“That’s a tough one,” says Ryan, speaking slowly and deliberately. “You know, I went through something similar. My wife was scarred. She thought I was just using her. I mean, I can understand that. Because in a way, I’d just been using women up until that point. It wasn’t until that point that I realized I wanted something more.”
“What do you mean? What made you realize it?”
“It was her… But I had to do some deep searching to figure it all out… I had to learn to open myself up…”
Surprisingly myself, I laugh. “Opening yourself up? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I used to be just like you,” says Ryan. “But we all act in certain ways because… well, we’re damaged in some way on the inside. But most of us don’t even admit that ourselves.”
I don’t say anything.
Is Ryan right? Am I damaged somehow, and don’t realize it?
There’s something of the ring of truth to what he says, but I don’t have the slightest clue how it is that I’m damaged. If that’s even the case.
“So how do you figure all that out?” I say.
“It’s something you’ve got to figure out for yourself,” says Ryan.
“You’re not much of a therapist,” I say.
“Nope,” says Ryan. “I’m not. Come on, let’s hit some fucking golf balls, OK? It’ll get your mind off things.”
We’ve arrived at the golf course, a sprawling, beautiful collection of greens, with hills and sand traps and even a small lake.
I park the car and we both get out, grabbing our golf bags from the trunk of the Porsche.
Suddenly my phone rings.
For some reason, I don’t respond right away.
“Your phone’s ringing,” says Ryan.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Aren’t you going to get it?”
I shrug.
“I doubt it’s who I want it to be. She’s not calling me back.”
Ryan just looks at me.
He’s not going to give me that speech about getting on with my life.
Whatever.
I’ve got to do it anyway.
I’ve never been the type to sit around and mope, anyway. I’m going to get Mia back, no matter what it takes.
I don’t know where this resolve suddenly comes from, whether it’s from looking out at the beautiful golf course. Or from holding the heavy bag in my hands. Or from the phone ringing. I don’t know. I doubt it has anything to do with any of those things. That would be crazy.
I’m going to get her back.
This thought gives me strength.
I pull the phone out of my pocket and look at the screen.
Holy shit.
It’s Mia.
Mia’s calling me.
Chapter 17
Mia
“Mia?” comes Liam’s voice through the phone.
I don’t say anything.
My heart is pounding in my chest. My body feels all tingly with anxiety.
“Mia, is that you? Are you there?”
Panicking, I press the red button to hang up and put the phone down.
I wait for it to ring again, and it does, and I send it straight through to voicemail.
Damnit, why did I just do that?
No, I’m not calling him to tell him that everything’s OK between us, and that I want to be with him. After all, how could I possibly be with him now that I’m back in my parent’s house, in my room, not able to go outside?
I was calling him to yell at him, to scream at him. I want to scream at him for using me, for selling me on a false cure that was never going to work. One that was never going to last. I want to scream in his face, but of course I can’t get close to him. The phone is the next best thing, I suppose.
My dad explained to me exactly what Liam’s hospital history is like, with regard to his extreme womanizing. It’s even worse than what I’d thought before. It’s even worse than what the nurse told me.
And he’s been suspended from the hospital. Mostly because he gave me this treatment that didn’t work. But also because of his long, long history of defying direct orders.
There was a time when I thought that made him seem exciting.
Of course, that was before I had my attack at his house.
Sure, he drove me to the hospital. But he’s a doctor. A good doctor. Why didn’t he treat me there? He said something about not having the blue drops on hand. But what good would they have done? I already took them that day.
My dad’s thrown away the methylene blue. The blue drops are gone forever. That foul tasting liquid did nothing but give me false hope.
My phone rings. Damnit, it’s probably Liam calling me back. Why did I have to call him in the first place, when I didn’t have the nerve to actually scream at him?
At the very least, I could have sent him an angry text message. That’s kind of lame. But I should have done it. It would have been easier that way. It would have gotten some of this anger off my chest.
I grab the phone, looking at it. To my surprise, it’s not Liam. It’s Shelly.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey,” I say.
“How are you holding up?”
I’ve already told her everything.
“Not good.”
“Damnit” says Shelly. “I’m so sorry this has happened to you.”
“Whatever,” I say. “I should have known…”
“But it was so nice to see you, when you were out…”
“I know,” I say. “You don’t have to tell me. Those were some of the best days of my life…”
“Hey,” says Shelly. “At least you’re not a virgin anymore.”
That actually makes me laugh. It’s not my true laugh, though. It’s a desperate laugh, in a way completely horrible.
“I guess,” I say. “Now I can sit in my room for the rest of my life knowing that I had sex once, with an opportunistic asshole.”
“Is he really that bad?” says Shelly. “I mean you liked him fine a week ago.”
“Yeah,” I say, my voice turning harsh. “He is that bad. He’s fucked up.”
