That Thing Between Eli & Gwen

by J. J. McAvoy

  “Come to bed.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Miracles and Tragedies

  Guinevere

  It had been a week since our first official date, and I still couldn’t get it out of my head. Whatever he’d wanted from me that night, he could have gotten, but instead we only made out. Yes, it got…passionate, and lust poured off us both in waves, but we just had stripped down to nothing but our underwear and kissed each other. There were times where we talked about random things, like his childhood home and things he enjoyed doing—apparently he really enjoyed swimming, too. We talked until I fell asleep with his arms around me. His reason for not sleeping with me was simple: it was our first date. He said you don’t sleep with the girl on the first date…at least, that's how it worked for him. People often say that dating is a game, and if it was, Eli had mastered it to an art form. It was funny though, at least to me: the fact that we didn’t sleep together made the night all the more memorable.

  “Dr. Davenport, please do the surgery.”

  When I turned the corner, I heard a sob.

  There stood Toby Wesley, gripping Eli’s white coat.

  His three interns all tried to help, but he just waved them off. “Toby—”

  “She’s all I have left. She’s my little girl, there has to be something else you can try. We’ve poked and prodded her, we’ve pumped her veins full of poison! You have to do the surgery!”

  “The tumor is—”

  “Fuck the tumor!” he yelled, releasing Eli's coat and pushing him away. “Fuck the damn tumor! I want it out of her, and if you won’t do it, I will find someone else who will!” He walked back into the room, the door slamming behind.

  Eli took a deep breath, saying something to the doctors around him before heading toward the stairs.

  Only when they were all gone did I head to the patient's door, gripping the painting in my hands. Unsure whether or not I should go in, I put the painting by the door, but before I could leave, it opened again. “Sorry.” I backed up quickly. Toby looked understandably worse than the last time I had seen him; the dark circles around his eyes made me feel like he hadn’t really slept in years. His gaze shifted down to the painting that had fallen into the room.

  “Did you bring it?” Molly waved behind him.

  “I made a promise, didn’t I?” I smiled, bending down to pick the painting off the ground. Without a word, he moved over for me to enter.

  I walked up to her bedside. Her skin looked almost gray, and she couldn’t even lift herself up. Her scarf was the brightest sparkling pink I had ever seen, and she wore a bow on her arm where her IV was.

  Pulling up a chair, I sat, placing the painting on my lap. “Can I open it for you?” I asked her.

  She tried her best to nod.

  Pulling the brown paper off, I held it up closer for her to see. “What do you think?”

  “Daddy, it’s Mommy and the baby.” She reached up to touch it and smiled to her dad, who leaned against the window with his hand over his mouth, looking at the family portrait of them. Swallowing a lump in his throat, he knelt by her bed, taking her hand. “Yes…yes sweetheart, it is,” he whispered.

  Seeing them, I felt my eyes burn.

  “What do you say to Ms. Poe?”

  “Can I really have it?” she asked.

  Laughing, I nodded. “Of course you can have it. I made it for you…the both of you.”

  He glanced up at me and stood on his own two feet again. “Molly, you still need to say thank you,” he said to her.

  “Thank you!”

  “You're very welcome. Keep looking at it, and hopefully it makes you feel better, okay?” If only it was that easy.

  “I feel better now.” She touched her mother's face.

  “I’ll come visit you later, all right?”

  “I’ll walk you out,” her father said when she nodded.

  He didn’t have to, but I felt like he wouldn’t take no for an answer. The moment I stepped out, he closed the door behind us.

  He stood there, fighting back tears, but failing. Taking a deep breath, he smiled at me. “I know you don’t know me too well, but can I hug you?”

  Nodding, I wrapped my arms around him.

  He let out a small cry, but stifled it to the best of his ability.

  It felt like he was falling, or just crumbling in my arms.

  Finally he let go, then wiped his eyes. “How did you know about the baby she was going to have?”

  “I heard a few nurses whispering about it. It’s all right—”

  “It’s more than that. Thank you. Thank you so much.” He took my hands and turned back to look into her room. “I’m so scared. I’m not sure what to do. She’s suffering so much, and I can’t do anything but sit here and watch. She collapsed this morning, she’s dying, and her doctors are saying they can’t operate. I should go, right? I should try for other opinions, right?”

  I wished it was a rhetorical question, but he was really asking for an answer. “Toby, I’m not a doctor, I don’t know.”

  “But if it was your child—”

  I sighed. “I’m so sorry, Toby, I wish I could help you. I really don’t know what to say. I can’t answer that because I don’t have children. I can’t understand the position or pain you are in. All I can do is tell you to trust yourself. Do what you think is right for Molly. That’s all you can do, isn’t it?”

  He was silent, and it was almost as painful as him speaking.

  “Go in, she's calling for you.” I waved back to the small girl inside.

  “Thank you again,” he whispered, his hand on the door.

  “Of course.”

