Vital Sign

by J. L. Mac

  I want privacy. Is it that fucking difficult to understand that a man in my position would do just about anything to get some privacy? Some peace? Some distance from prying eyes and reporters that egg me on in hopes that I’ll pop off and lash out?

  Nothing I’ve done today had seemed to occupy my mind long enough to forget the widow.

  Sadie Parker.

  I turned her name over in my fucked up head a few times, playing with the way it sounded. “Sadie,” I whispered, staring out at the Atlantic through my sliding glass doors, my vegetable juice in hand. I peered down into the glass, wishing that I had some vodka to toss into the concoction. Wishful thinking from a heart patient. I left the hospital with a new lifestyle that had been force fed to me.

  No drinking, no smoking, no partying, no bar brawls, no scandals, no fucking up nosey ass reporters, no blowing up on the green when you completely shank a drive. No golf, for that matter.

  Fuck if they didn’t try to put my ass on a leash. I made it out of Atlanta just as quick as I could. I refused to be kept like some caged animal. If I had to surrender my lifestyle, I knew I had to do it on my own terms. I wouldn’t be forced into shit. Not by them. Not by him.

  Now—two years after the transplant that saved my miserable ass—I had been mentally preparing myself for the meeting that I agreed to. I didn’t know why the hell I agreed to it. I didn’t have to. That was made clear to me by the organ donation agency’s counselor. She’d told me in very clear, nearly irritating terms, that both parties had to be in agreement and then they would begin correspondence for us, mediating along the way. I saw it as being nosey along the way and told them I was fine communicating directly with Mrs. Parker as long as she was fine with communicating directly with me. I guess she was because two days later I had received an email from sadiesculpts@tellesage.com.

  I’d opened the email expecting something…that would be difficult to read. Mrs. Perkins had given me just the basics as far as information was concerned.

  Sadie Parker. 26 years old. Atlanta.

  I expected a sad story and to walk away feeling worse for the fact that someone else had died and I had them to thank for getting a new heart and subsequently another shot at life. I expected a heartbreaking story from a young widow. That’s not what I got, though. I opened an email that was frank and to the point and lacking any clear emotion. She seemed almost bitchy through her typed message.

  Mr. McBride,

  I’m glad you agreed to speak directly. Thank you for allowing Mrs. Perkins to pass along your email address. I’m sure that she explained that I wanted to begin talking with you on some platform in the hopes that we could maybe meet someday. Soon. I’m wanting to meet a few of my husband’s organ recipients. I hope that you’re interested, but if you aren’t, please don’t feel obligated. I don’t have to meet you. Please consider and let me know what you’d prefer. Or don’t. Either way.

  -Sadie Parker

  I had read her email at least a dozen times, thinking that some part of me should feel bad. But something about this woman—the way she spoke so freely, so plainly—made me curious about her and glad that I had someone to talk to. Did all widows talk that way? Surely there’s more to her than what she gave away in the email. Who is Sadie Parker, sadiesculpts@tellesage.com?

  The emails that we exchanged fed my curiosity. Something in those emails sounded so familiar. She reminded me of myself, in a way, so it was no surprise when I sat by my laptop refreshing my inbox every five minutes hoping for another email from her. Something about this woman had me wanting to get in my Jeep and take my ass back home to Atlanta. When I had mentioned the heart patient thing in my email, it ran her off. I could tell. I could almost feel her withdraw. She probably hates me for it. I hate me for it too. My parents should have left well enough alone, but instead I got a new heart and a mountain of guilt to go along with it. Sadie seemed to help though. She took my mind off of it and for a shadow of a second I even thought I felt relief that I’m still alive.

  Never in my wildest fucking dreams would I have expected that I’d end up meeting her sooner rather than later.

  I’d stood there in front of my sliding glass doors with my vegetable juice in my hand, groaning to myself about just how bad I wished that vegetable juice could be a Bloody Mary when I saw something moving along the beach south of where my house stands. I hurried to the counter and grabbed my binoculars, popping the lens caps off as I strode back to the glass door. I always made sure to keep them handy. They proved to be useful pretty regularly.

