hospital’s gown and into her own clothes- a simple jeans and t-shirt. She pulled the needle from her arm, grabbed her ziplock bag of belongings and hurried to the door. On a second thought, she stopped and grabbed a piece of paper to quickly write down a note. She placed it on the table and was on her way.

  The hospital was older than she had thought. She was aware of it and had even come by countless times to make bakery deliveries, but she had never gone past the eerie reception.

  Hospitals were bright and modern but this one was dark and suspicious. With old linoleum flooring and dark walls, it was clean but was not a place she had ever expected or hope to be treated in.

  She lowered her baseball cap down on her head as she found her way down the grand stairs which made the hospital look like it had been converted from a decently old manor. To her relief, the reception was void of staff.

  She would have never been able to get past the hawk-eyed manager otherwise. She hurried out of the building, gave one last look to its equally dark exterior and clinging vines, and hurried as quickly as she could out to the main road. There she hailed a taxi and hurried over to the bakery.

  She felt so unwell and weak, the pain in her abdomen seeming to intensify, so she popped some of the pills she had grabbed in the hospital into her mouth, and endured the forty-five-minute drive to town.

  When she arrived, the bell above the door announced her arrival and she walked in to see that her manager was still at the counter. There were a few customers basking in the late evening ambiance, so at the approaching tray of desserts and coffee, she hurried over to the manager’s daughter and took the tray from her.

  She let it go instantly, surprised at first to see her and then frowned. Whether it was out of concern or otherwise, Joan could not tell. “How are you doing?” she asked and Joan gave her a bright smile. “Wonderful.”

  She served the customers and returned back with an empty tray to the counter. She went behind it and gave her manager a huge smile as he stood brewing coffee.

  He shot her a look. “You’re back.”

  Her smile never faltered. “Yes, I am. Let me help you with that,” she said and went over to him, but before she could put her hands on the machine, he raised his and stopped her. “Let it be. Come with me.”

  Her heart dropped into her stomach.

  She accompanied him out of the bakery, and they stood in a corner of a bustling town street.

  “I truly hope that you are recovering well,” he said to her.

  “Yes, John, I am. Thanks for all your support, it really pulled me through such a tough time. And I am so sorry about the van. I promise to pay you back as soon as possible, I will work even harder and-”

  “Joan,” he called interrupting her. “I’m afraid that I am going to have to let you go.”

  Her smile dissolved in a moment, but then hoping she had heard wrong, she brought it back up. “John…”

  “The damage to the van set me back a couple thousand bucks and you know how business is so slow around here. I can’t afford to hire another staff until things settle down for a while. I truly hope you can understand.”

  Her eyes filled up with tears but she restrained them from falling and nodded. “I do. No hard feelings. W-will I be able to return once things are more settled?”

  “Perhaps,” he said and gave her tight smile. The door opened then and his daughter came out to join them. She dropped her suitcase in front of the bakery and the tears rolled down Joan’s face. She stared at it as though she were dreaming, and refused to raise her head. Without anyone even speaking, she began to nod her head.

  “You also cannot remain in the room downstairs,” John said. “Jenny is graduating soon and she has decided to move in here for a little while to lend me a hand.”

  “Sure,” Joan croaked. “Thank you for everything.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said and both father and daughter walked back into their store.

  Joan lifted her head then for the first time and angrily swiped at her tears. She forced a smile to her lips and picked up her dark duffle bag. “You’ll be fine, Joan,” she said. “You’ll be fine.”

  She looked around, at the rest of the world in motion except her, and the tears came back in full force. What was she going to do? She had no money or a place over her head.

  Heartbroken, she turned around and began to walk. She didn’t know where to head but there was a bus stop a few miles from the town center, so she began to head that way. She walked as quickly as she could but it was a painful battle.

  Her abdomen began to hurt more than she could endure, but still, she walked on the only way she had learned how to over the years.

  One painful, excruciating step, at a time.

  Chapter 7

  Just as Caleb had expected his door flew open a little while later.

  He shut his eyes to control his temper and took a deep breath.

