by Maggie Cole
I hold up my coffee. “Thanks.”
He smiles bigger. “Still hot?”
I nod.
“Good.” He scans my eyes again. “Well, I get to spend the next six hours listening to the fifties channel, so wish me luck.”
I bite my lip and smile. “Have fun with that.”
He raises his eyebrows at me. “I’ll see you in surgery later.”
“Okay.”
Xander opens the door to his operating room. Damon is there, and I feel bad that Xander has to deal with him all morning. Damon’s eyes catch mine and then glance at Xander, and I have no doubt he’ll be an ass all day.
I get through my two surgeries and have a few hours to kill, so I retrieve my laptop from my locker and sit in the lounge area of the locker room to get some work done. I turn off the TV and am engrossed in my reports when a low voice mutters, “Whore.”
My insides quiver. I don’t need to look to see who it is. Sure enough, I turn my head to see Damon sauntering past me.
Taking a deep breath, I say nothing to him and return to reading my reports, hoping he will leave me alone.
Luck is not on my side today.
“Filthy whore,” he asserts from his locker, which is at least one hundred feet away.
We are the only people in the room. I am debating what to do when he comes over and drops a pair of black lace panties in front of me. “Thought you would want these back, although maybe you don’t even wear panties anymore since you’re such a whore.”
Damon is taking things to an outrageous level. He saunters back to his locker, and I shove my laptop in my bag then bolt out of the room, eyes on the floor, and run right into a rock-hard chest.
“Charlotte, you’re shaking. What’s wrong?” Xander pulls my chin up and gazes into my eyes.
“Charlotte, what happened?” Dr. Wemer is standing next to him.
“Nothing.” I try to walk past them, but Xander holds my shoulders.
“Is he in there?” Xander’s eyes blaze.
“He?” Dr. Wemer asks.
“Damon,” Xander grits out.
“Charlotte, tell me what is going on,” Dr. Wemer sternly demands.
Xander tries to move me aside, but I dig in my heels. “Don’t. You’ll get fired,” I tell him.
Dr. Wemer moves to block the door.
“Move,” Xander barks at him.
Dr. Wemer braces himself in the doorway. “Not the way to handle this. You two, come with me.”
“Get out of the way,” Xander seethes.
“No. Turn around right now and come with me,” Dr. Wemer instructs.
“Xander.” I cup his face, so he has to look at me.
His eyes are full of rage.
“Please. Don’t,” I beg him again.
He takes a deep breath. “Okay. But this ends now. You’re reporting all of this.”
“All right. Come with me.” I reach for his hand.
Xander sags. “Okay.”
Dr. Wemer pats him on the shoulder. “Good choice.”
“There better be consequences.”
Dr. Wemer starts down the hallway. “There will be. Let’s go.”
As we follow, I release Xander’s hand and fix my gaze ahead.
I assume we are going to HR, but Dr. Wemer takes us to Dr. Sear’s office.
Dr. Wemer knocks on the door. “Can we come in?”
Dr. Sear points to the table in his office. “Have a seat. What’s going on?” He closes his laptop. “Charlotte, you okay?”
I settle on the edge of a chair as Dr. Wemer says, “There’s been an incident.”
“Tell me you didn’t do something stupid,” Dr. Sear asks, his steely gaze on Xander who is sitting as well, as rigid as if a touch would shatter him into a thousand pieces.
“No, he didn’t,” Dr. Wemer asserts.
“Good. Tell me what happened.”
“Charlotte, go ahead,” Dr. Wemer orders.
Heat creeps up my neck. I’m not sure where to begin.
Xander scowls “I don’t know what happened today, but Damon has been harassing Charlotte. He’s upset she broke up with him.”
Dr. Sear cocks his head. “Charlotte, is this true?”
“Y-yes.”
“What is your role in this, Xander?” Dr. Sear asks Xander.
Xander doesn’t flinch. “I met Charlotte the weekend I came to interview for this position. She had broken up with him already, but he saw us together at a club.”
“You two knew each other?”
“Charlotte was visiting me in New York when we got into the accident that broke her foot and where I lost my memory.”
“He doesn’t remember me, and I didn’t know he was even in Chicago, so I didn’t know what to say when you introduced us the other day.” I try to keep emotion out of my voice and state the facts.
Dr. Sear and Dr. Wemer do their best not to appear shocked, but it’s clear they are.
“So, you two are dating?” Dr. Wemer asks.
“No,” I say, just as Xander states, “Yes.”
Xander’s jaw clenches, and he tips his face up, eyes blinking fast.
The room is so quiet you can hear a pin drop. It seems like forever, but Dr. Sear finally asks, “Charlotte, what happened today?”
This is so embarrassing. “I was working on my laptop in the lounge area of the locker room, and Damon came in and called me a whore. After I ignored him, he threw a pair of my underwear I must have left at his house at me. He told me he thought I would want them back, but maybe I didn’t wear them anymore because I’m such a whore.”
Xander bolts off his chair and almost gets to the door, but Dr. Wemer cuts him off. “Go sit down.”
“Move,” he demands.
“Xander, sit your ass down now!” Dr. Sear hurls at him.