Shelly doesn’t say anything. “I mean, maybe he was just trying to help?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “He’s supposedly this brilliant doctor and he did all this research. Shouldn’t he have known it wasn’t going to keep working? The crazy thing is that that’s exactly what my dad was telling me the whole time. He was worried about the treatment. And he was telling me we shouldn’t get our expectations up, that it might not last…”
“That really sucks,” says Shelly. “I hate it when my parents are right.”
That makes me laugh. Another desperate sound.
Shelly picks up on the strange sound of my laugher.
“I’ve never heard such a depressing laugh,” she says.
“What can I do?” I say. “I’m stuck in this room forever. I’m never coming out.”
“I’m sure they’ll find something. They always do. They’re always coming up for cures for weird diseases… not that it’s a weird disease.” She adds this last part hastily. I can tell she doesn’t want to offend me.
“It’s OK,” I say. “It is a weird disease.”
“Not that weird. I’m sure other people have it.”
“Like two in the whole country or something.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, and it’s not like there’s a lot of money to be made curing this. So the drug companies aren’t exactly working on a cure as we speak.”
“But the researchers? Come on, someone’s probably doing something now that will help in the future. You never know how these things will turn out.”
I don’t want to argue with her, but my mind’s already made up. I know I’m going to be stuck in this room forever.
“I’ll come visit you,” says Shelly. “I know I haven’t been good about it, but hell, I’ll come once a week if that’ll cheer you up.”
“I guess,” I say. �
��You’ll have to put on that mask and all that plastic gear.”
“That’s fine,” says Shelly. “At least I won’t have to put on makeup on those days.”
“That’s funny,” I say, without laughing. The laugher has died out of me.
“Well,” says Shelly. “Sorry, but I’ve got to go. I just wanted to call and check up on you. Call me anytime.”
“Thanks,” I say. “You got a date tonight or something?”
Shelly hesitates for a moment. I can tell she’s worried about hurting my feelings.
“It’s OK,” I say. “It’s not going to bother me if you’re going on a date.”
“OK,” says Shelly quickly. “You sure?”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I can live vicariously through you. What’s he like?”
“He’s gorgeous,” says Shelly. I can hear the desire in her voice.
“Have you already slept with him?”
“Maybe,” says Shelly, giggling. That’s a little unlike her.
“What happened? For some reason I thought this was your first date or something.”
“It is, but we met at the gym.”
“Shelly,” I say. “You fucked him at the gym?”
Shelly giggles even harder. “I couldn’t help it,” I say. “There was no one else there, and so I went into the showers…”
“You went into the men’s showers?” I say, my voice rising in disbelief.
“Yeah,” says Shelly. Her voice gets a wistful sound to it. “It was incredible. He took me right there in the shower… You should have seen him. He was buck naked, and his cock was already rock hard. He said it was because of me. He’d seen me in the gym.”
“Damn, Shelly,” I say. “You’re getting bolder.”
“I know,” says Shelly, sounding surprised herself.
“Well,” I say. “Have fun. Send pictures if you can.”
“You wish,” says Shelly, hanging up the phone.
Putting the phone down, I stare at the ceiling. The depression starts to take over quickly. Talking to Shelly was just a minor reprieve from my normal state. Yeah, depression has become my normal state.
At least I’m not a virgin anymore.
But I’m stuck in my room forever.
And what really bothers me is that I wasn’t anything important to Liam. I was just another fuck, another notch in his belt…
There’s a crashing sound outside. I hear somewhere muttering something. It sounds like swearing.
Next there’s a thud.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think someone had just fallen from a tree or something right outside my window.
Rushing to the window, I peer out of it.
There’s Liam, lying on the ground.
He’s wearing a tight white t-shirt and jeans, looking more muscular than ever.
He’s holding his knee, an expression of pain on his face. Did he just try to climb up the trellis outside and fall down?
He knows I can’t open the window.
What the hell is he doing here?
Chapter 18
Liam
I just couldn’t let it go.
I don’t care if she’s not answering my phone calls. I don’t care if she doesn’t want to see me. I know that if I can just talk to her, I can explain everything to her. And not only that, I know deep down that even though I’ve been suspended from the hospital, I can fix her.
I look up at the window but I don’t see anyone. I don’t think anyone heard me fall.
It’s been a little while since I’ve been rock climbing. It wouldn’t be a reach to say that I’m completely out of practice when it comes to climbing rocks. And scaling the sides of houses, even when wisteria trellises are involved, forget about it. I’ve never been good at that.
Good, so no one heard me. Her dad’s not going to rush out and threaten me with a shotgun. Or, more likely, a cell phone with the police on the other end.
That’s the last thing I need right now, considering everything that’s going on. If I have an arrest for attempted breaking and entering, I’d really be in danger of losing my medical license.
I feel around in my pocket for the vial of pure methylene blue that I brought with me. I got it by sneaking back into the hospital, breaking all the rules for suspended doctors, and removing it from the lab. No one’s going to notice, though, and it’s not going to hurt anyone. They have plenty of it.
