Broken

by Lisa Edward

He doesn’t recognize me. How could he not recognize me?

  Trotting down the stairs to the pavement, I stopped dead in my tracks as Adam jogged to the passenger door and opened it. I couldn’t breathe.

  Stepping aside, he held out his hand to assist his passenger, but it was batted away. My eyes widened as the real Adam slowly pulled himself from the car.

  “Hi, Buttercup,” he said warily.

  Trying to swallow down the boulder in my throat, a trembling hand went to my mouth. This was Adam. The beanie pulled firmly down on his head, framed his pale, stubble-free face. His torso was less muscular than it had been ten months ago, his steps uncertain. Dark circles underscored his sunken eyes, but they held the same sparkle that I had daydreamed about since the day we’d parted.

  “Hi, Sugar.” My breath shook as tears flooded my cheeks. Racing to him, I hesitated before carefully embracing him. He looked so weak, but as he pulled me to his body, my head resting against his chest, the weight of the world lifted.

  Raising my head, I smiled at Adam Number Two. “You must be Will. Pleased to meet ya.” I held out my hand to shake his, but he pulled me into his arms instead.

  “You’re right, love, I must be Will. I’m the good-looking one.”

  I laughed. They were identical, except for the fact that Adam looked like he’d been pulled through the wringer.

  Taking Adam’s hand, I helped him inside. I knew by the set of his jaw my treating him like an invalid annoyed him, but he didn’t complain, which was just as well because I couldn’t help it. The robust, energetic man was a distant memory to the one who now sat beside me on the sofa, and my first instinct was to take care of him.

  “You’ve lost weight,” I commented, then looked down at my tight-fitting top. “I found it for you.”

  “What do you mean? You look just the same, as beautiful as the day we met.” His eyes shone as they searched my face. “I know I’m different,” he said with a sad smile. “But I promised I’d come back so…” He threw his hands to the side resignedly.

  Will brought the bags in, leaving them by the door. We would have to discuss sleeping arrangements, as it appeared Will was staying too. He sighed as he sat heavily in the armchair by the fire, gave Max a quick pat on the head, kicked off his scuffed boots, and stretched his legs.

  Not knowing what to say, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “So, how’ve you been?”

  Adam smirked, his eyes lighting up. “Really well, and you?”

  “Just dandy.”

  We stared at each other for a moment; then the ridiculousness of the situation hit us and we both laughed. It was the icebreaker we needed. Adam’s arm stretched out and rested on the back of the sofa as I leaned into his side.

  I had come home.

  “What happened?” I asked softly. There was no explanation required for my question. The elephant in the room was glaringly obvious.

  “Oh, boy,” Will muttered under his breath, making Adam and I both look over. He smiled and gave Adam a nod, but offered no other comment.

  “Will, can you give us a minute, please?” Adam asked.

  But Will wasn’t going anywhere. “That’s fine, talk amongst yourselves. I don’t mind.”

  Adam rolled his eyes but returned his focus to me. A long sigh, signaling he was preparing to spill it all out. “I had cancer, baby.” He paused. “I have cancer.”

  Tears welled as the floor fell out from beneath me. “Oh, Adam…” My head swam with so many questions, but yet not a single clear thought could be found. “Where? How…how’d ya find out?” My trembling hand went to his cheek, my face buried in his shoulder.

  “I had a rare tumor in my heart called a pulmonary artery sarcoma.”

  “You had?”

  He nodded. “It was removed and I had chemotherapy, followed by radiotherapy.” His hand let go of mine and slowly pulled the beanie off his head. Short, soft hair fell into place, only about an inch long.

  Reaching up, I gently ran my fingers through it. “It’s growin’ back.”

  He scruffed his head. “Yes, finally.”

  “When’d all this happen?”

  Shifting uncomfortably, his eyes darted over to Will. So mine darted to Will. What were they not telling me?

  “I found out a little over a year ago about the tumor.”

  Wait! What?

  “But…but you were here a year ago.” My mind was ticking over at double time. How could he have been sick when he was here?