Xander’s shoulders flex, and he reluctantly returns to sit next to me.
“What happened when I was in the locker room?” Dr. Sear asks.
“He accused me of ‘playing in the sandbox’ when I came into the locker room with Xander.”
Xander pulls out his phone and shows Dr. Sear a picture. “This happened yesterday afternoon.”
“What happened then?” Dr. Sear asks.
“He called me a whore and accused me of cheating on him with Xander. But I didn’t,” I add, a little too quickly.
“No one is accusing you of anything, nor would it matter,” Dr. Sear assures.
“Why didn’t you two report this yesterday?” Dr. Wemer asks.
“Charlotte didn’t want to. She thought he would stop,” Xander grits out.
“I texted him last night, thinking he was just hurt and would stop, but it didn’t help.”
Xander’s head snaps toward me. “You texted him last night.”
I give a slow nod.
An expression I can’t understand crosses Xander’s face.
“Let me see the messages.” Dr. Sear holds out his hand.
I pull out my phone, bring up the text chain, and hand it to him. He scans it then passes it to Dr. Wemer. After Dr. Wemer reads it, he holds it out to me, but Xander snatches it.
Great. Add more fuel to the fire.
“Piece of shit,” Xander mumbles, then returns it to me.
“Is there anything else you want to disclose?” Dr. Sear asks.
“No.”
“We need to disclose this to HR since Xander is an employee of the hospital. I suspect our HR will talk to your HR department, Charlotte. Even though you and Damon aren’t employees of the hospital, you signed our agreement to follow all our rules. There will be consequences, but for right now, I want you both to take the next two days off.”
“That’s unnecessary,” I insist.
“Not negotiable, Charlotte. Until HR can handle this, you two don’t need to be anywhere near Damon. You are not to set foot on the hospital premises. Do I make myself clear?”
Xander and I nod.
Dr. Sear calls HR, and about an hour later, we
can finally leave his office. Security escorts Xander and me to the locker room while Dr. Sear makes sure Damon is in his surgery and nowhere near the locker room.
When I get out of the hospital, Xander is right behind me.
“You don’t need to follow me.”
“I’m walking you to your car, and nothing you say will stop me.”
I roll my eyes. “Fine.”
We trudge to the car in silence. “I’m sorry I got you into this mess,” I tell Xander when we get there.
“Don’t you dare apologize to me. Damon did this, not you.”
I don’t respond. Part of me feels responsible for Damon’s bad actions.
Xander opens my door and kisses me on my cheek. His eyes are full of pain and frustration. “Have a good night, Charlotte.” His jaw tightens, and he looks away from me.
“Xander.”
He looks back at me.
“Get in. I’ll drive you home.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Get in.”
He lets out a big breath. “Okay.”
In the car, Xander fastens his seat belt. “Why didn’t you tell me you texted him last night?”
“What good would that have done?”
“We could have gone to HR this morning.”
“Right. Because that was super fun and not embarrassing.”
“Having your underwear thrown at you is more fun and less embarrassing?”
I jerk my head at him. “Seriously? You think I wanted that?”
“No. Of course, not. That’s not what I’m saying.”
“What exactly are you saying, Xander?” I sneer.
He lets out a big breath and runs his hands through his hair. “What I’m trying to say is you can’t let assholes like that get away with that kind of shit. We should have reported him yesterday.”
“Yeah, well, there’s a lot of things we should or shouldn’t have done yesterday,” I hurl at him.
Pain moves across his face, and I have to turn away, once again, blinking back tears.
“You don’t know how awful I feel about what happened,” he quietly says.
“It is what it is. We just need to move on, Xander.”
“Move forward, not move on.”
I shake my head. “Nothing has changed. We shouldn’t have hung out last night. Let’s move on.”
“But it has changed.”
“You dreamed of fucking another woman. You swore to her she’s the only one you’ll ever love. I can’t even count the times you declared your love for her. In my bed.” All the anger and betrayal I’ve held inside the last six months pours out.
Xander cups my face in his hands. His eyes are glassy. “I know. I hate myself for it. But you don’t know the context. It was a missing piece I needed to make things clear.”
“So, you remember everything now?”
“No.”
I remove his hands from my face, start the car, reverse out of the parking space, and drive through the garage. “I’m not doing this anymore.”
“Charlotte.”
I slam on the brakes and turn to him. “I can’t do this, Xander. I’m sorry, but you have to get out.”
“Please, just hear me—”
I begin to cry. “Please, stop. This hurts too bad. I’ve been dying for six months. Dying.”
“I know—”
“No, you don’t know! And I can’t keep hoping you’ll regain your memory. I just can’t.”
Xander’s tears are streaming down his face just like mine, and he tries to pull me into him. “I’m sorry. Please let me—”
“No!” I sob. “Please. Get out. I’m sorry, but please go. I need to stop hurting.”
He wipes his tears away. “Okay. If that’s what you want.”
I drop my head onto my forearms the steering wheel. “It is.”
The door opens and shuts. I wait a few minutes, crying into the sleeve of my shirt. When I finally lift my face, Xander is gone.
