by Leigh Lennon
I haven’t seen Candace yet, as my nerves after attacking Lang are coursing through me faster than those who race in the annual running of the bulls in Spain. My body is numb, and I’m only left with images of my life without Candace; the only person I’d ever sacrifice Iz for.
Speaking of Iz, he’s still holding me when a young Rob Lowe appears in our room. Of course, Candace’s doctor looks like a Greek god ascending from high to operate on her and his nurse is the doppelganger of Cindy Crawford. “Ms. Parker.” He stops when he recognizes Iz and shakes his hand as if they are best friends. “Well, Iz, I had no idea you’d be here.” He turns to Iz as though they are shooting the shit, getting caught up on life.
My frustration pools in me, spilling out of my mouth as I finally am tired of the idle chitchat and bellow, “Can we cut the crap?! So what—y’all know each other and we’re apparently in the fucking land of America’s most rich and famous, but this is my sister we’re talking about. Can y’all give me some fucking information?” My southern twang is more apparent when I’m fucking mad.
Iz’s smirk is almost incredulous and even the doctor snickers when he turns my way, replying to my loud tantrum, “Well, Iz, who’s this spitfire?”
Iz stands and walks over to me. “Doc Jock,” I roll my eyes, of course this man’s name is really Doc Jock, but Iz continues, “This feisty woman is the love of my life. We haven’t seen each other for years, but now she’s back.”
I’m scared. No, scratch that—I’m fucking petrified out of my mind, yet his words are at odds with what he’d revealed to me an hour ago, pissed I chose Candace over him.
“Funny how you needed space from me just sixty minutes earlier.”
He lets my remark fly over his tall body as he continues, “She’s always been a loose cannon when it comes to the safety of her sister.” His words are not delivered with a sting or with venom, again conflicting with his accusations of earlier. They are heartfelt and I can’t help but want his large body enveloping mine again, the one source of comfort I can control.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Parker. See, I’m a neurologist; Doctor Jockocosky. It’s quite the mouth full and since I work with many athletes, Doc Jock stuck. I’ve treated many of Israel’s teammates in the past concerning head injuries. When Lang called me, I could hear in his voice that the girl he spoke of is important.” From there all that Doc Jock explained to me about meninges and dura mater and protective membranes fly over my head as much as prima facie case or a stare decisis of the law would sound like gibberish to him. All I know is my girl, the one I raised, is hurt and I can’t fix her.
Iz says she’s in the best care so I trust him. I finally have the courage to face my sister. Though, she’s still unconscious. I need to see her before they open her brain and attempt to save her life.
Nothing readies me for what I see as I walk alone into this room that houses my Candace. I stop and steady myself at the entrance, Iz’s eyes behind me, shutting the door, and severing the connection I have with him. This is something I need to do on my own.
I’m immobile, unable to walk for what seems like forever, as I want to hurry to her side but I can’t. Every decision I have ever made, I made for her well-being and it still landed us here. I wasn’t there to protect her from Neal today. Fuck, I let him get away and in the end, this is what I do. I bring mayhem to my life and those around me. I allowed this. In this one second, as I face my fear of seeing my Candace hooked up to tubes, her beautiful hair shaved in preparation for surgery, I make the one decision I should have stuck with. No one will find out the truth. Sure, I was ready to come clean to Iz, but it’s too late. I won’t allow this. I’ll protect the one person I know I love more than anything else in my life.
Instead, my confessions are all spilled to the person I’ve tried to put first in my life, since the day she was placed in her mama’s arms. I caress her hands, lather kisses on her face, and tell her everything in the private of her room, amidst the beeping machines that hum in the background; the soundtrack to our life. Candace will never know, though in her coma, she’s the only one I tell.
Cindy Crawford, the nurse, circles the room while I sit holding my sister’s hand, profusely apologizing to her. “Ms. Laita,” she whispers.
Confusion clouds my mind and she must think I’m married to Iz. “Oh, I’m not Mr. Laita’s wife. I’m Eliza Parker. You must have gotten me confused with his first wife.”
