Heart Conditions (The Breakup Doctor Series Book 3)

by Phoebe Fox

  This was not going to fall under that category. But if I waited for Lisa Albrecht to have a good day before asking for my raise, I’d never make an additional dime.

  I led with: “I wanted to thank you for running my article.”

  “What article?”

  “The one you came to my office about? Two weeks ago?” Her expression was still blank as a whiteboard, and my eyebrows rose to my hairline. Lisa was truly hectic if she’d overlooked a chance to lord her largesse of spirit over me in reconsidering something. “About forgiveness?” I tacked on.

  “Oh, shit. Did you actually keep that in?”

  I opened my mouth but nothing came out of it, and then Lisa’s poker face hairline-fractured into the trace of a smile, the equivalent, for her, of a loud guffaw. “I’m just crapping you. Yeah, whatever.” She waved a hand. “I thought about what you said. I can forgive that jackass.” She fixed me with a hard glare, raising one warning finger. “I do not forget. But I can forgive. And as far as columns go, it wasn’t total shit.”

  “Aw, Lisa, you say the sweetest things.” She just rolled her eyes, unamused by me. “Actually, my column is the reason I’m here.”

  “Let me guess. You want a raise.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “Yes, that’s exactly what I wanted to talk about. How did you—”

  “Please. As soon as your little Bobbsey twin asked for one, I knew you weren’t going to be far behind. Why don’t you two just make out already? You’re not fooling anyone.”

  I knew Lisa wasn’t serious about me and Sasha; sarcasm was just part of her natural reaction to stress.

  “I didn’t know Sasha asked for a raise, actually,” I confessed. “But she deserves one, don’t you think?” I knew she was one of Lisa’s best reporters—a terrific writer who dug deep for the story and never missed a deadline.

  Lisa kicked away from her desk, sending her chair wheeling back against the wall with a thunk. “Deserving or not, I can’t compete with the Tribune.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Trust me, she’s one of the few semi-competent reporters I have—if I could meet her asking price, I’d do it, even though in this economy I could get three reporters to fill her shoes for the same salary. But the Tropic Times doesn’t have the kind of budget a big-city paper does. I suppose you’re going to threaten to jump ship for Tampa too?”

  I just stared at her blankly until finally I came up with, “What?”

  “Don’t tell me your girlfriend hasn’t mentioned this to you?” Lisa smiled and crossed her arms over her chest, looking infuriatingly smug. “Well, that changes things. I’m calling her bluff. If she hasn’t told you about it, then she’s not really going.”

  Except the sick feeling in my stomach filled in the rest of the story that Lisa didn’t know—if Sasha hadn’t told me about this, then it more likely meant she was considering career advancement and relocation—over marriage and motherhood.

  Did Stu know?

  I reached blindly to my feet until my hand found my purse, and rose. “I have to go,” I whispered numbly.

  “What, did you accidentally tip your buddy’s hand?” Lisa crowed. “If she can’t have her raise, you’re not going to push for yours? Come on, Brook—don’t be a total patsy. I’ll throw you an extra fifty a week. Brook? Brook! This is a onetime offer!”

  But I was already halfway down the hall toward Sasha’s end of the building, and Lisa’s words fell away behind my retreating back.

  Fifty feet later I stopped, leaning against the wall and breathing hard.

  I wanted to confront my best friend. To charge into her cubicle and demand to know why she’d been keeping to herself such a monumental decision—one that had potentially life-altering repercussions for her—for my brother, my family…and me.

  Except…it didn’t, a voice spoke up inside my head. For all that we were deeply involved, deeply invested in Sasha and Stu and whatever future they might have, it was Sasha who would bear the greatest weight. Stu had built his landscaping business up over years of networking—he wasn’t about to move to Tampa and start from scratch. It was Sasha who would have to turn down a job that could take her career to levels that would never be possible here in Fort Myers. And though I had no doubt my brother would be an involved, hands-on daddy, Sasha would carry this child for nine months, would be the one breast feeding for who knew how long, would probably, realistically, wind up being the prime caregiver for a child she feared she wasn’t ready for.

  I’d told her that everything she was getting was everything I wanted. But was it? At least at the moment?

  I tried to put myself in her shoes. How would I feel if right now, overnight, I were facing all the responsibilities and demands she was? If, in the middle of my career’s seemingly steady upward trajectory, I had to put everything on hold and completely switch gears?

  I couldn’t imagine it. I wasn’t ready to. I couldn’t even fathom getting a dog.

  Of course I could understand Sasha’s reactions.

  Yet it didn’t change my feeling of hurt.

  But right now, freshly stung from it, wasn’t the time to confront her. And the offices of the Tropic Times certainly weren’t the place. I straightened, took a deep breath, and made myself turn around and head toward the exit.

  The thought didn’t strike me until I was in the parking lot and climbing into my Honda: Was I angry and upset because my best friend had apparently decided that marriage to my brother and motherhood weren’t for her?

  Or because she’d made this decision without me?