  I stayed there for a little while longer before walking back to my station. If I felt this bad, I wondered how Eli felt. I couldn’t imagine having that much pressure on his shoulders, and that was just one of his patients. How did he do it? How did he deal with it all? When he was home, it was like the hospital him was switched off. He never went into detail about anything. He would always just say 'saved one'…but what about the people he couldn’t save?

  Does he not tell me because he doesn’t think I can understand? I knew he couldn’t break doctor-patient confidentiality, and I didn’t want him to—I just wanted to know how he was doing.

  “Gwen!” Logan came up to me, dressed in dark jeans and a pretty nice leather jacket.

  I had noticed that after he had declared he wasn’t going to be a doctor, his fashion was changing slightly. I guessed he was just finally being who he really was. He’d even gotten his ear pierced.

  “Hey, aren’t you going on tour?” I asked when he reached me.

  He frowned. “Can’t wait to get me out of the way, can you?”

  “That’s not what I meant.” I laughed.

  “I know. I leave tomorrow. Just came to have lunch with my mother and ask you a small favor.”

  “What?”

  He nodded behind me to the mural. “I won’t be back for the unveiling, and it’s been killing me wanting to see what you’re doing back there. I swear some people have already peeked in.”

  “Everyone is so impatient. You can’t see the full effect of it until you back up some, anyway—”

  “Please, Gwen.”

  “You're just going to use it to torture your mother’s curiosity, aren’t you?”

  He grinned. “How do you know me so well?”

  Shaking my head, I lifted the curtain, allowing him to come inside.

  He looked down at the paint all spread across the ground and the once white shirt I wore while painting lying next to it before glancing up. He took a step back and bent his head as best as he could, looking up at the whole mural. “Is that the—”

  “Yep.” I didn’t want him to say it out loud.

  “They are going to love this.” He dropped his head and looked back to me. “I love it.”

  “Thank you. I’m always a little nervous, but if I know you really like it, I can go forward with no fear.” At the vibr
ation, I pulled my phone out of my pocket.

  Katrina had texted me.

  ‘We have a slight problem.

  Are you at the hospital? I will come pick you up.’

  “Is everything all right?” Logan asked.

  I nodded, texting her back. “Can you do me a favor?” I questioned, reaching for my other painting.

  “Sure, what’s up?”

  I handed him the painting.

  He looked at me, confused.

  “You remember the painting I gave to you and Eli? Well, this is the original. I wanted to give it to your mother today, but something just came up and I don’t know when I will be back. Can you give it to her for me?”

  “Of course I can. She will most likely cry and hunt you down to give you a hug later, though.”

  “I’ve been giving them out for free lately, so it’s all right,” I said, stepping out with him only to find Eli walking toward us.

  He looked between us both.

  Logan put his arm around me. “I confessed my undying love for her—”

  “Hey!” I pinched his side.

  He winced, backing away.

  Eli grinned. “Apparently she didn’t accept.”

  Logan made a face at both of us, walking away with the painting under his arm.

  I got another text message.

  ‘I’m here.’

  “You showed him the mural?”

  “Yeah, since he begged. He’s going to miss the grand unveiling and whatnot. But, do you mind if we talk later? I’m so sorry, my lawyer has been trying to get in touch with me, and she never calls unless it’s important. She even came here.”

  “That’s fine. I got what I needed,” he said.

  “What?” I hadn’t done anything.

  “I got to see you.”

  Grinning, I walked backward toward the doors. “You are smooth, Dr. Davenport.”

  “Aren’t I? Good luck.” He waved.

  “You, too,” I said, pushing the glass door open. When I did, I saw Katrina was already standing outside her town car, wearing a blood-red dress and suit jacket. In her hands was a letter.

  “What’s going on?”

  She handed me the letter. “Your ex-fiancé is suing you.”

  “For what?”

  “Breach of contract. Apparently you aren’t answering any of his calls, and thus you haven’t been able to do any of the projects he needs.”

  I groaned, wanting to slap myself. “I bit myself in the ass by not terminating my contract, didn’t I?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? This is the only way he can get to you, and being the controlling son of a bitch he is, of course he would go this low,” she replied, pulling out another letter from her white Louis Vuitton handbag. “Option one: we try again to break your contract, but believe me, this will be a hell of a fight, and you might lose millions. He will not be as generous as he was in the beginning. I’m not sure what happened, but he is being a prissy little bitch. You don’t have any leftover feelings do you?”

  “No, he’s doing this because I’m seeing someone else.”

  “You are?” Her blonde eyebrow rose.

  “Yes,” I said proudly. “And I don’t want to lose millions, or be in a fight with him for months or years. What is my other option?”

  She took a step to the side and opened the door to her town car. “We can go meet with him and see how to work out a schedule, since you are working on other projects. Your contract ends in a few months anyway; there is no point in going to war now.”

  “Fine. But try and stop me from murdering him while we’re there,” I muttered, getting in the car.

  “If he gives me an opening, I will sue for anything I can think of.”

  She was trying to make me feel better, and it was working.

  Sebastian Evans was a spineless little prick.

  Eli

  I walked into my mother's office, and the first thing I saw was her crying in Logan’s arms. “What in the—”

  He nodded to the painting on the table and mouthed 'Guinevere'.