17
Xander
I’ve been staring at the hotel wall since I got back. I’m not sure how many hours it’s been. All I see is Charlotte’s face and I hear only the pain in her voice. “I’ve been dying for six months... I need to stop hurting.”
Agony strikes through me, over and over, piercing my heart.
My alarm rings, snapping me out of my trance. “Meet with Vivian” pops up on my phone.
Shit. I forgot I’m scheduled to view apartments with Vivian today.
I go into the bathroom, jump into a hot shower, finish, and get changed.
Vivian has texted me an address, and I leave the hotel and hop into an Uber.
I go inside the lobby of the building, and Vivian is waiting.
“Hey, Xander.” She leans in and hugs me.
I smile at her. “How’s your day going?”
“Great. Yours?”
I’m about to lie but mutter, “I’ve had better.”
“Everything okay?”
“I messed up with Charlotte, and I don’t know how to fix it,” I blurt out.
Shit. Xander, shut your mouth.
Vivan gapes at me a moment.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything to you.”
Vivian grabs my arm and pulls me over to a grouping of chairs. “Sit.”
I sigh but obey.
“Tell me what happened, Xander.”
She’d never understand. “I can’t. It’s too bad.”
She puts her hand on mine. “I’ve known Charlotte forever. Better than Piper or Quinn. I’ve been her only consistent person in life. Tell me.”
Nervously, I mutter, “I hurt her.”
“How?”
“We’ve been in the same surgeries.”
“I heard.” Vivian pauses for a moment. “Xander, do you remember Charlotte?”
“I dreamed of her every night since the accident, but she was faceless. Then, last night, when I got to her apartment, I remembered making her pancakes in her kitchen.”
“You went to her apartment last night?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve made her pancakes?” Vivian asks like she doesn’t believe me.
“Yes.”
“So you remembered? That’s good, isn’t it?”
“I don’t remember everything else. But we got past that and then...”
“Then what?” Vivian asks me quietly.
Blowing out a big breath of air, I admit, “I had a dream about when Billie and I broke up, and I talked out loud in my sleep. Charlotte was sitting in the chair, crying, when I woke up, and she told me to leave.”
“What exactly did you say in your sleep?”
“God, this is embarrassing.”
Vivian squeezes my hand. “Xander, tell me.”
“I may have been having sex with Billie and saying I love her in lots of different ways.” I cringe when I say it.
“In Charlotte’s bed?” Vivian cries out.
I put my face in my hands. “I’ve only dreamed of Charlotte before last night. And in the dream, Billie and I broke up. It made everything clear, but I was in love with Charlotte, and not Billie, before I even had the dream.”
“You’re in love with Charlotte.”
“Yes.”
“Not Billie?”
“I am not in love with Billie,” I stress.
“What did Charlotte say when you told her?”
“She wouldn’t let me tell her what the dream was about, and she kicked me out of her car when I was trying to explain.”
“When was that?”
“After we talked to HR.”
“HR?”
“Damon has been harassing her, and we had to report him today, so Charlotte and I got two days off work.”
“Damon is harassing her?”
“Yes. How did she ever date that douchebag?”
Vivian wrinkles her brow. “We only met him a few times, but he was really into Charlotte and seemed fine.”
My gut churns a
t the thought of him really into Charlotte.
Vivian laughs. “Don’t get jealous now.”
I growl, “He’s a dickhead.”
Vivian stares at me for a minute. “Xander, tell her you love her.”
“I tried to explain everything to her, but she told me she needs me to leave her alone. I’ve caused her too much pain.”
Vivian shrugs. “You did.”
“I swear it wasn’t intentional.”
“You don’t know what she went through.”
“Tell me.”
Vivian presses her lips together.
“Please. I want to know.”
“Limbo. She lived in limbo between grieving for you and keeping hope alive that you would come back to her. She loved you and probably still does.”
Closing my eyes, I think of last night when she told me never to give up hope.
And that’s when I vow no matter how long it takes, I’m never going to give up hope we will be together. Charlotte didn’t give up on me, and I’m not giving up on her.
Vivian stands up and smooths her skirt. “Come on. Let’s go see these apartments.”
A few hours later, and I’ve made no decisions. Every apartment I view, I think, “Would Charlotte like this one?” I think of our text messages, where she agreed to come look with me.
Vivian and I finally go our separate ways. I decide to walk back, and it begins to snow.
Charlotte’s voice pops into my head. “I wanted to ice skate in the winter, but we had to stay on the grounds of the orphanage after school.”
I stop moving, trying to remember when she told me that.
Her face pops up, and I realize it was during one of our FaceTime calls. She was sitting propped against her headboard, swathed in blankets, her nose was bright red from a cold.
“When I’m in Chicago, the next time it snows, I’ll take you ice skating,” I told her.
“Really? You ice skate?”
I laughed. “I’m a horrible ice skater, but I’ll risk it for you.”
Someone bumps into me, knocking me out of the memory, and I realize I’m standing in the middle of the sidewalk.
I get back to my hotel, grab gloves and a scarf, and take an Uber over to Charlotte’s. A woman carrying her chocolate-brown poodle leaves the building, and I grab the door before it shuts.