  Sliding the door open, I stepped out and brought the binoculars up to my eyes. I peered out, wondering who the fuck was intruding on my personal little slice of the world now.

  “Hmph.” I furrowed my brows, curious why some woman in a white dress was edging up to the water. Her long brown hair fluttered wildly in the wind. “What the fuck are you doing, lady?” I whispered to myself.

  I adjusted the magnification on the binoculars and brought them back up to my eyes. She was knee deep in the water and seemed like she was in a goddamn trance. I thought maybe she was in trouble, or stupid, or insane, or drunk; maybe all of the above. I’d be the one to know.

  I groaned throatily then hurried inside, slamming the binoculars back onto my counter and slipping on my flip flops. It took all I had in me not to let irritation send me spiraling out of control. All I knew was that some crazy person was intruding on my personal space and it was more than likely a trap of some sort. Some photographer was probably lying in wait, ready to capture me playing lifeguard.

  I could see the fucking tabloid headline in my head—Alexander McBride accosts beachgoer—as I skipped in a hurry down my wide stairs.

  I never expected this. I never expected to find her.

  Her.

  I damn near lose my grip on her when I work at fishing her up out of the water. She flings her thin limbs around and fights against me. She’s stronger than I’d imagined; I swear, the spirit of a warrior radiates from her small frame. I tote her feathery light, soaked body to the sand and set her to her feet. She teeters and I get a look at her while I hold her in place and then I feel like I’m the one teetering.

  Damn.

  Fuck, she’s breathtaking. Her thin white dress clings to her skin and the mortification she’s wearing only makes her wide chocolaty eyes wider, her plump lips parting, forming an O just before she tries explaining her little excursion into the Atlantic. She searches for words and I find it difficult to disguise what I’m thinking about. I grab hold of the irritation I feel and hope that it does the trick to cover me as she tries to search for words. Her brown hair is dark with seawater and sticking to her everywhere, looking wild like bare vines crawling in every direction up a trellis. Her hair is long and out of nowhere, a highly unnerving image of me tangling my fist into it and tugging it backward until that neck of hers is helplessly exposed to me cascades into my head. Parts of me that have been long forgotten begin to stir.

  It’s been too long. Far too long. I need the company of a woman soon. Maybe this woman’s company.

  She stutters out some poorly formed explanation and before I know it, she’s turned away from me and is headed in the opposite direction. Her ass is perfectly formed into a tight, round little shelf. It’s not too big. It’s not too small. My hands ache to pull her back to me so that I can squeeze her in my hands. My reverie pauses just long enough for me to see that she’s leaving. She’s walking away.

  I can’t just let her go. I need her name. My head screams out for me to stop her. To get her name. To invite her to my house. To drag her to my house if I have to. I have to spend some time with this woman. On some animalistic level, my body picked its mate and I feel compelled to talk to her. I panic at the thought of her walking away. I don’t know why. That’s not like me. I like my seclusion. I’ve given up a lot to keep my privacy. It’s better this way. It’s easier this way. No temptations.

  But she—she’s the first person who I find myself wanti
ng to be closer to. It pisses me off. Who the hell does she think she is, coming to my stretch of beach and screwing with my head like this? I’ve had everything in order, under control, just long enough for me to forget that at one point it wasn’t. I was spinning, tumbling, spiraling dangerously out of control and it seemed that fate or God or whoever stepped in and smacked me in the face with a cruel wake up call. I can’t go back. I have to keep things in order. It’s how I’ve needed it to be. It’s the only way for me to survive. But...the way her eyes flick from side to side, the way her body seems to cower right in front of me, everything about her calls to me. She summons me. Her presence speaks to me without saying a single word. Something inside feels like I more than want the beautiful woman in front of me with haunted brown eyes, I need her. My body wants her. The twitch in my cock tells me that loud and clear. It’s the little pang of sadness filling my chest that tells me that I need her. Maybe she needs me too.

