by Kira Blakely
Chapter 15
Connor
“So,” I asked. “Where do you want to begin?”
“Well,” said Alice, looking away for a brief moment, a strand of hair falling loose from her ear as she turned her head. “The vibe for this thing is going to be a puff piece, but deep.”
I let my eyes move over Alice as she glanced away. She was dressed in a simple pink blouse, her bra just barely visible through the fabric. A pair of slim-fitting jeans hugged her every curve. I could already tell that it was going to be hard to stay focused on the matter at hand. It was enough when I had just my fantasies to contend with; now I had the memories of our night together as clear as a photo in my mind.
“Isn’t that a contradiction?” I asked.
“That’s why I’m the pro,” she said with a smile. “We’re going to go into detail but have you looking good all the way through.”
“And you’re not going to surprise me with anything?”
“What?” asked Alice. “Like a ‘gotcha question’ or something? No—you’re not running for office. But if you do want to bring up anything that you don’t want in the article, just tell me that it’s off the record, and I’ll make sure not to include it.”
“Got it,” I said, settling into my seat. “And…what about the subject of you and me?”
Alice crinkled her brow in mild confusion.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you’re not just some journalist who happened to be hired for this job—you’re someone with whom I’ve had a history. Wouldn’t that be something that the readers might be interested in?”
“Possibly,” she said. “But this is all about you. I don’t want to risk making our relationship the focal point of the piece.”
Then a sly expression formed on her face.
“Plus, do you really want the man you used to be having a place in the article?”
A dry laugh escaped my mouth.
“I see your point.”
“But…” she said. “Maybe we can add a little bit—just for some flavor. I mean, I have known you at two very different points in your life.”
“You’re the pro,” I said.
Alice considered the matter for another moment, then opened up her laptop and turned it toward us.
“I’m going to hit play now, and that’ll be the start. Remember—‘off the record’ means that I won’t include it.”
I nodded, eager to get on with it. Alice tapped the trackpad of her laptop and the recording began.
“So, Dr. Rex,” she said. “Let’s start from the start. Have you always been interested in medicine?”
“Not at all,” I said, thinking back. “You know how I was in high school—there wasn’t a thing I cared more about than partying and getting laid.”
Realizing what I’d just said, I reached over and tapped the trackpad to stop the recording.
“Maybe take out the ‘getting laid’ part,” I said, leaning forward a bit, my tone conspiratorial.
Alice let out another one of her lilting laughs.
“I’ll just say ‘partying,’” she said. “It’s a good euphemism. People get the point.”
She tapped the trackpad again and the recording went on.
“So,” she said. “You were the big man on campus in high school. What was that like?”
“Hard to say,” I said, those years seeming more like a thousand years ago than just a little over ten. “When you’re that age you’re just running on autopilot. I was really into girls, really into my bike, and didn’t give a damn about anyone other than myself.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” said Alice.
There was the slightest hint of a smile on her lips, but I couldn’t tell just how serious she was being.
“And you were part of all that, as you well know,” I said.
“Oh yeah,” she said. “I know just what it was like to be on the end of the ‘Connor Rex experience.’”
Her tone hardened just enough for me to see that she wasn’t completely cool with the subject.
“Yes, you were,” I said.
The subject of her and I was already being brought up, and I knew that I had to choose my words carefully.
“But you’d be wrong if you thought that you were just one interchangeable girl among many.”
Alice took another sip of her wine.
“Could’ve fooled me,” she said.
I felt the tension ratchet up just a bit.
“You know that I’m sorry for how I treated you back then,” I said. “But that’s just who I was.”
“The ‘love-em-and-leave-em’ type,” said Alice, trying to compose herself. “It’s the kind of guy that every girl needs to deal with at some point in her life.”
“See?” I asked. “It was a learning experience.”
Alice’s response was a wry smile. I got the impression that she didn’t find my comment particularly funny. My gaze drifted back into the living room for a brief moment where Hunter was plopped in front of the TV playing that Fortnight game he was so into.
“Sorry,” said Alice. “I don’t know what it is. It’s like as soon as the subject of you and I back then gets brought up, I get…pissed off. I can’t help it—the best I can do is just keep myself in check.”
“What do you think’s going on there?” I asked, knowing I should let the issue drop but not being able to resist.
“Probably because of the way you dumped me,” she said. “I mean, the way you just acted like I was no one. The look on your face that day I walked up to you at school, that confused expression of ‘who the hell is this girl’? It’s burned into my brain. I can’t help it.”
I remembered that day, too. I remembered the strange whirl of emotions inside of me, how I’d realized that I’d fallen hard for Alice, how she’d brought up feelings inside of me that I’d never know before. And it fucking scared me.
I wanted to say this, to come clean and let Alice know that the way I treated her wasn’t out of apathy or boredom, but as a reaction to feelings that I was just too immature to understand.