“No, ma’am. You bear a resemblance but I knew you weren’t his ex,” she replies almost instantly and of course she knows I’m not Kendra Kendal. But she continues, “I don’t keep up with the who’s who in this world, normally, though I know Ms. Kendal. I wear her makeup.” So cliché’, for a world-renowned model to have her own cosmetic line, but Nurse Cindy is very sincere. “I’m just an average nurse with an above-average job—saving people. I’m good at it but the one thing I know is that man, Mr. Laita, loves you. It’s as evident as the sky is blue. If you two are not married—you need to snatch him up, sugar, because you’re his something special.”
I laugh because I thought it was only a southern thing to call people sugar, but she’s right. Iz loves me as I love him. But after tonight, seeing what my secrets could unlock, I know a future with Iz isn’t a possibility.
Nurse Cindy is actually Monroe Manning according to her identification. She continues, “Doctor Jock would like you to donate blood. Your sister has a rare blood type and we need extra blood on hand. Siblings have a higher chance of being a match.”
This is something I can do and it’s something I control. “She’s my world.” Monroe smiles, pats me on the shoulder as a source of comfort, and disappears. I’m left with Candace, taking in her beauty, pleading with God above to not take her from me.
16 years ago
Agony isn’t a word used to describe what I’m currently suffering through. I remember little of the fall, only that Daddy had walked down the stairs gingerly and hoisted me up over his body like a sack of potatoes. Both Mama and Daddy were tall, it’s where I got my height. It’s nothing with Daddy’s six-four frame to carry me to the downstairs guest quarters, the same one he stuck Iz in just a week ago. As he flops me on the bed, I instantly see blood pouring down my thighs. It’s surging from me and onto the mattress. He leaves me for along time, and I’m hazy from the blow to the back of the head, falling in and out of sleep. I’m not a medical doctor but I know I’ve got to have a concussion and sleeping is the worst thing I can do. My eyes will not stay open, though.
The physical pain is bad enough but the emotional pain of watching blood pour from my body, along with the life of the child Iz and I made together, is a special kind of hell my Daddy is torturing me with. In my screams, no one comes for me, not until it’s too late.
What feels like hours later, my daddy returns with Dr. Alcott, Neal Alcott’s daddy. What is he doing here? We didn’t run in the same social circles. But he’s as much of a bigot as the man who raised me, plus, I knew my daddy had something on Neal’s daddy. “Well, Dec,” as all his friends called my father, “I think it has passed. Let me assess her head and the concussion I’m sure she has with her accidental fall down the staircase. Then I’ll get her prepped for the DNC.” His evil becomes as evident to me as Daddy’s when his hands pushed me down the stairs. “I guess, darlin’, you were lucky. I don’t think the fall damaged you much. With all this blood, you were sure to miscarry. Probably the best accident that could’ve ever happened to you.”
Did I hear him right? Miscarrying a baby is the best thing for me? As my cries turn to sobs, he gives me a shot to knock me out, which he tells Daddy will be best for the ride to the hospital. But in my thoughts all I can think are these two motherfuckers want me to lose my baby, Iz’s baby.
24
Iz
The door to Candace’s room remains shut. Liz wouldn’t let me accompany her while she waited for them to come get Candace for brain surgery. Fucking brain surgery is all that rushes through my mind. I’ve seen Li
z in almost every emotion that life has thrown at her. Her dad calling me the one word to my face no one should be called caused her a ferocity of righteous anger that fueled her into slapping him. Something that even after fifteen years is still etched in my brain. I’ve seen Liz so happy, normally when it was accompanied with anything to do with being in my arms. The mere laugh of my Buttercup is enough to infect a small island with joy for years. I’ve been witness to the pleasure that seeps from her mouth, in the manner of moans, when I could find that one sweet spot inside of her. I love pushing her to the brink of insanity, as she calls my name while an orgasm pushes through her slowly, riding me through it. It’s still one of the most beautiful events to witness. And I thought I’ve observed Liz in her most frightened state when I walked away from her after her father kicked me out of his house. However, nothing could have prepared me for the sheer fear that had frosted over her violet eyes at the thought of losing her sister.
