Geoffrey was tired – of hiding from the fight, of hiding his feelings for himself and for Bec. He wanted to live and to fight and win – then he wanted to come back and claim the woman who as sitting at this table with him. He needed her by his side, her strength and grace. He wanted her in his life because he loved her. At the end of the day, it was as simple and as complicated as that – he loved her.
“So, what is this Brachytherapy he is wanting me to try? Let’s see what the world of online gurus has to say,” he searched a number of sites on his phone. “Okay, it’s radiotherapy treatment which explain the referral to a radiation oncologist and implants radioactive material into or near the tumor.”
“I don’t understand, what does that even mean?” Bec’s look of concern broke his heart. All his resolve from before faded. His feelings for her were irrelevant - she deserved to be out sailing or playing tennis, not here worried about him.
“Nothing major, it is a first line of attack for this type of cancer, they are looking at using an aggressive approach. It will be fine,” he tried to reassure her with false confidence.
“Great, what about hormone treatment? I thought they used that as the first approach.”
“You missed a lot in the last month. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. They didn’t work for me. Onward to radiation.” Geoffrey tried to hide his fear behind forced smile and sarcasm.
“Okay, now tell me the side effects!” her laugh was forced.
“The good news is this place makes the best blueberry muffins and apparently the nutrients in blueberries can cure cancer!”
“Wow! Magical blueberry muffins. You should have told me when we were ordering. I would have ordered some to eat here and some to take home.”
“Home?” Bec misunderstood their coffee and conversation – for her sake he needed to fight this alone. “Nothing has changed between us.”
“Geoffrey, you are a bloody fool - why are you doing this? Let me fight with you – let’s fight this together,” her beautiful eyes welled with tears.
“I’m sorry, this is causing you too many problems already. I thought Derek wanted you to be travelling this month – why are you here with me? You should be in a board room somewhere not sitting here with me ordering a muffin.” Geoffrey placed cash on the table and got up.
“Rebecca, call me Bec, there is nothing worth giving up your career again. You’ve worked too hard to get back on your feet. You and me … there is nothing between us anymore. We had our shot and it didn’t work out.”
Geoffrey rushed out the door. Only when he pulled into his driveway did he realized Bec was stranded at the coffee shop with her car at the surgery.
Damn.
He looked at his phone. He wanted to believe she would be okay, catch a cab back to her car. The time flashed up, peak hour for rides going to the airport, she might be waiting for hours.
“Sorry, back in a sec to give you a lift,” he texted her and drove back. He refused to let his fear and negativity leave Bec stranded.
He saw her walking along the side of the road, head down and hand bag swinging. Clearly, she left right after him and either didn’t receive his message or didn’t care.
Geoffrey knew he’d been a self-satisfying jerk. The cancer diagnosis threw him and he had tried to impress himself and his friends by pushing everyone away and dealing with it on his own.
He pulled alongside Bec and tried to catch her attention through an open window.
“Go away!” she called out, picking up her pace.
Geoffrey slammed on his brakes, the squeal catching her attention, he pulled to the side and jumped out of the car, running to her side and grabbed hold of her arm.
“Bec, wait. I’m sorry. I was a jerk, and I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted, get out of my face and my life. Go ahead and fight it on your own and either live or die on your own. That’s what you’ve always wanted, right?” Bec threw off his arm and kept walking.
Geoffrey grabbed her again, “Bec, I don’t know what to tell you, I should never have left you here – get in the car so I can take you back.”
“You hurt me, more than I thought possible,” he recoiled as she screamed at him. “At first when you broke up with me I was hurt and confused but I loved you and wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“Bec, get in the car, give me a chance to explain or at least to take you back to your car.”
Bec’s tears refused to stay hidden anymore, falling unwanted down her cheeks. Emotionally spent and screamed out. She closed her eyes, yet the tears still fell.
She allowed Geoffrey to escort her into the car, for a moment welcoming his touch as he seated her and adjusted the seat belt around her. The familiar smell of the leather seats moulded around her body were more reminders of what she lost.
They pulled into the carpark and she quickly got out, rushing to her own car. Before she opened her door, Geoffrey stood before her, pulling her towards him, crushing her in his embrace.
It wasn’t fair, he smelt so – well – he smelt like Geoffrey. His scent invaded her senses and all the memories of meeting him, the plane trip, seeing him at the dinner and becoming a couple came flooding back. Actually, she admitted to herself, they had never gone away. After he broke her heart, she tried to lock all the memories inside a box in her heart. Only to be opened when she either felt self-indulgent and melancholy or if she was ever over him.
“Geoffrey, you have done your good deed for the day and delivered me back safely to my car. Thank you, now get the hell out of my life as quickly as you wanted to a month ago.”
It took all her resilience to try and push him away and escape his arms.
“Talking to you is hard and what I am about to do is the hardest thing I have ever done.” Geoffrey’s face so close to hers, she could almost taste his lips.
