I can’t believe my eyes when Morgan pulls up a chair and asks, “Do you mind if I sit with you for a few minutes while I drink mine? I think the smell makes Jace nauseous.”
Ahhh . . . I wondered why he didn’t have one of the drinks he had delivered that day.
“Did Jace tell you what he did for my birthday? He is so sweet,” she practically sings out.
“Oh, you had a birthday? Happy Birthday!” I try to sound genuine knowing that I’m probably about to turn green with envy when she tells me what he did. “No, he didn’t get a chance to tell me yet. What did he do?”
She giggles. “Oh my God, when I walked out to my car after work on Friday, about a million balloons spilled out when I opened the door. They were all filled with helium so they came out and went into the air in a trail of pink floating up into the sky.” She sighs at the memory.
“There was only one balloon left when I got into the car. It was taped to the steering wheel with ‘pop me’ written on it. So I popped it and there was a note inside telling me where to meet him for dinner.” She smiles over at Jace and I swear I see him blush, knowing that she is talking loud enough for the entire room to hear. He looks helpless and he can hardly object to her story—being that he is tied down to his IV and can’t speak. I look around and the entire room is listening to her. Melanie and Grace are both looking at me with heavy eyes.
“Wow, that sounds really nice.” I try to sound enthusiastic.
I think back to the only two relationships I’ve ever had. If you can even call them that. James was the guy I stayed with after I left Freeway. I thought he merely wanted to take care of me at first. He was so nice, giving me little gifts all the time. But then I realized the pattern. He would give me a gift and then he would expect something in return. I played along for a few months because he made me feel special. The first time I didn’t give him what he wanted, he kicked me out. Connor, on the other hand, didn’t want anything from me . . . at first. He was sweet and funny and was the perfect guy for me. I even thought he might put a ring on my finger. That is until I helped Tanner out of his predicament. Then it became clear, especially after I found the hidden articles and newspaper clippings. All he ever wanted was money. After that, at only nineteen, I swore off men. That is when Tanner and I moved in together. He was all I needed. At least that’s what I’ve told myself for the last five years. Now—now I want so much more. I want someone to fill my car full of balloons just to see the smile on my face. But, the thing is, the more that I want can only come from one person. The very person I can’t have.
“It was spectacular. I met him at Bern’s Steakhouse,” Morgan says, pulling me from bad memories of past boyfriends.
I wrinkle my nose. I know how expensive that place is.
“The whole night was incredible. And you know Jace, he isn’t normally that extravagant so it was a total surprise.” She goes on and on to describe their entire evening in detail, completely unaware that I am slowly dying inside every time she tells me about something romantic he did or said to her.
I look over at Jace. He looks sad. Guilty even. Not that he has anything to feel bad about. I chastise myself for being stupid enough to fall for a guy who is obviously in love with his girlfriend. What he did for her was over-the-top romantic. I think back to last week when I had my talk with Jules. She is wrong. He is in love with Morgan. Men just don’t do that for women they don’t love.
Morgan finishes her coffee and gets up to walk over to Jace when she is pushed out of the way by Stacy, who is making a bee-line to Steven, who fell off his chair and is lying lifeless on the floor. Drops of blood drip down where the IV ripped out of his arm.
“Oh my God!” Morgan cries out.
“Call an ambulance!” Stacy shouts over her shoulder to the nurse’s station. We all sit in distress watching her do her best to revive him. There is nothing we can do, we are literally held captive by our IV lines, helpless in a situation that screams for help. Camille, the older nurse who usually just sits and handles paperwork, rushes over with a defibrillator that they quickly hook up to Steven’s chest.
I hear an ambulance siren in the distance. Jace and I lock eyes. Both of us look defeated. We are powerless bystanders, witness to a terrible situation. He is holding on to Morgan tightly, her head pressed against his chest, refusing to look at the chaos when the EMTs burst through the doors with a barrage of medical equipment.
Finally, Steven groans and coughs and there is a collective sigh of relief followed by tears of joy when we see his arms moving.
I see Jace reaching out to Morgan as she peels herself away from his body, crying and running out of the clinic. “I can’t be here,” are the last words I hear her say to Jace when she makes her exit.
The EMTs put Steven on a gurney and wheel him past us to the main door of the clinic. I hear a muffled, “Don’t worry, I’m okay,” come from him as he speaks from under the oxygen mask on his face.
Stacy addresses all of us after they have left. “Sometimes this happens folks. Steven is very ill and maybe the chemo was just too much for his body to handle. But, I’ve seen plenty of patients come back from collapses like his. So, don’t worry.” She smiles weakly at us and turns to walk away. It’s not lost on me that her hands are shaking a mile a minute.
The clinic is eerily quiet for minutes after Steven’s departure. I notice that John and Melanie are watching the television. It is on The Travel Channel, of course, and maybe that is their way of paying tribute to Steven.
Me: Is Morgan okay?
Jace: She just texted me. She said she was sorry, but it was all too much for her so she had to leave. She said to tell you goodbye.