Never in the time I’d known Liz had the beauty of her eyes bulged out in panic. Her eyeballs literally sagged, heavy with foreboding anxiety when she’d stood at the door, my own eyes boring into her back.
I’m in my own thoughts when the creak of the door from the hallway signals that I’m no longer alone. Looking up from the La-Z-Boy chair I’m in, I see my best friend. His appearance isn’t much better than Liz’s.
Scrubbing his face while taking a seat in the comfort of the other La-Z-Boy in the room, he begins, “Care to share what the hell is up both yours and Eliza’s asses?”
Shaking my head in a firm no, he’s not taking this as my answer. “I need a distraction, you fucker. Tell me something so I can think of anything other than the girl I’m falling for going under the knife.”
Jutting my head up, I’m not shocked at what he has admitted because I see it all over his face. Still, for him to say it out loud is a big step. He continues, “Don’t look so shocked, you big teddy bear. I know you care for Candy. I mean, for different reasons, of course.” His words come with a warning and he’s right, Candy grabbed my heart because of the love Liz has for her. Plus, she’s always been a special little girl. “So tell me, what’s going on?”
Raking my hands over my head, I must take the longest cleansing breath as Lang’s eyes narrow in on me. “I fucked up big time. I mean, it’s the worst fucking timing in the world, Lang. I can’t believe my luck. Just minutes before you called me, I questioned the type of relationship Liz has with Candy. I basically accused Liz of choosing Candy over me.”
He starts clapping sardonically and without a smirk he begins, “Yeah, that’s some pretty fucking bad timing. Congratulations on being the world’s biggest dickhead, by the way.”
Scrubbing my face now, I lean forward in my serious pose, as Liz calls it, while trying to get close to Lang. “Well, in my defense….”
“Shit, Iz, that’s the line you’re leading with?”
“Just hear me out.” Lang waves his hands in the air in surrender, leaning back in the chair as though he’s all ears. I begin, “Liz had just told me she found out she was pregnant when we broke up. Her father learned about it and threw her down the steps in order for her to miscarry. Worse, he locked her in a room until she bled all over the place and had a doctor, who just happened to be her future father-in-law, cover for her daddy.” It’s the first time I had articulated out loud the events that Liz replayed for me and out of my own mouth, it sounds even more fucked up.
Now, Lang’s elbows are on his knees, too, but his jaw might as well be on the floor. “Come again? Please tell me I heard all of that wrong.” The jet-black of his eyes rival the anger in my own.
“Yeah, bro, you heard it right.”
“Holy shit, Iz. That’s all new levels of fucked up. I mean—I don’t understand hatred like you just explained. How in the world can people live like this?” He stops and his mind connects the dots. “Shit, so you’re hearing this for the first time and seeing what this breakup did to you fifteen years ago, this news has got to hurt…”
I stop him. “Hurt isn’t the right word, Lang. It’s a new level of hell. I left her there with that fucker. Worse, I know Liz was hurt by a fucker before me. A guy who claimed to love her. Then when he found out Liz wanted nothing to do with her dad’s money, even at a young age she knew it came with strings, he left her. He was her first. She didn’t date again until me. It took her a while to trust again. Even then, we didn’t kiss or even touch for a good two months. And that fucker of an ex-husband…” I don’t finish when Lang darts from his seat.
“If I get my hands on him, it’s over,” he chimes through the room and it echoes as though he’s silently giving Liz’s ex a possible verbal warning, like the fucker is on the other side of the wall.
“Bottom line,” I continue, “so many men have hurt Liz and I walked away from her. I was convinced it was her daddy’s money she wanted. I should’ve believed her.” I slam my head in my hands. “My baby, Lang, she was carrying my baby.” I feel a tear escape my eye and I can’t stop. I’m now grieving the loss of a child I never knew but somehow, I loved instantly.