  “Is that truly Aisha?” Kate asked. “I just spoke to her and she seems to not know me. There was no ounce of recognition in her gaze.”

  “If I had been driven to death by you like she was, I would also pretend to not know you if I happened to survive and run into you again.”

  His statement seemed to jumble up her entire train of thought and it was a few moments later before she regained herself. Driven to death by me? Caleb! Have you gone mad? How dare you place such an accusation on me?

  Caleb glared at her, confident that she would not miss his hatred, and rolled his eyes at her show of ignorance.

  “Caleb...” she whispered. “I
s this why you left? Is this why you abandoned everything and came to the middle of nowhere? You suspect me? Kate?” She could not believe it.

  He could not believe her. Too impatient to put up with the act, he rose to his feet.

  “She is not Aisha,” he said. “Her name is Joan and she does indeed bear an uncanny resemblance to my dead fiancé. I hope this is enough to convince you to stay away from her, but I suspect that my hope will be futile. Shut the door behind you when you leave.”

  He walked out of the office and headed towards the ER. Just as he arrived at the reception, however, Kevin came running down the stairs.

  “Caleb,” he screamed. “Dr. Pace!”

  He flew down the remaining flight of stairs and almost ran into him. Caleb caught him by both hands.

  “What is it?” he asked, worried at the panic in his eyes.

  “The girl...” he swallowed. “Joan...”

  Caleb felt his blood freeze over. He shook the nurse’s shoulders. “What about her? Speak!”

  “She’s gone,” he said. Caleb stared at him for a few seconds without seeing him and then turned at the sound of thunder that struck the sky. It was about to rain.

  He let go of the nurse and proceeded to run out of the hospital, but just before he could leave he was stopped.

  Chapter 8

  The ambulance skidded to a stop in front of the hospital and Caleb watched as two paramedics jumped down and began to hoist the patient into a gurney.

  “Dr. Caleb!” he heard a call from the ER, but could scarcely pull his eyes from the bloody scene in front of him. It froze him in place as all he could think about was going to Aisha, but when two nurses ran past him to receive the patient, he knew that he would be unable to leave.

  The Head Nurse spoke to him as rapidly and calmly as she could. “He was working at a construction site and fell off the building,” she said to him. “He was installing window panes, but there was no safety bar on the scaffold.”

  Aisha…

  Just then there was a screech out in the front yard announcing the arrival of a taxi. A hysterical woman jumped from it with a little boy in her arms and ran into the hospital.

  “Where is my husband?” she instantly grabbed the arm of the nurse. “I just got a call, where is he?”

  “Take her to him,” the Head Nurse instructed another, and then turned to Caleb. “Dr. Pace, we need you this instant.”

  Furious thunder struck across the sky and it shocked him back to his senses. The rain began to pour. He made his decision then and turned to hurry into the ER.

  “Get me an epidural,” he said to the nurse, and she headed off in haste.

  It was four hours later when he stepped out into the still pouring rain and ran towards his car. He knew where to go, so he headed to the bakery, and let out his first deep breath when he saw that it was still opened. He met a young girl at the counter, but when he inquired on Aisha, the answer he received turned his blood cold.

  In disbelief that she had been fired and sent away from the establishment, he began to stumble towards the door, but then at the last moment, he turned around to stare at the girl with wonder. “Are you not aware that she got into an accident and had surgery barely a week ago?”

  “I am aware,” the girl said and came around the counter to stand in front of him, her proximity and shy smile revealing her interest in him. “But my dad was pretty upset at the damage she had cost him, so we had to let her go,” she answered in a chirpy tone. “She looked fine though, so there was no harm done.”

  Caleb wanted to harm the girl. His anger had spread so much through his body that it wanted to choke him. He spoke through gritted teeth. “How do you figure that a woman who just had surgery is okay?”

  The girl was taken aback by his cold tone and darted her eyes in shame as she pondered on a response.

  “W-well, she-”

  Caleb didn’t want to hear it. He looked out into the cold, dark night with despair, the pattern of the rain seemed to rev up the anxiety that was already brewing within him. “Where could she have gone?” he asked. “Does she have any friends that she would have gone to stay with?”