Me: I’m glad she is okay. I think we all got traumatized a little from it. I hope Steven will be okay. He’s just so sick. What if . . . what if—
I stop typing. What I want to say is what if that happens to him? What if Jace collapses right here in front of my eyes? If I count up the total days that we’ve known each other, that we’ve talked, I won’t even use all my fingers. So, then why does the thought of him lying lifeless on the floor in front of me make me stop breathing?
Jace: Keri, please don’t worry. What happened to Steven won’t happen to you. You are young and not as sick as he is. You are going to be fine. We are both going to get through this. I promise, we’ll get through this. Together.
He thinks I’m worried about myself. He has no idea, does he? No idea that the reason my heart even beats is because he is sitting across from me. I re-read his text. Together—I know he is talking about chemo, about our cancer. But just for a second, I wonder if there isn’t a deeper meaning.
Me: Okay.
I nod at him. I need to stop my mind from picturing his lethargic body on the floor. I need to stop my heart from wanting what I can’t have.
Me: It was really nice what you did for Morgan for her birthday.
He rolls his eyes at my text.
Jace: Thanks. Do you know how much shit I took from my friends for putting a hundred pink balloons in her car? But she was happy so it was worth it.
There he goes again. Thinking nothing of himself, but doing something simply for the enjoyment of another. I have to laugh at the thought of him trying to put all those balloons into her car. Then I think about the way Morgan told the story. She was giddy, he made her so happy by doing what he did.
Jace: I’m sorry you had to sit through the entire regurgitation of the evening.
He looks over at me with a pained look on his face.
Me: No need to be sorry. She’s your girlfriend. You have every right to be doing wonderfully romantic things for her. She is a lucky girl. And Bern’s Steakhouse? Geez . . . you must have sold a painting to afford that place.
He winces and gives me a small shrug of his shoulders. I can tell he doesn’t want to talk about it.
Jace: Tell me more about The Freeway Station. I Googled it and found out that most of the kids that go there get placed there because they are in
trouble with the law.
I nod my head. I know where he is going with this.
Me: You want to know why I was there, don’t you.
Jace: Only if you want to tell me. Plus, I need to know if you are a serial killer, that way I’ll know never to be in the same room alone with you.
He laughs. Then his eyes go wide and he stiffens.
Jace: Oh, God, Keri. Your parents didn’t get murdered did they? I’m such an insensitive asshole.
I shake my head and giggle. Then I realize that he is the only man that’s ever made me laugh when thinking about my parents. What is it about him? He makes me want to open up and share my past with him. Well, some of it anyway. Some things I still don’t talk about—like my parents.
I try to think of the reasons not to tell him about how I landed at Freeway. There aren’t any really. He’s not my boyfriend. He’s not going to be my boyfriend. Plus, if he finds out about my record he may be so turned off by me that he won’t even flirt with me anymore. Maybe that is a good thing. I don’t know if he realizes he is toying with my heart here. Of course, it might just all be in my head. Then again, I have to assume his sister knows him better than I do. Oh, crap . . . I’m not going to win this argument with myself so I decide to go ahead and lay it out there.
Me: When they died, I stopped feeling. I became emotionally shut off. They said I had PTSD. Nothing made sense to me anymore. I lived life as a zombie. At times people had to almost force me to eat. I didn’t sleep either, I had too many nightmares. I was shuffled around from foster home to foster home because my mom was an only child and my dad’s only living relative was not capable of caring for me. I hated everybody and everything. I couldn’t stand it when I saw people that were happy and laughing. But I also couldn’t stand it when I saw people sad and crying. I never cried, not right away anyway. Not for a very long time. I was numb . . . emotionless.
I look up at him prepared to see the pity in his eyes. But instead I see concern. And then he smiles at me. The smile practically touches his eyes and makes the green in them almost sparkle. Then he reaches up and removes the baseball hat from his head and sticks it back in his pocket. I know he wasn’t wearing it for himself; he was wearing it for Morgan. He is willing to stand up and show the world that the things happening to him don’t define him. He gives me the encouragement to continue.
Me: One day I was out walking around the neighborhood and I wandered into a convenience store. I was thinking how my life pretty much couldn’t get any worse than it already was so when I was looking at the magazines, I decided to put one of them inside my jacket. I mean, what was the worst thing that could happen? They would arrest me and lock me up? It wasn’t going to be any worse than the prison I was already in inside my head. I walked out of the store and turned the corner and just started running. After a while, I looked back to see that nobody had followed me and I started laughing. It was the most incredible feeling I’d had in months. It was the ONLY feeling I’d had in months. It was exhilarating. I had to do it again. Every day after that, I went into a store. It didn’t matter what kind of store. Clothes, candy, makeup. I even stole a hard drive once and I didn’t even own a computer. It wasn’t about what I was stealing. It was the high I got from the act itself. But then after a while I got careless and started to get caught . . . landing me at The Freeway Station.
I close my eyes and think about my first days there before I continue to type.