  Despite the fact that the sun was low in the sky and shadows filled the car, I kept my sunglasses on when I got to Ben’s. I didn’t want him to see my eyes, still red and sunken and bleak when I’d checked them in the rearview mirror. I wasn’t entirely sure why I was here…or even when I’d decided to come. After seeing Lisa, I’d gone home to finish out the rest of the client appointments I had scheduled, but as the day wore into early evening, with no Paige, no Jake, no one in the house except me and my agitated thoughts, I couldn’t bear to be there alone anymore. I got in my car and drove—and as if from muscle memory from the last week dropping off Jake, I’d ended up in Ben’s driveway.

  But I couldn’t make myself get out of the car. I didn’t have his dog anymore. I hadn’t even remembered to grab Jake’s things, so I’d have at least the excuse of dropping them off. Not that there was much to return—the dregs of a bag of dog food and a couple of chew toys I knew Ben cycled through on a regular basis. There was no reason for me to be here.

  Except I wanted to be. I wanted to talk to Ben about what he’d seen downtown, with me and Michael—clarify things. And I needed to talk to someone about what I was feeling about Sasha—and the only person besides my best friend who I wanted to confide in…was Ben.

  I looked up at the house, the lit front porch light telling me he was home. I could knock on the door and tell him…what? That I hadn’t been dating Michael when he ran into us, but apparently I was now? That my best friend and my brother were pregnant, and I had no idea what was going to happen? I couldn’t say any of those things. And I couldn’t imagine why he’d want to hear any of it anyway.

  I didn’t belong here.

  I jammed the car into reverse and turned to back out of the driveway, when a knock on my driver’s-side window startled me so badly I mashed the gas and shot backward almost into his mailbox.

  “Jesus!” I stomped on the brake and came to a screeching halt, my head jerking back, my hands shaking on the wheel.

  Ben stood a few feet in front of me, Jake on a leash at his side, Jake’s panting and the dark spots dotting Ben’s shirt telling me they’d obviously just come back from a walk. My heart still thudding, I lowered the window. “You scared me.”

  Jake’s tail started swishing so fast it bl
urred, and he pulled toward my car, but Ben kept him firmly at his side. “Brook?” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  I shook my head and gave a weak smile, waving away the question. “Oh, I just…I meant to bring back Jake’s stuff, but I forgot it…Silly. It’s not much anyway. I can just bring it over another…Or not. It doesn’t really matter. I…” I ran out of words, blinking. I wanted to put up the window and speed away, but Ben had moved closer, dipping his head to peer directly at me.

  “What’s wrong, Brook?”

  Hot tears speared into my eyes and spilled over.

  “Hey…Hey,” he said, face creasing with concern, and then my door was opening and he was kneeling beside me, Jake’s wet nose pressing against my shoulder as Ben released my seat belt and took me in his arms.

  It was so exactly where I’d wanted to be again for so long. It felt so comfortable and familiar and right. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and buried my head in the crook between his neck and shoulder as if by muscle memory, breathing in his familiar scent, the slight smell of sweat, and finally let myself cry.

  The tears came from more than Sasha’s secret. I cried for all lost things—the happy future I’d envisioned for my best friend and my brother. The easy threesome we’d been all our lives, which had morphed with their couplehood into my being a little bit on the periphery, and now might morph again. I cried for the little niece or nephew I might never know, and for the pain a decision like that would cause all of us.

  I cried for me and Ben, and the past we’d lost, and the future we’d never have.

  He held me all through it, not talking, not doing anything except offering me the warmth and comfort of a human embrace, while Jake—big, goofy Jake, somehow sensing that something was wrong—sat quietly beside him and pressed his head into my armpit.

  Ben didn’t let go until my sobs finally slowed, and then he only pulled back, not away. “Come inside,” he said gently, wiping at my cheeks with his thumbs. “Come inside and talk.”

  I didn’t even try to resist, just followed him as obediently as Jake into the kitchen, where he poured me a glass of ice water and we sat at his breakfast table, across from each other.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  I shook my head, mute. I wanted so badly to let out all the things I’d been tamping down—my fears for Sasha and how she’d feel years from now if she made a choice she couldn’t live with. About whether she and Stu could weather it. No, I realized…I wanted to tell Ben. But I was silenced by my loyalty to my best friend, and to my brother.

  Yet Ben was sitting across from me with his eyes on mine—steady, strong, sure, the way he used to look at me when we were together that made me feel as if I were the most important thing happening at that moment. The most important thing in his world, period. And I couldn’t help unburdening at least part of it.

  “I…I have a client who’s going through something right now,” I said hesitantly. If I said “a friend,” Ben would immediately guess who I was talking about.

  He said nothing, just held my gaze as intimately as if he were touching me.

  “My…client,” I said at last, “has a big decision to make. And she’s really scared, and that’s making it hard for her to see what she really wants.” More tears crested the bottom of my eyes and I roughly swiped them away. “And I think she’s about to make the wrong choice, one that might hurt someone I…someone she really cares about. She might hurt herself.”

  “What do you mean, the wrong choice?”

  I looked up, confused that he’d asked a question with such an obvious answer. “The one that won’t make her happy,” I explained. “The one she’ll regret.”