  She strikes again. I had gone by Toby and Molly’s room again to see them both staring up at her painting, laughing and talking together about it. They were so happy, I almost forgot she was even sick. It was why I had wanted to go see Guinevere. Taking a seat across from them, I tried to touch the painting.

  My mother smacked my hand away.

  “Mom!” I yelled, pulling back my hand.

  She wiped her eyes. “No one is touching it until I can have it framed and put up in your father’s study.”

  In all these years, she had not moved any of my father's things from the house. Like he was coming back at any moment. She knew he wasn’t, but she said she liked to close her eyes and sometimes just forget.

  “Is she still here?” she asked, looking down at it.

  “No, she had an appointment,” I said to her.

  “Let me know if she comes back,” she whispered, nodding to herself. “It looks so much like him. She even got the little scar on the side of his chin he got from playing soccer.”

  “She said when she came to visit you in your office, she got a good look at all the pictures in here, and she was able to look him up online,” I said with a smile.

  “When you guys are all around like this, grown up, I can really see it. You both are like him in so many ways. Did you know he wanted to give up medicine, too?” She glanced between us.

  “What? No, he didn’t.” I couldn’t believe it.

  She nodded. “He was an amazing saxophone player. He was really into jazz. But in the end, he said it would always be a nice hobby.”

  “Point one for the musicians.” Logan nodded to me, leaning back in the chair.

  Ignoring him, I looked at her. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Because you always wanted to be just like him. I knew you, like me, couldn’t play an instrument to save your life, so I just let you focus on your books.”

  Logan laughed so hard he snorted.

  She smacked him on the leg.

  “Ma!” he yelled, rubbing his thigh, and then smiled.

  “Don’t laugh at your older brother. If it weren’t for him setting a good example for you, God knows you would have been living in dive bars.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mom.” He frowned, glaring my way.

  “Oh Eli, I have something to tell you. Hannah asked to be transferred to one of the inner city clinics for a while. I have no idea why. What did you say to her?”

  “The truth,” I said, pulling out my buzzing pager. I stood, already at the door. “I have to go.” I didn’t wait to hear their reply, or even wait for the elevator. Pushing open the stairwell door, I ran down three steps at a time, spiraling downward until I got to their floor. A nurse headed toward the room, right beside me. “What happened?” I yelled, moving toward the bed.

  Molly’s tiny body wouldn’t stop shaking, her eyes rolling into the back of her head. And then she just went still.

  “Molly! I need a crash cart in here!” I yelled.

  “Molly! Molly, sweetheart, wake up! Molly—”

  “Get him out!” I hollered over her as the nurse handed me the defibrillator.

  Come on, Molly.

  Guinevere

  After Sebastian left me, I told myself to listen to my instincts from then on. I had known something was off that day, but I’d ignored it. I wouldn’t make that mistake again. I would listen to my gut, no matter what happened. And sitting there with him, everything within me told me not to stay there any longer than I needed to.

  His office was filled with the same overly done, pricey bullshit as before. He had floors done in marble, his walls finished in the nicest wood, and all his awards hung up behind him proudly. On his desk was a pompous nameplate, his name carved in glass with Founder & CEO right under it.

  I walked in.

  He stood up, buttoning his dark navy suit, and walked in front of his desk, his arms over his chest. “You ca
me—”

  “This place reeks of bullshit. Mr. Evans, can we just get down to the point?” I said, taking a seat.

  Katrina stood right beside my chair.

  “Gwen—”

  “Ms. Poe would like to apologize for not getting any of your requests, though I do believe the fault lies partly with you and your office for not going through the correct channels. If you have work for my client, you should speak with her agent, who will filter the request to Ms. Poe. I’m sure any judge will agree with me.” Katrina threw his lawsuit back onto his desk.

  He didn’t look at her, only stared at me. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

  “Can’t you see this smile? I’m fine, Mr. Evans. How could a man such as yourself hurt me?”

  “Gwen!” he yelled.

  “Mr. Evans, yell at my client again, and I will not only sue you for harassment, but will make sure to add emotional distress to the list. Do you feel emotional, Ms. Poe?”

  I frowned. “Now that you mention it—”

  “Gwen, please.” He sighed.

  Katrina was about to say something, but I shook my head. “Say what you want to say, Sebastian.”

  He sat up straighter, moving to stand right in front of me. “I know what I did was horrible. I hurt you, and I truly am sorry, because there is no woman on earth whom I love as much as you. I couldn’t see it. I was just so nervous about us…worried we wouldn’t make it, like my parents. Remember? My mother walked out on us, and I just didn’t want to be hurt like that again. Every time I close my eyes, I see you. I remember how you held on when I took you to see Cirque du Soleil, how you would fill the fridge for me, even when I told you not to, and how you would rearrange the apartment and dance in the living room. I miss you, Gwen. I will spend every day of my life trying to make it up to you. You are the only woman in this world for me.”

  Katrina looked down at me, her eyebrow raised.