  “Here we go,” Will commented under his breath from his prime position by the fire. I glared at him, warning him to keep out of it.

  Adam sighed. “The chance of surviving the surgery was slim, and to be honest, I initially wasn’t going to have it at all. I was going to ride out the cancer, live for maybe a couple of months. Then I came here and met you…”

  “So lemme get this straight.” I sat forward in my seat, angling my body so I could face Adam. “You thought you were gonna die, so you came here to give up, and met me. Then what?”

  “Then I fell in love with you.”

  “No, you kept it a secret!” My voice rose, my heart pounded. “How could you not tell me somethin’ as serious as that, Adam? You let me fall in love with you knowin’ that you might not ever come back.” Heat flushed my cheeks, my pulse thundering in my ears.

  “I was always going to come back. I made you a promise.”

  “We’re not livin’ in a fairy tale, Adam. You can’t promise somethin’ like that. All that swimmin’ in the freezin’ water—my God, did you have a death wish or somethin’? That’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard. You went to the hospital and you still didn’t tell me.” I jumped up, needing to pace the floor. “You could’ve died, Adam, and I would never have known. I would’ve just been sittin’ here, waitin’ for you. Of all the selfish, pigheaded things…”

  “I like this girl,” Will chirped.

  “Stay out of it,” Adam and I both snapped.

  Will’s hands rose in surrender as he sank back into the chair, firmly buttoning his lips.

  “I couldn’t tell you I was sick, Evie.”

  “Why not?” I stormed, stopping in front of him as he gazed up at me. “After everythin’ we went through, how could you not trust me with somethin’ as important as the fact that you might die?”

  Tugging my hand, he pulled me to the seat beside him. “I didn’t want you to mollycoddle me. How you relied on me, it made me feel whole again. It gave me hope that I could still be the man I wanted to be—the man you needed me to be. It made me fight.” Sighing resignedly, he added, “I fought for you, Evie. I promised I would come back and I didn’t want to break that promise, so I willed myself to make it through.”

  “You shouldn’t have made a promise that you might not have been able to keep,” I said sharply. “You should’ve trusted me enough to tell me.” My brain couldn’t process everything I was hearing, but I had to know one thing. “So are you cured after the surgery?”

  Silence screamed from every corner of the room. Finally Adam shook his head. “I had the surgery so I could live for you, but no one can tell how long that will be.”

  This was too much to take in. I needed air. Standing, I strode from the living room out to the back deck. As my hand clutched blindly for the railing, my stomach convulsed as the first sob bubbled out. With shaky legs, I managed to carry myself down the steps to the sand, where I crumbled. Head in hands, the floodgates opened until I was bawling, gasping for breath.

  From the corner of my eye, a pair of blurred boots appeared before Will sat beside me.

  “Must have come as a shock, love. We’ve had time to come to terms with it as best we can. We’ve cried, searched for answers, been angry. Christ, I’ve punched a few holes in walls. We’ve all gone through what you’re feeling now, especially me. We shared a womb, so why him and not me?”

  “I can’t lose him, Will.”

  “I know, love, I know.”

  “How long?”<
br />
  He shook his head, gazing out at the ocean. “It’s a rare tumor, so there’s not a lot to go by. Could be anywhere from six months to eight or nine years. We count every day as a blessing.” His hand rested on my shoulder. “But he’s a fighter. We didn’t know if he’d make it through the surgery, but he’s fought it tooth and nail, because he made a promise to a certain young lady that he would see her again.”

  “Well I’m gonna make him promise not to die, then, if he values promises so much.” I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. Humor was my fallback for every situation, but there was nothing funny about this.

  “Please don’t be angry with him. I truly believe that you’re the reason he’s still here. Still breathing.”

  The stabbing pain in my chest made it difficult to catch my breath. Every shallow gasp felt as if a dagger sat between my shoulder blades. I thought of everything we had done during our short but poignant time together. Were there clues of Adam’s illness that I had been too blinded by hope and love to see? His man-flu must have nearly frightened him to death, and that was why he had called Annabel, his ex-lover but also, no doubt, his cardiologist.