  She stops and turns to face me again when I call out for her.

  Thank God.

  “What’s your name?” I fire off like I’m barking an order. It’s a dick way to sound, but I feel a little urgent. I feel…off.

  I watch her mouth move, answering my question. I asked her name but I don’t hear a thing with my eyes so focused on that mouth of hers. I glance up from her mouth to her eyes and see her questioning look. She’s asked my name too.

  “Zander,” I toss out my name and put my hand out towards her. She slips her hand into mine and I realize that she’s freezing. Her perfect lips tremble and my damn my stupid body wants nothing more than to hold her close, to cover those lips with mine until they tremble with need instead of cold.

  I let my eyes begin to skate over her body. My heart nearly grinds to a halt in my chest when I see a fucking wedding ring on her thin finger. Normally, back in Atlanta, before everything changed, I wouldn’t have cared. I’d ignore the ring on a woman’s finger if I wanted her bad enough. I’d fuck her stupid then discard her so she could return to her husband, who likely would never know the difference. Or sometimes they would. I didn’t give a damn either way. But seeing a ring on her—her—feels different. Anger flashes up inside of me. It licks at my self control and I have to remind myself that I’m a prick who has never cared about that sort of shit.

  Such a fucking prick, Zander, I think, reminding myself of who I really am. I’m a jerk with a history that’s splattered with evidence of just how much of an asshole I can be. The goddamn internet does a fine job of reminding me when I google myself. I shouldn’t do that. It only awakens the rage that I’ve stifled for two years.

  Figures she’s married. But where the hell is her husband? Why isn’t that dick out here with his wife? He just lets her roam into frigid water?! She could have drowned… If I hadn’t seen her… Maybe he’s the reason she looks this way…

  I shut down my thoughts before I turn into a mutant man in the shade of green. I take in a deep breath, having a hard time hiding the irritation I feel. My body has already begun to awaken in her presence, seemingly choosing her; choosing this thin, nervous, untamed looking woman in front of me.

  She holds my gaze for a long time. My eyes study her brown depths. I dive in headfirst, searching for more information. I feel like if I look hard enough, close enough, long enough into her eyes I’ll be able to see the inner workings. I’ll be able to see what drives her forward and what holds her back. I’ll see what’s broken. I’ll diagnose her ailment and do my damnedest to treat it. To make her better.

  I’ve lost my fucking mind.

  I’m like Tom Hanks in Castaway, a desperate man so isolated and longing for companionship that he finds it in a fucking volleyball.

  My nostrils flare as I take another deep breath, working hard to gather my thoughts. What did she say her name was? The air in my lungs solidifies when my subconscious offers up the answer to my question.

  Sadie. Sadie. Sadie.

  My spine tingles at the possibility. There’s no way that this woman that I’ve never seen in my life could possibly be her, Sadie Parker, the widow that I’ve wondered about every day since I woke up in recovery in Atlanta.

  I didn’t know the details of the donor or the family, of course, but I wondered about her, at least in some capacity. I wondered who’s world had just fallen apart as mine came together. I wondered who the person was that loved the donor most. I wondered who it was that had me feeling an insurmountable heap of guilt simply for needing the transplant and then living through it. I wondered who I owed my life to.

  My mouth moves on its own, desperate for more information. “It’s a little early in the season for me to shoo people away from this beach. Visiting?” My hand squeezes around hers as a silent prayer that she’s really her and at the same time that she isn’t. I’m a dick. I want this visibly broken woman in front of me to be available to me but at the same time my heart breaks for her if she is. I shrink a little beneath the guilt that I feel if she’s the Sadie that I think she is. My donor’s Sadie. My Sadie.

  “Not exactly. I’m here to meet someone.” I watch as her arms wrap around her front as if to hug herself. She’s freezing. Something fiercely protective and foreign as fuck builds deep inside of me.

  She’s got to be her. She’s got to be my Sadie and she’s freezing out here, dripping wet and exposed in that dress that’s doing very little to conceal her curves.