Me: They wouldn’t let me go out of the house without an escort. I wasn’t even allowed to go into any stores for months. It was excruciating. I was an addict and they were keeping me from my drug. It was Tanner that saved me. He was placed in the house a month after I was. He made me feel again. He made me feel, so I didn’t need to shoplift anymore. Well, he and Chaz, the guy who runs the place now.
I finish my story and look at the ground then I close my eyes. I know what he must think of me. A common criminal. Not good enough to be among the good people in this very room. A juvenile delinquent who only escaped jail because the numerous retailers refused to press charges.
My phone is silent. I know I have stunned him and I’m afraid that when I open my eyes, he won’t look at me the same. I told him this story so that he would look at me differently, so that he would know what a terrible person I was and leave my heart alone. But I know that isn’t what I want. I know it is so wrong of me to want his affection. It’s wrong of me to want what isn’t mine—what belongs to another woman.
“Keri,” I hear the whisper in my ear, and a pulse of electricity shoots up my spine. It’s not even a whisper, more like a small burst of air that sounds like my name. My eyes snap open and I turn to find Jace sitting next to me. I look up, stunned, at Stacy who is holding his IV bag. She must have helped him over.
I jerk my head to the side and stare at him. He can talk? Well, not talk, but whisper . . . sort of. I’m frozen to my chair, eyes locked on his when he leans closer to me. My eyes go wide. He looks like he is going to kiss me. Right here in the chemo clinic, he is going to kiss me. My heart is beating so hard I think it might come right through the front of my shirt. I feel so lightheaded and silently pray I don’t pass out. His hand comes up and rests on my shoulder as he leans into me some more. I shiver underneath his touch.
I brace myself for the feel of his lips. Even though I know how wrong this is. It’s like watching a train wreck. I know it’s going to happen, but I can’t do anything to stop it. I know he has a girlfriend, but there is nothing I want more than to feel his lips, his hands, on me.
I close my eyes in preparation. I lick my lips and take in a deep breath. And then I feel it—bursts of air in my ear. “You’re amazing,” he whispers.
It’s not the kiss I was expecting, but that doesn’t make it any less sensational. The way his hot breath flowed over my neck when he whispered makes my body betray me as tingles of pleasure work their way to my core. I can imagine him whispering those same words into my ear after making love to me.
“Okay, Casanova. I need to get you back into your chair before I get fired for breaking the rules.” Stacy pulls his elbow to get him to stand up and follow her back across the room.
Once he is situated back in his own chair, we stare at each other. Neither of us breaks our gaze. I try to re-play what just happened over and over in my head knowing it might well be the closest I ever get to feeling what my body craves from him. His spicy, rugged scent still floats in the air around me. I ingrain it into my memory.
A tear falls unbidden, down my cheek. As I raise my hand up to wipe it away, I see Jace clearly involved in some internal struggle. He shuts his eyes tight and shakes his head. His hands turn white as they grip the arms of his chair. I instantly feel ashamed. I am a horrible person, making him feel like this. Making him have inappropriate feelings for someone who is not Morgan.
Me: Are you okay?
I see him blow out a deep breath and shake his head infinitesimally.
Jace: No. I’m not okay. I can’t feel like this. I’m so confused, Keri.
His emotions are so raw. He doesn’t have to explain. I know what he means. I need to stop whatever this is that I’m doing to make him feel this way. I need to give him space to love Morgan. She is his girlfriend. And here I keep crossing the line.
Me: It’s okay, Jace. It’s okay to love Morgan. I get it. You don’t have to worry about me.
Jace: But that’s the thing. I do worry about you. Not just worry, but I think about you. All the time. How is it that I love Morgan, but you are all I think about? I didn’t know I could feel this way about two . . . I’m just so sorry, Keri.
I can see how guilty he feels and how it hurts him—just like my heart hurts because it is breaking. He needs a side effect . . . I need a side effect. I inhale deeply through my nose and then I give him what he wants . . . what he needs.
Me: Okay, so you know how I sometimes pee red after chemo, right? Well what I didn’t tell you is that occasionally I pee in the shower.
> He jerks his head up at me and raises his eyebrows.
Jace: What?!
Me: You heard me. So once, after chemo, I was simply too tired to get out and use the bathroom so I was just sitting on the shower bench . . . and . . . well I must have looked like a stuck pig the way the red flowed out of me and down the shower drain.
I look up at him, embarrassed about the revelation, but I knew it had to happen. He reads the text and a slow smile creeps up his face.
Jace: Does Tanner know you pee in his shower?
Me: First of all, how do you know we use the same shower? And second, yes, he does. And he loves me anyway.
I look up to see him read the text and then his face falls slightly as he takes a deep breath.
Jace: You said he knows about your hair in the drain, so I assumed you shared.
Me: Yeah, well, we do share a bathroom. It was hard enough to find a two bedroom we could afford, let alone the luxury of separate bathrooms.
He looks physically pained after he reads my text.
Then Stacy sees that his bag is empty, so she goes over to disconnect him and gets him ready to go. He stands up to walk out but taps out one last text and then leaves without looking back.
Jace: Thanks, Keri. You really are amazing.
Chapter Nine
Abstract Love Page 7