  “How didn’t I know he was so sick?” I said, as much to myself as to Will. “He didn’t look sick.”

  “That’s the thing, love, most people never find out they have the tumor.” He looked at me with sadness in his eyes. “Usually the family find out from the autopsy. If Annabel hadn’t used him as a test case for an article she was writing…”

  “He would’ve died without ever knowin’,” I whispered.

  Will sat quietly, his presence comforting. Turning, I looked at the man beside me who was so much like the man I loved, and yet so very different. While every individual feature was scarily identical, as a whole I found almost nothing about Will drawing me to him. Adam’s eyes were full of warmth and a hint of mischief, whereas Will’s were mischievous with just a touch of warmth.

  The hand on my shoulder ran down my arm until it grasped my hand and squeezed. “It’s funny. I feel like I know you so well. Even at his sickest, not a day went by that he wasn’t thinking about you and talking about you.” Will looked down at our joined hands and quickly released his grip. “At first I would make him tell me stories about your time together. It seemed to be the only thing that would calm him and take his mind off the side effects of the chemo. Then over time I wanted to know more, because he’d found his soul mate, and it gave me hope that if he could find that inner peace that an absolute unconditional love can bring, then maybe I could too.” He smiled, shaking his head. “Sometimes he didn’t want to talk at all; he’d just get this faraway look on his face and I knew he was thinking about you. Asked him about it once—said he was on your island, then pointed to his chest.” He chuckled. “I thought he’d gone barmy, but I figure you know what he was on about.”

  I nodded as tears stung my eyes.

  “He read your book, over and over, and when he was too sick to read, I read it to him.” He glanced over, summing me up as his eyes swept over my face. “You’re not a bad writer. Some of the sex scenes were pretty hot.” Mischief flashed in his blue eyes. “He said they were based on real life, but there’s no way he’s that good. Still, I think the nurses enjoyed eavesdropping when I read them out loud.” Will chuckled as heat flared in my cheeks. “Every day he searched for new reviews, anything he could find to feed his need to feel close to you.”

  “He didn’t need to read ’bout me. All he had to do was pick up the phone and I would’ve been right there beside him.”

  There was silence as we both sat there, lost in our own thoughts. The sick relative Adam had mentioned ten months ago was obviously himself. No wonder he had dreaded going back to England, knowing that he would have to endure life-threatening cancer treatment.

  And he still wasn’t out of the woods—each day could be his last.

  Will’s voice broke the silence. “He loves you, you know. That’s the one thing in all this fucked up craziness that I’m sure of. After everything he’s been through this last year, the anger and devastation of finding out he was dying, the pain from the surgery, the nausea from the chemo, all the hours of boredom lying in a hospital bed. All that pales in comparison to how he feels about you.”

  “And how I feel ’bout him.” I turned to Will. “I love him too.”

  He nodded, happy with that answer. “Then why are we sitting out here freezing our arses off?”

  Adam was warming himself by the fire when we returned, his face drawn with worry.

  “You all right?” Will asked.

  Adam nodded, his eyes brimming with tears as he looked at me. “I understand that what I did was selfish and possibly unforgivable.” He diverted his gaze. “Are you going to leave, go back home?”

  “I am home…and so are you.” With a sweeping motion, I indicated the room. “I bought this house for us. It was the one place filled with happy memories that I never wanted to leave. It was our island, our sanctuary.” Adam’s tears spilled over. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was add to his misery. He had been through enough. Moving to his side, I reached out to take his hands.

  The corner of his mouth tipped up, and I matched his smile.

  “This is where I write. For some reason, I can always find the words when I’m here. I’ve written all my books”—I pointed to the dining table—“sittin’ right there, and every one of them has a little piece of you in it from the time we spent together in this house.”

  Adam brought my hand to his lips, kissing my knuckles tenderly.

  “Of course the next book will have to include how the main character is kept in the dark ’bout the love of her life havin’ cancer and possibly dying!”