After about thirty minutes of silence, nothing more to be said between Lang and myself, we hear a lot of commotion in the other room and before I can get to the door, Lang is through it. To our relief, they are only prepping Candy for surgery. I glance around the room and the nurse Liz kept on calling the young Cindy Crawford sees me scouring the room for my girl.
Approaching me quietly, she barely whispers, “Ms. Parker is with the doctor. They needed to get her blood type tested for the other Ms. Parker.” I nod and as she walks away, she hesitates and turns back to me. “I’m sorry, Mr. Laita. I know it’s none of my business but in your eyes, it’s obvious you love her. Please, I know what I’m talking about when I say don’t let that go to waste.” She walks away quietly and I agree. I don’t plan on letting her out of my reach.
Looking over at Lang next to the bed, holding Candy’s little hand in his, I catch his gaze for a second. “I’m gonna check on Liz. I’ll be back.”
He nods when I let myself quietly out of the room to the main hall and find my way to Liz. When a nurse directs me to Doc Jock’s office, I quietly wait outside the door in a chair. I overhear hushed voices at first but the door is cracked and I make out Liz and the doc talking.
“AB negative is the rarest of types. Being her sibling, you have a chance for a match.” I hear the doc say. It’s funny after all these years, I don’t know his first name and that’s what is floating through my head when I casually overhear their conversation. It’s not like I’m trying to eavesdrop but this isn’t anything of major surprise. They’re siblings, of course they’d have a chance to be the same blood type.
“No, Doc, you don’t understand. I’m the same blood type as Candace.” Man, still calling that poor girl Candace after she has asked her a number of times to call her Candy. My woman is so stubborn. Again, this is the inconsequential information floating through my mind
“Well, so you claim. I have to verify.”
“That’s fine. I know for a fact I am, but so was her father. Something after all these years I still know, which is funny.” I laugh at Liz’s statement, she, too, is working with odd pieces of memories floating through her brain.
“Yes, I guess your father certainly could have been AB negative. It’s a possibility.”
Her voice dips, and as if I’m in the room, I imagine her voice hitches. “No, Doc Jock, you don’t understand.” The next words out of her mouth have blown me away; I’m about to fall out of my chair. It was always there, like a jigsaw puzzle that now is so easy to assemble. How did I miss all the clues?
15 years ago
I start my sophomore year and reminisce that just twelve months ago, my life changed when Liz Declan became a staple in it. The ability to breathe came easier when her spirit and her love was in my life. And although I have tried to text her here and there, begging her to choose me, she reminds me she did choose me, asking for a year to m
ake things right again.
My love for football isn’t even a love anymore. It seems fruitless without Liz in the stands with my number on her back as she screams my name. That girl may know more about football than me.
Something has changed, though. This scrawny kid with dreams bigger than the balls he carries between his legs has somehow befriended me in our sports marketing class. “The world, Iz. I’ll give you the world.” I don’t believe him for a second but he helps me with my hatred for all things computers and I allow him to hang out with me. It seems like a win-win.
The guys on the team tell me to move on. There’s a cheerleader who always finds her way to my side, though I’m not interested—not in the least. She’s cute—no, she’s fucking hot—but she looks just like Liz, without the purple in her eyes. It just seems wrong, on so many levels, to replace Liz with a girl who could be her twin.
Life moves slowly without Liz by my side but I have to let her go or it will eat me whole. Sayin’ it is one thing, but fucking doing it’s a whole other beast.
25
Liz
Walking out of Doc Jock’s office, I’d never uttered the words I just confessed to him ever, not since I’d said goodbye and she became my sister. The admission had been acid in my mouth, but the second I was able to admit to it after all these years, the bitterness left me.
My mind is racing in every direction when Candace’s bed is wheeled in front of me, with Lang by her side. I haven’t been able to look at him, not since I attacked him without justification a while ago.
Nurse Cindy Crawford’s face finds mine. “I wasn’t going to have her wheeled back, not until you were able to say see you later.” I really love this sweet nurse who looks like a supermodel. She gets me, especially when she called it see you later and not a goodbye.