“Talking to me is hard? Then don’t bother and let me go.”
“Rebecca, I can’t let you go. I want you by my side, I want you in my life. Admitting that, saying those words is harder than watching my wife die, harder than living alone for the last 10 years and harder than hearing I have cancer.
“Rebecca, Bec, it took pushing you away for me to know I don’t want to live without living and without loving anymore.” He fought back his own tears, “It took you coming back to me today for me to realize I am the last person you might want to see but I need you to know.
“Rebecca, I love you. I want you in this fight with me.”
Bec saw the honesty in Geoffrey’s eyes before they closed and knew they deserved one more chance as his lips opened to take her and she surrendered to his kiss.
Trust the head or heart
Bec ran her tongue across her lips as they parted, she felt her heart pounding in her chest and wanted to trust the warnings screaming in her head.
Geoffrey finally admitted he wanted – no – he needed and loved her. Words she longed for after he pushed her away and now so easy to throw out to win her back. She wanted to succumb to the moment and to his arms, but it was too soon for both of them. Despite his cancer, he had to earn her trust, again.
“Geoff,” she kissed him softly on the cheek, the rough stubble teasing her lips. “Don’t keep saying words you don’t mean. You received some tough news from your doctor and you are reacting. You don’t love me anymore now than you did yesterday, a week ago or even a month ago when you broke up with me.”
“It was … I made a mistake,” his eyebrows narrowed together as he ran his fingers through hers, like he used to before they made love.
She shook him off, trying to keep some sort of distance between their bodies and hoping her own didn’t betray her. “Geoff, you were quite clear when you ended things between us, I accepted it and moved on. Now it’s time for you to do the same.”
Bec needed to leave quickly while Geoffrey was stunned and shaken enough to move aside while she got in. Her efforts to appear composed evaporated when she dropped her keys down th
e side of the car. “Damn.” Not a strong enough statement for the frustration of being stuck, looking for her keys and spending more time together before she could drive away.
“Hey, let me help,” Geoffrey knelt at the side with his arm stretched down for the keys. She couldn’t help running her fingers ever so gently through his hair. When he looked up he gave her the same smile from when he used to look up from between her legs. This time his gift to her keys and freedom.
“Thanks. I need to go.”
“Can I call you sometime, start again,” she resisted the pleading in his eyes and shook her head while starting the car. “C’mon, Bec, you can’t deny me – I need a friend – I got cancer!”
He showed off a forced pitiful look and she couldn’t help laughing. “Seriously? You are playing the ‘don’t walk away I have cancer’ card with me? Do you think this is my first fight with the dragon?”
“Does that mean I can call you?”
“You can call, don’t expect me to answer,” he jumped out of the way as she took off, the door closing as she turned out of the carpark driveway.
Perhaps he meant it, she thought, perhaps he did love her. Or perhaps he didn’t want to die alone and he thought she wouldn’t say “no.”
“Did you send her the flowers?” Geoffrey resisted Layla’s attempts to push him out the door until he got an answer.
“Yes, Professor, they would have been delivered this morning.”
“Has she called to thank me?” Now he delayed leaving by fumbling with his jacket, damn stupid piece of fabric, “Of course she will, she has the most beautiful manners, doesn’t she, of course she does.”
“Professor, you will be late for class. If you are late, the Vice Chancellor will ask Professor Phillips to take over for you for the rest of the semester.”
“He wouldn’t dare!” Geoffrey shouted, finally winning his battle with the jacket. “He needs me, the students demand me.”
“Professor,” Layla said softly, not knowing if he wanted to hear what she needed to say, “He might need you but if you keep pushing the boundaries of your relationship, he might decide he can live without you.
Geoffrey’s face was already pale from a month of radiation treatments. “Like I pushed Bec away, you mean. I told myself she needed me more than I needed her and now she won’t even thank me for flowers.”
“Well the good news is she hasn’t rung me to stop me from ordering them. She hasn’t cancelled them from the florist – and you have been sending them every day.”
There the problem lay, he had been too predictable, he slammed his fist against the doorframe, “Cancel all orders!”
“What? Now? Why,” if the look of surprise on Bec’s face when the flowers failed to show for the first time in a month was as huge or great as Layla’s, then perhaps he stood a chance.
“Please, Layla,” he said conspiratorially, “Cancel the flowers cancel all the future orders,” he winked as he left for class – his class.
Before she awoke, the scent of flowers throughout her unit reminded her of Geoffrey. He was her last thought at night and her first thought every morning.
He said he loved her, and pursued her like no other man ever had. Unbeknown to him, she developed a friendship with his secretary who kept her up to date with his treatments and his mood.
Every fact screamed she could trust him, but she could open herself up to him again.
“Dear, what is holding you back?” Layla asked her last week. Good question - she had been down this road before. Loved a man who pushed her away until he needed her strength to help him fight, and then through death he finally abandoned her.
That experience had hurt, emotionally and financially. She lost her heart and her way.