  “I can’t believe you bought this house.”

  “How could I not? You’re ingrained in every inch of the place. I’ve never been happier than when I was here, with you.”

  Leading him back to the sofa, I cuddled into his side, wrapping my arms around him tightly. “I just wish you’d told me, Adam.”

  Finally he spoke, his voice barely a whisper. “I didn’t want your pity, Evie. I didn’t want you to look at me with anything other than desire.”

  Heaviness filled my chest as my heart went out to Adam. “You wouldn’t have had my pity, just my love. All of my love. I could’ve been there to support you through it.” I shook my head. “But you didn’t need me.”

  “That’s not true. I missed you every single day, and I wanted to see you every day. But as soon as people found out I had cancer, they stopped seeing me. All they could see was a walking disease.”

  I cupped Adam’s face in my hands, holding it inches from my own. “I see you, Adam. All I’ve ever seen is the man you are. The man I love.” As I brushed Adam’s cheeks with my thumbs, he closed his eyes, tilting his head toward me.

  Leaning in, I brought my lips to his, our first kiss in ten months. Adam’s fingers ran through my hair, fisting it gently to hold me in place as our lips parted and noses lightly rubbed together.

  “I’ve missed you, so much, Buttercup.”

  “I’ve missed you too. I needed you, Adam. I needed to talk to you and see you…” I bit my lip. “I did break my promise. Well, I tried to.” I looked up at him through my lashes. “I tried to call you, just once, but your number was disconnected.”

  He squeezed my hand. “I knew you would try.”

  I nodded gently. “You have to understand how hard things have been and how much just hearing your voice would have meant to me.”

  Adam frowned, having no knowledge of what I’d been through. “But you’ve been doing so well. I’ve read your book, followed you on social media. I’ve read all your reviews.” He scoffed. “There were a few one-star reviews from people who I’m pretty sure never even read it, but I’ve been keeping an eye on you from a distance. You seem to have been getting on with things.”

  “Most people would call that stalking,” Will added, reminding me he was still in the roo
m.

  Glancing at him, I saw the familiar Walker smirk painted on his face.

  “Don’t believe everythin’ you read on social media, Adam. I don’t write ’bout my personal life—the things that really matter to me. I have someone I want you to meet.” I stood to leave the room and Adam went to stand. “It’s fine. Stay there.”

  A few minutes later I returned, a squirming bundle in my arms.

  “Adam, I’d like you to meet Brody Adam Walker…your son.”

  Adam’s jaw dropped open as he trembled, his face turning even whiter than it already was.

  “Are you okay?” I asked quickly, worried that the shock would make his heart give out.

  “I have a son?” His hand went to his chest, and he looked at Brody in total disbelief. “He’s…he’s mine?” He dragged his gaze away from Brody to look at me. “How is this possible?”

  Sinking to my knees in front of Adam, I pulled the wrap back from around Brody’s face so Adam could see him clearly. “Yes, he’s yours…He’s our little miracle.” Tears spilled over my lashes, but it was nothing compared to the flood of tears streaming freely down Adam’s cheeks.

  “Can I…can I hold him?” he asked, his voice thick with emotion. “Can I hold my son?”

  I placed Brody in his arms, then positioned myself on the sofa beside them. Adam leaned down, covering Brody’s little head with butterfly kisses, his tears wetting Brody’s brow.

  “He’s perfect,” he whispered, trying to brush away his tears. “Thank you, Evie. You have no idea how much being a father means to me—how much you mean to me.” Tentatively leaning over, he kissed me softly on the lips. “I never thought this would be possible, for you and me to have a family.” His eyes welled again and new tears fell. “Look at how tiny he is. How old is he?” Adam asked without shifting his gaze from Brody.

  “Six and a half weeks.” I paused, looking down at my bloated belly. “That’s why I’m still…”

  “Still as beautiful as the day we met. Only now I’m even more blown away by how amazing you are.”

  “Now can I say I really like this girl?” Will asked, coming over to meet his nephew. “He takes after me. He’s a good-looking boy.”