  “Who?” I ask, though I already know the answer. I ask anyway. A part of me wants to hear her say my name. I want to see her mouth move and curve around each syllable as they fall from her beautiful mouth. I glance around us, making sure no one is looking. Anxiety grows as I realize what would happen if photos of this woman ended up in the newspaper or tabloids. I’d kill the motherfucker who violated her.

  My eyes snap to her and I watch as she speaks my name for the very first time. I hope it won’t be the last. Something fires rapidly inside me. A bond, a profound connection stronger than I’ve ever felt overwhelms me right here on the sand, tethering me to her. I hate myself for it right away. I’m the most fucked up person I know. I want her. I want the wife of the man who died and donated his heart so that I could go on with my screwed up existence. It doesn’t seem right even to an asshole like me. The way by which I came by this heart doesn’t help, either. That’s another sort of guilt that tears at me and drives me further from my family in Atlanta.

  Con artists.

  This connection—I can try to ignore it, but it’s a lost cause. I’m sure of it. I can feel it. Even if I never saw Sadie Parker again, in my mind she’ll always be the woman that I can’t escape. I don’t think I’ll be able to ignore the pull that I feel. It’s physical. It’s carnal. It’s human. It’s emotional. It’s alien. At least, to me it is.

  I can practically see her in my bed, in my care. I can imagine how tender and smooth the inside of her thighs would feel against my lips. I can picture her curled up on my couch wrapped in a blanket, warm, relaxed, cared for. I wonder how those vacant brown eyes look when she’s happy. I imagine that they’d light up from somewhere deep inside and somehow make the world—my world—a better place just for sharing herself with the rest of it.

  Fuck.

  I hold my hand out and confess who I am before I get lost in thought again. I watch closely, guardedly, as her eyes widen and the expressionless woman that I pulled from the water shows some animation on her features.

  Against my will, I smile a little. I’ve taken her by surprise. God, I could fall into those brown eyes. Her mouth hangs open and my gut clenches, thinking about slipping my tongue into her soft mouth. Her face relaxes and her eyes stare straight ahead at my chest. I fight the urge to bring up my hand to cover the scar. I’m wearing a shirt, but it’s soaked and leaves little to the imagination. Guilt crashes down, making me feel less than worthy. She’s hurt and cold and I feel responsible to make her better.

  ***

  I might as well be dragging her back to my house. I practically demand that she do as
I say.

  Such a prick.

  I don’t have a choice though. There’s no way in fuck that I’m going let her walk away from me, cold, lonely, and exposed. What if there’s some intrusive jerk waiting to shove his camera in her face? What if she was caught off guard by questions about me? I won’t risk that. I can’t.

  When she agrees to come back to the house to dry off, I make the mistake of reaching forward and touching her. The pads of my fingers make contact with her cool skin and that seals the deal for me. Fuck, if I don’t want to pull her to me right then. My urge to hold her, to protect her, is only challenged by the raw, uninhibited amount of lust that I feel towards her. I will my fingers to release her in spite of myself and make sure to walk a little ahead of her so that she can’t see that just that single brief touch was enough to rouse desire in me. My cock had twitched in my soaked jeans, threatening to make the situation so much more uncomfortable for the both of us. I stride with determination to my boardwalk, giving my semi a chance to cool the fuck down.

  I glance back at her when I hear her light footfalls come to a halt. The look on her face rips me to pieces. She’s standing there on my boardwalk looking so fucking alone that I wish I could steal the loneliness from her. I’d take it from her. I don’t know why other than the fact that I feel so indebted and responsible for this gorgeous, tormented woman in front of me. I bite my tongue, literally; shocks of pain bolt through me but I keep quiet. Somehow I know what she needs in this moment.

  Unspoiled silence.

  I take a tentative step back, nearing her on the boardwalk. She focuses on the railing as her hands drift carefully, lazily over the banister. Instinctively, I want to warn her away. The wood is old and worn and splintering everywhere. My lips part but I snap my mouth shut, allowing her to explore the railing. Her eyes tell a story. It’s one that has me rapt.