Chapter Seven #2
“You deserve someone who isn’t a workaholic, who won’t put their patients before you.”
“I don’t believe you would do that.”
“I would because it’s all I have.” My voice cracks as the pain tears through me.
She slowly turns around to face me. “What do you mean?” she says quietly.
“I told you before, there’s a reason I save lives.”
“What’s the reason?” she whispers.
I fist my hair with both hands. “I want to tell you, but I can’t. I’m sorry.”
There is so much pain in her eyes, but it’s not because of what I said to her; it’s for me.
She pushes through the water until she is in front of me, and she gently lays her hand on the side of my cheek, and I lean into it.
“I want you to know, I’ve never felt anything for a woman until you.
” I want to let her in, to see the real me, not just the put-together doctor that seems to have it all.
The mess that I am, the fears I have, the light inside me, all the way to my demons.
I want to tell her secrets I’ve never shared before.
“I’m not going anywhere; you’re stuck on this mountain with me, for now,” she says.
My throat tightens as I close my eyes, continuing to lean into her touch. “There’s no other place I’d rather be.”
The truth of those words radiates through my bones, and my eyes open to hers gazing up to me, on fire, but with the depths of the sea. Her other hand floats to my face as she frames it. “When we’re ready, we’ll know,” she says, and I enclose my arms around her and exhale.
After our hot spring moment, we wash our bodies and clothes, and sit around the fire inside the cave, while the other fire serves as our protector by the opening.
I’m shirtless and wearing the spare sweatpants Bill had in the survival kit.
Amanda talks more about Tyler, and I hang on to every word, knowing the emotional turmoil she feels being away from him.
Her eyes flicker to my chest several times.
“How does a thirty-three-year-old have so much experience as a neurosurgeon? Aren’t you kind of young in that field?”
“Yes. I graduated from medical school early…and basically everything else. I eat, sleep, and breathe brains and spines.”
She throws her head back in laughter. I slide my jacket on and am about to zip it up over my bare chest when she stops my hand. “What’s your tattoo?”
I drag my fingers over the rows of small, neat vertical lines on my chest. When I’ve been asked before, I never told anyone the real answer.
I’ve never wanted to, until her. I swallow and purse my lips.
“They’re for every life I’ve saved on the operating table.
” A weight lifts off my shoulders, and I feel lighter.
A weight that I’ve carried for a lifetime.
“Spencer,” she whispers as her eyes pour sympathy into mine. “How many?”
“There are 1,000 lines on my chest. I have forty more and counting for my next visit.”
Her eyes widen. “That’s incredible.”
There are so many things I want to say to her, so many things I want to share, but I don’t know how, or what sharing them will do to me.
Will the truth set me free? Or will it crumble the wall I’ve built for protection beyond repair?
I clear my throat. “Thank you.” I zip up my jacket and change the subject.
“What’s the weirdest food you’ve ever eaten? ”
We lie on our sides facing each other after a long period of silence, propped up on our elbows.
Her features grow dark, and her eyes are distant.
“Phil had me fooled for years, and it was right under my nose.” She grips a fistful of her jacket over her chest. With her eyes still not meeting mine, she says, “I would come into his work with Tyler on my hip, and she would play with him and say hello to me.” Her lips tremble, and she dips her chin, a tear rolling down her cheek.
“And two of his coworkers knew and never told me. H-how do you not tell someone that? How do you just sit there and watch a family get destroyed?” Her tone is haunting, and my chest hurts for her.
“I had my suspicions, and I questioned him at times, but he always had an excuse that added up and said I was overreacting. He spun his having an affair to me overreacting when I questioned him.” She spreads her fingers over her face before dropping them.
“So, I chose to believe him, but in my gut, I knew something was off.
“He’s a partner at an advertising agency, so he’s always had nights when he worked late.
So, it was an easy disguise. I asked him about a company event that we go to every year, and the flash of fear in his eyes told me everything I needed to know.