I’m completely convinced that if Mia just takes her blue drops more regularly, then she’ll be fine. It’s just a matter of letting her cells get used to functioning at a higher level. For the first few months, at least, she’s not going to be able to go long periods of time without taking her medicine.
But the good news is that it might not be like that forever. When I was looking for more research papers on methylene blue, I discovered that for Mia’s condition, it’s unlikely it would work for more than a few hours. In a sense, she was lucky that it worked as long as it did.
The research paper also showed that over time, the cells get used to functioning better.
All she needs to do is take it for a few months frequently, and then she can probably relax her schedule. But she’ll always need to have a little bottle of methylene blue with her, in case an emergency situation pops up.
The only problem now is convincing her… while she won’t talk to me.
And, first and foremost, I need to get to her.
My knee hurts like hell, but as a doctor I know that I didn’t do any serious damage to it. It’s going to be fine, so long as I can deal with the pain.
Wincing a little, gritting my teeth, I stand up. I don’t put much weight on the knee, but it still flares up with pain.
Whatever. I’ve been through worse.
I grit my teeth and grab onto the wooden trellis that leads past her window.
This time I’ll just be more careful when climbing.
But the wood is impossibly thin, making it extremely difficult to get a grip on it. But I start like anything else, one foot at a time, knowing that I could very well fall again.
I’m going to keep climbing this trellis until I get up there, and I’m not leaving this house until I convince Mia to give the methylene blue another shot.
Normally it’s my cock that drives me to do things. It’s my cock that motivated me most of the time so far with Mia. But now… I feel something different. Even if she doesn’t want my cock, I want her to be better. I want her to be out and living a real life.
And of course, I want that life she’s living to be with me.
I know now that I simply can’t live without her.
But it’s not just her pussy that calls me… even though the mere thought of her tight, wet hole sends shivers down my spine and makes my cock swell incredibly.
I need her.
I need Mia.
My fingers hang on the thin wooden edge, in pain. But I can take it. I need the pain. It feels good. I’m accomplishing something. I’m doing something.
I pull myself up. My muscles strain. My fingers strain in pain. But I can’t let go.
My right hand grabs the wooden ledge, and I let go with my left hand, letting my body hang for a moment.
Minutes go by, seeming to take forever.
My body hurts. But I love it.
I’m closer to her.
Finally, I’m at the window.
To my surprise, she’s already there.
She’s looking at me through the window, her eyes wide.
“Open the window,” I mouth at her.
She shakes her head, and points at her ear and my mouth.
“You can’t hear me?” I mouth at her.
If I speak loudly enough for her to hear me, then I’ll surely wake up her parents, screaming outside their daughter’s window in the middle of the night.
Hanging on with just one hand from the trellis, the wisteria vine all around me, I grab my phone from my pocket, and press her name on the contacts list. It’s a little tricky with ju
st one hand. But she can’t ignore me now.
She’s got to pick up the phone.
She does.
“Hi,” I say.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she says.
“Open the window,” I say.
“Are you crazy? I don’t want to talk to you. Go away. You’re just going to try to fuck me again, aren’t you? You just want another notch on your belt or something.”
“No, Mia,” I say. “It’s not like that. I need you. And I want to help you. Can’t we just talk? Can’t I just come in?”
“If I open the window, I’ll be exposed to every allergen around,” she says. “You’re a doctor. You should know that.”
“Listen, Mia,” I say. “The methylene blue works. We already saw that it works. We know it works. It’s just that it didn’t last as long as we thought. You just need to take more of the drops.”
“Are you crazy?”
“No,” I say. I explain to her the research that I found that proves what I’m saying. “Remember when you called me when you were eating breakfast with your friend? You said you were having another attack, and then you took another drop and you were better.”
“Yeah,” says Mia. “But so what? That doesn’t prove anything. I had another attack. You said that two drops was going to be enough each day, and it wasn’t.”
“I was wrong,” I say. “I thought that two drops total for the day would be enough. But what was really going on was that the drug has a half life in your system, and you need to take it every couple hours. It’s not the total dose that matters for the day, but how frequently you take the dose.”
There’s a silence on the other end.
“Mia,” I say. “I’m not going to force the window open and make you take the drops, even though that’s what I think I should do. But I’m going to leave the decision up to you. You need to make the right decision, Mia.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I need you, Mia,” I say. “I need you in my life, and I can’t have you wasting away in that room, not out living life… with me.”
“I’m really that important to you?”
“Yes,” I say. “That’s what I’ve realized. You’re worried you’re just another notch on my belt, but nothing could be farther from the truth. You’re different, Mia. You’re different from any woman I’ve ever been with before. There’s something just… incredible about you. I need you, Mia.”
SEAL'd Lips: A Secret Baby Romance Page 73