  The girl shrugged. “I doubt that. I haven’t met any since she began working here almost a year ago, and she never went anywhere. She was quite the hermit, with little ambition, and more than willing to while away her time here. But that’s not me,” she said with a charming smile. “I have big dreams.”

  Caleb could feel his self-control slipping, so he pushed the door open, and walked out into the rain.

  He spent the next two hours searching through all the motels and bars in the small town, and when he sat in the parking lot of the last one that she could probably have been to, he broke down and began to cry crippled with despair.

  Such outburst of emotion was so foreign to him but he found himself unable to hold back as he wailed out his broken heart and shattered existence. He had not even shed a tear when he had been told she had died years ago, refusing to believe that such a vital part of his existence was gone. But now…

  If she ran away again, it would probably take the rest of his life this time around to find her.

  He pounded his fist against the steering, the horn blaring in protest until the fear of destroying his hands finally came through to his head. They were bloodied and bruised from the blows, but if he continued on, his life as a surgeon would be in jeopardy too. So he got out of the car and raised his head to the heavens with a cry of fury. He cursed at it, the rain camouflaging the tears that ran down his face, but then blinding headlights shone directly at him. He raised his head to see that it was from a bus that has just stopped by the side of the street to let off some passengers. At first, he stared at it without thought, but the moment comprehension dawned on him. He ran up to the bus just before its automatic doors slid shut.

  “I am the last round for the night,” the driver said to him upon his inquiry. “There are no more passengers at the bus station, so you’ll probably have to wait until tomorrow to check. If you go now, all you’ll see are litters and a few homeless people that shack up by the walkways, or on the waiting benches.

  Caleb turned around and was about to descend the bus when it occurred to him. His head darted back to the driver’s. “Homeless people?”

  The aged man nodded. “They take advantage of the shed, so you will see a few of them there.

  At first, he didn’t want to believe the possibility, but since it was the last lead he had, he headed for his car and a few minutes later, arrived at the bus station. True to the driver’s words, he looked around and saw people clothed in black scattered across the wide shed. He scanned the few people until he came across one that was huddled in a corner.

  The person was completely covered from head to toe but when he glimpsed a banana yogurt drink by the person’s side, his heart did a little flip. It was a drink that currently held up quite some space in his refrigerator and one that brought recognition to him in an instant.

  He jumped from the car and ran over to the person, his clothes a damp, rumpled mess from his night’s misfortunes.

  “Aisha,” he called as he approached, but there was no response.

  “Aisha.” He stopped when he reached the walkway, but then he saw the person’s head falling over, and rushed to catch the person’s shoulders. Pulling away the blankets and the parka’s hood, he revealed the person’s face, and his heart plummeted into his stomach.

  For a second, he could not believe that he was seeing her and all he could hear was the furious beating of his heart. But then he came to his senses and realized that she was not conscious. He instantly panicked.

  He placed his fingers to the pulse in her neck and almost collapsed when he was assured that she was still alive. Lifting her into his arms, he carried her into his car and flattened the front seat so that she could rest.

  He sighted her bag then, a black duffel that she had been seating on and quickly retrie
ved it. Soon, they were on their way. He kept glancing at her and tried his best to keep his eyes on the road, the tears now falling silently down his face. He thought of taking her to the hospital, but at the last moment he changed his mind and brought her home.

  When they arrived, he laid her in bed and set up an IV line for her. Then he fed her medicine through the IV, changed her damp clothes and fell into bed without changing his to watch her.

  The next time he was conscious, the morning had come and there was no one by his side.

  Caleb instantly jumped out of bed. He grabbed his phone from the bedside table to see countless missed calls and messages, but he ignored them all and sprinted down the stairs. When he was almost at the bottom, he began to hear movements in the kitchen so he slowed his steps and looked ahead onto the ground floor. Past the living room was the kitchen and dining area, and there she was rummaging through the refrigerator. Eventually, she lifted her head and smiled at the stout bottle of banana yogurt in her hand.