  Ben’s eyebrows drew together. “How do you know which one that is?”

  I blinked, momentarily stymied. I couldn’t tell him how I knew, because then I’d have to reveal that I was talking about Sasha, who I knew as well as I knew myself. I knew she’d always dreamed of commitment and love and security, and of being part of a family of her own. I knew she loved my brother like no one else she’d ever been with, and that if something happened to the two of them, it might break her in a way she’d never be able to repair herself from.

  Except…I thought of the way Stu had been with her ever since this had started. Supportive. Loving. Yes, my brother was totally on board for marriage and kids in a way I’d never imagined. But I remembered how he’d reacted at Sticks and Stones, even when she was expressing deep-seated doubts that I’d thought would tear out his heart. He’d moved toward her, not away. Wrapped his arm around her to support her, literally and figuratively. Stu, I realized in a flash of insight, was totally on board with Sasha no matter what she decided—because he loved her, and all he wanted was for her to be happy.

  It was me who was trying so hard to get her to do what I thought was best for her.

  Ben was right: How could I possibly presume to know what that was?

  Suddenly I saw it: Sasha already had everything she’d dreamed of. The kind of unconditional love she’d always wanted from Stu, who would clearly stand beside her no matter what came. Being part of a family she could call her own—me and my parents and my brother. She didn’t need a ring or a baby to make those dreams come true. Those were my dreams for her.

  Hot shame flooded over me in a wave so strong I felt sick with it. I leaned forward onto propped elbows, sinking my head into my palms, covering my face.

  That was exactly what I’d done with Ben, too. I’d been so caught up in what I wanted, in my dreams for our future, I hadn’t even considered what he wanted. What was best for him.

  That wasn’t love. That was just selfish need.

  Maybe he was happier with Pamela than he’d ever been with me.

  I breathed heavily into my cupped palms, my eyes closed, wishing I could disappear. Or that Ben would. Wishing I could sink into the ground and have it close back over me.

  “Brook…” Ben said quietly after a long time, and I knew the universe hadn’t answered my prayer to be swallowed up and vanish.

  “I just wanted to fix this,” I said brokenly into my hands, talking about Sasha. Talking about Ben and me.

  “That’s one of the nicest things about you, Brook. You always want to help the people you care about.”

  I looked up, meeting his dark hazel eyes that were still focused on me with warmth and concern, no trace of the contempt I deserved, and I fought a wave of fresh tears.

  He smiled gently, reaching across the table. “And you care about everyone.”

  I yanked my hand out of reach, rejecting the comfort I didn’t deserve. “If that were true then I wouldn’t try to push people into what I think is best,” I said thickly.

  Ben pulled his arm back, watching me with a shadow in his eyes I couldn’t read. “Sometimes that’s the hardest part about loving someone. Doing nothing. Just standing back and letting things take their course.”

  It was so easy for me to know that in therapy—that I could do what I could to help clarify things, but then I had let a client find the way to his or her own personal truth. And yet in my own life I did the exact opposite. As Ben had just said, I had to stop trying to control things I had no power over, no right to control, and stand back and let things take their course. My heart like a brick in my chest, I slumped backward, and Jake arrowed under the table and plopped his head in my suddenly available lap. I stroked his ears, comforting myself as much as him. I took a deep breath in, let it out. And then once more.

  “Thanks for listening, Ben,” I finally said when I could trust my voice. “You’ve always been a good friend to me. Even after…” I stopped, avoiding our past by instinct, until I realized that I needed to face up to that too. “Even after I hurt you. I never meant to do that, and I’m so sorry for it.”

  Something passed over his face that I couldn’t read. �
�I know that, Brook. You told me.”

  “I know I said it at the time. I just want you to know…I’ve done a lot of thinking about it since then.”

  “You don’t have to keep apologizing. I’ve spent time thinking about it too. You were right—technically we weren’t together at the time, and—”

  I slashed a hand through the air as if to cut his words, needing to say this to him. “Technically doesn’t matter. I was so messed-up then, and I don’t even think I realized how much. I…I broke a trust between us. It was stupid, and I regret it…so much.”

  “You were honest with me, Brook. You told me you weren’t ready for anything serious.”

  “That didn’t mean I had to…” I hated saying it out loud, bringing up the specter of Chip Santana and my stupid hookup with him. For so long I wished I could undo it, pretend it had never happened, but the reason I was sitting across a table from this man having this awkward conversation, instead of happily in a committed relationship with him, as he’d wanted at the time, as I desperately wanted now, was because it had. I couldn’t keep overlooking my own shortcomings and mistakes.

  “It didn’t mean I had to betray you,” I forced out. “What we were to each other.”

  Heat flooded my face and it was hard to meet Ben’s gaze. But I owed him that. I owed him the knowledge that I had finally accepted responsibility for the choices I’d made, realized that, whether we were technically together at the time or not, I’d broken faith with something important between us.

  I dragged my eyes up to his, to find him steadily looking at me, no anger or judgment in his gaze, only something deep and unfathomable that I couldn’t interpret, but that filled me with sadness.