But I couldn’t. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t. Maybe it was my silly pride preventing me from looking vulnerable, but I just couldn’t say the damn words.
“Sorry,” was all I managed to say.
Alice regarded me with a skeptical expression for another moment before moving on.
“Ancient history,” she said. “Stupid of me to dwell on it.”
We both instinctively reached for our wine and took long sips.
“Anyway,” said Alice, “big man on campus in high school, yadda-yadda-yadda—then you went to med school?”
“Not at first,” I said, thinking back to my college days in New York. “I was eager as hell to get out of Hemswood. That town was just too small for me.”
“Tends to happen when you burn bridges with half the girls there,” said Alice. “Surprised they didn’t chase you out with torches and pitchforks.”
A small smile was on her lips, and I knew that this meant she was in slightly better spirits. Then, right at that moment, my mind flashed back to our night, how those lips looked wrapped around my cock. I shook my head to focus.
“Just weren’t many opportunities,” I said. “Back at that age I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I knew whatever life I was going to lead it was going to be too big for that town. No offense.”
“Small-town life has its charms,” I said.
“It does, but I’m sure you know the appeal of life in the city.”
She nodded, and I went on.
“Anyway, life in college was more of the same. I partied, I slept around, I didn’t give a damn about my studies. But I somehow managed to keep getting halfway decent grades. Not great, but enough to get by.”
“Some people have all the luck,” said Alice, flashing another smile.
“Something like that, I suppose,” I said. “I remember meeting with a guidance counselor in my first year. She told me my grade
s and my test scores just weren’t in sync—I should’ve been doing better than I was. And she gave it to me bluntly: said I was a smart kid and wasting my potential. Said that if I didn’t focus on something bigger than myself that I’d just go bouncing from one girl to the next, from one meaningless job to the next, and so on, until I realized that I was forty and hadn’t done a single thing worthwhile with my life.”
“And then what happened?”
“I wanted to dismiss everything she said, but deep down I knew that she was right. Partying and girls were wearing thin and always seemed to leave me feeling empty inside. And it’s around then that the accident happened.”
Alice’s eyebrows raised, and it was clear that this was the first she was hearing about this.
But before we could go on, a knock sounded at the balcony door. It was Hunter.
Alice tapped the trackpad and killed the recording, and I stepped over to the door and threw it open.
“What’s up, champ?” I asked.
“Dad, I’m hungry,” said Hunter.
I turned to Alice. Her gaze was far away, seemingly focused on just what I meant by “the accident.” But it’d have to wait.
“That good for tonight?” I asked.
“Um, yeah, fine,” she said. “Again tomorrow?”
“Works for me,” I said. “To be continued, I suppose.”
With that, I stepped inside, more than a little glad to be out of the spotlight.
Chapter 16
Alice
The interview lingered in my mind. I spent the rest of the night locked away in my bedroom, furiously working to get the bones of the article laid out.
As I typed, I scolded myself over and over for letting my emotions get the better of me yet again. But I couldn’t help it. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, the memories of Connor’s and my relationship in high school were still fresh in my mind. I knew that I was paying the price for keeping it all suppressed and hoping that time would make everything just go away.
And his cryptic reference to a crash intrigued me. He’d never mentioned this earlier, and the subject seemed difficult to even bring up. Plus, I hadn’t even scratched the surface about Hunter’s mother.
Then, on top of everything was the little matter of Connor and me screwing the other night, and that all I wanted was to just do it again.
It was beyond overwhelming, but I knew that all I could do was be professional.
“Professional, dammit,” I told myself, standing in front of the mirror as the glass of wine swirled around in my head. “You’re a professional.”
I took a deep breath, worked on the article for another hour or so, and collapsed into bed.
More than a small part of me wished Connor was there to warm it up.
The next morning, and Connor and Hunter went out for breakfast while I worked more on the article. My professional interest was kicking in and blending with my natural curiosity about Connor – my thoughts were totally occupied by the idea of wringing Connor like a sponge and getting every last little drop of information out of him.
“We ready to start?” I asked, nearly pouncing on Connor as he stepped out of the elevator around noon.
“So soon in the day?” he asked.
“Why?” I asked. “You’re busy or something?”
He gave me a curious look.
“No, I’m off. But you seem especially eager.”
I checked myself, remembering what I’d said to myself in the mirror last night.
“Just ready to get started. And you did leave me hanging last night.”
He tiled his head to the side for a brief second.
“I suppose you’re right.”
He turned to Hunter.
“Hey, champ!” he called out.
“Yeah?” asked Hunter, who was already busy turning on his PlayStation.
“ Miss Alice and I are going to be working on the balcony. Don’t bother us unless it’s important, OK?”
“’K!” he called back.
“Let’s do it,” said Connor, turning back to me.
I made a beeline for the balcony after scooping my laptop up from the bedroom. I couldn’t believe how eager I was.
“OK,” said, pulling the laptop open so fast I worried I might just yank it in two. “Car accident.”