” She smiles bitterly through a clenched jaw.
“I noticed he had been more protective of his phone, keeping it on him rather than just letting it lie around. Of course, he had an acceptable excuse, that Tyler had gotten a hold of it and locked him out a few times. But I pulled our phone records and noticed that there were hundreds of calls and texts to a particular number.” She wrings her hands together as her eyes shift down.
“I knew who it was before I even called the number. And of course, it went to her voicemail, and I couldn’t control myself and left her a not-so-very-nice message, and well, what do you know, I was the problem.
I was the one falsely accusing this woman of something absurd and harassing her.
Leaving her a nasty message. He was more concerned about hurting her feelings.
” She laughs, then her lips pinch and pucker, like she’s sucking on a lemon.
She wipes a tear with the back of her hand, and my heart continues to ache for her.
“It was all just me again. And the phone records, of course, were just work related. Phil’s a charmer.
He could sell you anything, including to friends and family that I was the problem.
I was the one making up stories and was verbally abusive to him at home.
You know, setting the story up so he could just walk away scot-free. ”
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
“I lived like that for two years. Tyler was my saving grace, as I could pour everything into him. It was like I was in this weird state of disbelief limbo. Phil and I still had our good times throughout all of this, which made it even more confusing. We still had fun days as a family, still had good sex where we were connected. And that is what made it even scarier. It wasn’t like I was sleeping with a ghost or someone not present; he was.
It made me question everything, and there are still things I don’t understand. ”
I skim my fingers over her cheek.
“When I stopped in at his work late one evening and found his office door locked with her in it, it was like ripping off a Band-Aid. That was three years ago.”
“He’s clearly out of his mind,” I bite out as I brush my hand down her arm, the fabric of her jacket pulling under my fingertips.
“He’s a good father, though, as much as I hate to give him credit for anything.” She shakes her head and huffs. “They aren’t even together anymore. Fucking assholes.”
My heart beats thunderously, and it’s hard to breathe.
I sit up and take deep breaths as this odd feeling washes over me.
I feel like a cracked egg with the yolk seeping out.
She opened up to me; I should be comforting her, but my body is trembling from this release that is coming to the surface. “Spencer, what is it?”
“I was thirteen, and my parents were working in the garage. My two-year-old little sister, Aubrey, was napping in her crib. She was always a good sleeper and would nap for a few hours. She would stand in her crib and call for my mom when she woke up. My parents told me to come get them if they didn’t hear her.
They told me I could watch TV, but not to play video games because I got too distracted.
” My voice cracks, and I swallow down rising bile.
“I just got a new game for my birthday, so I didn’t listen to them, but I knew I would hear her calling to us.
” I cover my mouth and squeeze my eyes shut.
“She climbed silently out of her crib and walked behind the couch and slipped out back, opening a sliding glass door that no one knew she could do—again, silently. And she drowned in our swimming pool.” As the words leave my mouth, I don’t know if I said them out loud or in my head, and my entire body goes numb.
“Spencer,” she says in a soothing tone as tears roll down her cheeks.
“And that’s when everything changed. After that, my parents no longer loved me, and I no longer loved myself.”
“No parent stops loving their child, and that wasn’t your fault—”
“I disagree to both. My mother killed herself on the one-year anniversary of Aubrey’s death, and my father no longer wanted me, so I lived with my aunt and uncle. I have never told anyone the whole story before, only to a therapist a long time ago.”
She scooches closer and rubs my back. “Is that why you’re a doctor?”
“Yes. Saving lives is the only way I can live with the ones I ended. Two of the purest and kindest souls I know, who I loved more than anything, ended by my hand.”
“You didn’t end their lives, Spencer.”
“You don’t have to say that.”
“You. Didn’t.”
“So, you see, I can’t give you what you want.”
She shakes her head as the tears stream down her cheeks. “Spencer, that’s not true, you can, but beyond that, you have to believe that none of that was your fault.”