Until Geoffrey snapped her back into the real world and made her want to smile and laugh and live again.
Damn him, damn him for making her love him only to abandon her when he faced the dragon. Why didn’t he trust her then?
She rolled over and smothered her face with her pillow to cry out her frustration without the neighbors calling the police. There, she relaxed, the frustration lessoned, but the pain remained.
Predictable, she could almost set her alarm to the florist delivery. She opened the door to an armful of pink roses. “I think this guy is serious,” the delivery boy smiled as she signed for them, “We all have bets going on when you will say, ‘yes’.”
“Oh, you do, do you?” she laughed, “And what do you think?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“What if I do?”
He looked at her, this had gone past normal delivery person banter. “Do you really want to know?” he asked earnestly.
“Sure,” is this what she had come to – taking advice from randoms? “Give it a go. Do you want some coffee while you think about it?”
He came inside and she turned the machine on. Things could be worse than getting a stranger’s perspective on her non-existent relationship.
“Milk and sugar?”
“Both, white with two please. Thanks.” They sipped in silence as he stirred his cup.
“Okay, you’ve delivered over 30 bunches of flowers, I assume you have talked to him when he has ordered them, what’s your take?”
“Oh, I have never talked to him. No one has. His secretary calls with very precise instructions.”
Bec held her face as blankly as she could manage. Geoffrey set up a daily order with his secretary. No additional thought or care on his behalf other than a credit card bill. She was a game to him, not someone he thought about every day, wondering what flowers she would like.
“I see.”
“No, no, nothing like that. She has precise instructions because he doesn’t know how to tell us what he wants.”
“Go on.”
“The potted African Violets had to have the same blue grey as your eyes – and she sent us a photo for us to color match. We had to send her sample photos, so he could then pick the right ones.”
Bec looked over at the kitchen window sill where the pot found a home next to the ones from their first date. The flowers did match her eyes.
“The orchids needed to be the right shade of cream, the same as your hair. He insisted the natives be long lasting – guaranteed not to die for weeks, and the arrangement was to be topped up with fresh natives every week.”
“I see. And these pink roses?”
He shifted uncomfortably, “They needed to be the same shade as the softest lips.”
“Oh,” she sipped her coffee. The instructions sounded too personal and precise to be from a secretary. As lovely as Layla appeared, she couldn’t know how much Bec loved the natives which held their form and color. He was right – they were not dying. She hated the short lifespan, the futility of flowers given in a moment of love and dead before you could fully appreciate them.
“So, you were going to tell me when I was going to say ‘yes’.”
“If you don’t mind me saying,” again the uncomfortable shift, “You are playing a dangerous game and you aren’t going to win. He is spending a fortune trying to get your attention, clearly he has it or you would have thrown them out, given them away or refused to answer the door. At some point, he is going to give up and the flowers will stop. Then you will want to reach out to him, to thank him or to make things right but by then it will be too late. The flowers will stop, you’ll be alone and so will he.”
“You have thought a lot about this.”
“I’ve seen it before, a woman will ring with some excuse about going out of town and if we were planning on making any deliveries to her, she could give us an alternative address. She usually rings a week after the flowers stop. Then we have to tell her the order has been cancelled.”
“Oh,” she tried to hide the panic in her voice. “When does Geoffrey, I mean his assistant, place the order each day.”
“It came through yesterday for today and tomorrow.”
“Can I ask what I can expect for
tomorrow?”
She watched as he opened his device, furrowed brow and flicked between applications.
“Technology issues?” she asked helpfully and hopefully.
“I’m sorry, Miss. The order for tomorrow was going to be for red roses but it was cancelled. There are no future orders.”
Bec closed her eyes, too embarrassed to meet his eyes as he quickly finished his coffee and left. The closed door mocked her, the finality of the visit, the finality of any hope for a life with Geoffrey. Order cancelled, hope cancelled, future with Geoffrey cancelled.
The beautiful soft pink roses were boxed on her counter and deserved water. Each perfect petal reminded her of each perfect kiss, the softness of his skin against hers.
Now the natives were also mocking her – they were refusing to die even though after a month of deliveries, she lacked the space for more bouquets. For a month she joked with the other women at work about her unit being invaded by flowers, enjoying their jealousy as they recounted the last time they received any.
Bec shook herself and poured the cold coffee down the sink and gave the pot of violets some water. She couldn’t let them die.
She couldn’t watch Geoffrey die.
Time to get over herself and get ready for work, she got into the shower, trying to wash away all the negative thoughts, instead the water flowed with the tears now running unabated down her cheeks.
She loved Geoffrey. She loved how she could read his face, and know his thoughts even before he did. She loved his low, husky laugh – especially when he laughed at himself. Outside academia, he didn’t take himself seriously at all. Once she got to know him, she found his vulnerability endearing. He was intelligent, well read and the perfect companion over dinner, with friends or clients from any industry.
Trusting his Heart Page 9