“Oh, right,” said Connor, his expression darkening just a bit. “That.”
He cleared his throat and opened his bottle of fancy water. I tapped the trackpad and we were off.
“It was back in college. Sophomore year. I was riding around town somewhere in Queens with Marc, a friend of mine, some rich kid with a fancy car that he shouldn’t have been anywhere near. Me, him, and two girls. And, as was usual in those days, we were all drunk as shit.”
I said nothing, letting him go on.
“It was late at night and we were all looking for some party. Music was blaring, the girls were carrying on, and Marc was driving like a wild man, whipping around turns so hard that it made us all tilt to the side like we were in a jet or something.”
“I remember clearly, for the first time in my life, thinking that I should slow down. Not just in the literal sense of not being in a car going sixty in a residential, but that I should slow my life down, do what the guidance counselor said, and make something of myself.”
“Then, everything did slow down. That is, in the way things do when something traumatic is about to happen. Marc whipped around another corner, but this one wasn’t empty. Not at all.”
He took a sip of his water and I leaned forward in rapt attention.
“We slammed right into the back of some construction truck, one filled with long, PVC pipes. The car hit the back so hard that one of the pipes shot out like a bullet, smashing through the windshield and right out the back.”
“Oh my God,” I said. “Was anyone…”
“Not by that, thank God,” he said, shaking his head. “But I remember as clear as day how that thing looked pierced through the windshield, cutting right through the interior of the car. I remember reaching out to touch it, feeling the cool, smooth texture of it, and being keenly aware that if any of us had just been a few inches in the wrong direction…”
He shuddered, and I did the same. What might’ve happened was almost too horrible to consider.
“Then what happened?”
“The girls were fine. Shaken up as hell, but they were fine. I got them out of the car as fast as possible, barely noticing that I looked like someone had tossed me into a thorn bush and yanked me out hard. But I was too jacked up on adrenaline to notice it.”
“And Marc?”
“Marc was a different story. The front driver’s side took the brunt of the impact and got crumpled up like a soda can under a boot. I took one look inside and saw that while he was alive, he was pinned in there. I called an ambulance and they managed to pull him out. I rode with him to the hospital and saw just how badly mangled his leg was.”
“So, we showed up at Beth Sinai and the doctors gave me a quick look over. I was lucky as hell—just a few bumps and bruises and scratches here and there. But Marc...”
He took another sip of his water and swished it around in his mouth. I could tell that this was beyond difficult for him to talk about.
“Anyway, being at the hospital changed me. Realizing just how close I’d come to let my stupid party-animal shit get the better of me was almost enough to straighten me out then and there. But there was something else.”
“Something else?”
“Yeah. Being in the middle of that place, watching the doctors and nurses run around here and there, doing good work, meaningful work… It made me understand just what I was missing out on by wasting my life partying and chasing girls. Made me realize that I could be like them, doing some good with whatever talents I had. So, I decided right then and there that I was going to be a doctor, whatever it took.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. Met up with that same guidan
ce counselor and switched my major over to premed that next day. She was pretty pleased to see that her words had made more than just a little bit of an impact.”
“And on that day, Doctor Rex was born. Hell of a superhero origin story.”
He raised an eyebrow and smirked.
“Careful with those things,” he said. “Hunter’ll get you hooked if you’re not careful.”
I smiled.
“And what happened after all of that?”
“The girls didn’t want anything to do with me,” he said. “And I don’t blame them—Marc and I almost got them killed. I only had a few dings, like I said. Didn’t even need to miss a day of classes. Marc, on the other hand…”
He sighed.
“He wrecked the shit out of his leg. The doctors did the best they could, but he was able to walk right on it ever again. And on top of that, he had a DUI to worry about. And the charges from the accident. He’s lucky as shit that he came from a family with money, but they didn’t help him out all that much. Ended up dropping out of school to take some shitty jobs to pay everything off.
“A life ruined in one night,” I said.
“My thoughts exactly,” said Connor. “But he got lucky. We all did. And learned how quickly someone’s life could change.”
He shook his head before reaching over and tapping the trackpad, ending the recording.
“That work for today?” he asked, clearly a little drained by the process.
I was right there with him.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve got more than enough to work on for now. Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said, getting up.
But before leaving the balcony, he turned around in the doorframe and spoke.
“Hey,” he asked. “You busy this Friday?”
“Nope,” I said. “You’re basically all I have to do.”
I shot my hands to my mouth, realizing just how dirty what I’d said sounded.
“Good,” he said. “Because I’ve got a big night coming up. And you’re going to be there.”
Chapter 17
Connor
The weekend and the following days flew by, and before I knew it, Friday had arrived. I’d been run ragged over the week with work, and hadn’t had much time to interview with Alice. We’d gotten in a few conversations here and there, but nothing too substantive. Still, she managed to keep herself busy, locked away in her room for hours at a time in the evenings pounding out the first draft of her piece.
