Chapter 36
T he door shuts behind her and I collapse against it only to slam my fist into the wood.
It doesn’t splinter and it doesn’t crack because the fucker is made out of solid wood.
All that means is that my fist stings something fierce and that only seems to fuel my rage more.
When I received the phone call this morning, I wasn’t expecting it.
I had been checking my email, searching for the blanket “thanks for your application, but unfortunately, it’s not you” letter.
Instead, I got the phone call telling me I’d won the grant and before I could even begin to process the man’s words, there were knocks on my door. The hospital had already been notified and Grosspotter as well as the entire department were there, practically throwing me a parade.
Hope and desire have dragged me into dangerous places before, but this might be the worst of them yet.
I want this grant. For so much more than just the prestige or experience of it.
When I think of the lives I could impact…
I want this grant. Raven and this type of work are all I’ve been focused on for four years.
Ever since that night in the alley. I wanted to help them. I wanted to save that child. And I would have done both without involving the hospital if that terrified father had given me the opportunity. I tried to relay that.
I failed.
He shot me in a moment of panic—I saw it all play out in his eyes—and then my life was forever changed. One moment. One rash decision. That’s all it takes sometimes. I’m a Fritz. A man with endless money and endless resources. But what did he have? What did his family have?
I have so much power to fix things. And that’s what this grant was meant to do for me.
Idealistically help change the world to be a more medically balanced place—even on a small scale, piece by piece.
There is a fountain of people out there who do not have access to healthcare or are afraid to access it for one reason or another, and I was determined to change that.
Then Raven came back into my life.
Then I won this grant.
And now…
“Fuck,” I hiss, clenching my eyes shut and picturing her.
The way she looked at me cuts me deep. I saw it all splash across her face with the subtlety of a drive-by shooting.
The familiar glimmer of betrayal in her eyes.
The sadness in the furrow of her brow. The steadfast determination in the hard set of her mouth.
I saw it all that night in the bar four years ago too.
But then… then she bled outwardly for me. Today, my Little Bird was trying to hold it all back. And that alone has my insides revolting. How much can I hurt one person? How many times can I test her trust, her love, before I lose them both for good?
Would I stay if she asked me to? Would I throw away this grant, this opportunity just like that? Conversely, can I truly go and leave her here? Would there be anything to come back to if I did?
My fist pounds again, thumping as hard as my heart does in my chest.
She called this my Conservatory and she’s not wrong. Four years ago, I made the choice for her to go, knowing what it would mean for her life.
What have I done?
I can’t let her walk away from me like that. Even if I don’t have all the answers yet, I can’t let her walk away.
Ripping the door practically from its hinges, I race out into the main room and then the hallway, searching left and right.
Shit. I’m such a fool. My badge hits the keypad and then I’m slamming my hand into the elevator button.
Fuck! How many minutes did I let go by? Dammit, she could already be at rehearsal, and I can’t go barging in there. Can I?
No. She’d kick my ass for that and rightfully so.
The elevator finally opens and after stopping on practically every goddamn floor, I sprint out of the hospital, heading up toward Huntington.
The icy wind bites at my face and the bare skin of my arms. Scrubs in thirty-five-degree weather isn’t ideal, but I hardly register it as I reach the street and see the Greenline stopping, Raven getting on.
I fly out into the street, narrowly missing getting hit by a car.
Horns blast at me as I reach the center island of the street, yelling out for the T conductor to wait for me.
I climb on, panting for my life, and wince when the guy asks me for my T-pass.
Shit. I don’t have a fucking T-pass because I never ride the fucking T.
I’m an asshole, entitled Fritz. I drive or Uber or hell, have someone drive me.
“Here,” I tell the conductor, watching as Raven heads toward the back of the train, her large cello perched on her back, oblivious to any commotion I’ve created.
Pulling out my wallet, I hand the guy a hundred and tell him to keep the change.
He stares at me like I’m crazy, but smartly doesn’t stop me as I weave in and out of people to get to her.
“Raven!” I call out as two massive dudebros who look like they live in the gym stand in my way, gruffly being dicks for no other reason than they can be about moving so I can get past them.
Her head whips around, her cerulean eyes wide as they lock on mine. She’s so fucking pretty, my breath catches and I inadvertently smile.
“What are you doing here?”
“Trying to get past these two Gamorreans.”
“What did you call us?” one of them barks and I nearly roll my eyes.
“They were Jabba the Hutt’s security. Look them up.” I meet his eyes. “Do you really want to do this?” The look in mine tells him he doesn’t and finally he relents an inch, allowing me to push him aside and thrust through the narrow pathway as the T shakes and ambles along the street.
“That’s Luca Fritz,” someone murmurs, but I don’t care enough about being recognized to remove my eyes from Raven’s. She’s standing in the center of the aisle, staring at me, nervous indecision warring across her pretty face.
When I reach her, one hand slips around her waist, the other up along her face and into her hair. “I wasn’t done talking.”
She shakes her head. “Not now, okay? Not here.” She nervously glances around, noting the people staring at us.
“I have rehearsal. I can’t talk about this—” I silence her with a soul-stealing kiss.
Right here on the T in front of everyone who is likely snapping pics or taking videos.
Who cares? She’s mine. Let the world fucking know it already.
“What if I go?” I breathe against her.
“Then I’ll be here.”
“What if I stay?”
“Then you have to do that for yourself. You didn’t want me to resent you. This is your Conservatory, Luca. I get it. I understand it. But I won’t do to you what you did to me. Every choice we make has consequences. And even now looking back…”
I know what she’s saying. Was I right to do what I did?
She’s here and she’s happy and yes, part of her is grateful for what I did for her.
At least I hope it is because… she’s so much.
She became her own person. Her own woman.
Fiercely strong and independent. Her talent recognized and revered.
But could she have still become all of this without London?
Without the Conservatory? Part of her will always wonder.
She grazes her fingers over my face. My lips. My heart. “A bird that you set free may be caught again, but a word that escapes your lips will not return.”
My hands meet her face, and my lips are on hers, bruising in their ferocity.
She kisses me back equally as intense. I don’t want to let go.
I’m terrified this could be it even if we say we’ll make the two years apart somehow work.
It’s two years. Life can change on you in an instant.
Think of all that’s possible in two years.
All you have the potential to lose.
“Luca.” She sags into me, gripping my shoulders as the train jostles us about. “I don’t want you to give up—”
I silence her again with my lips. “Raven Fairchild, shut your beautiful mouth and let me tell you that I love you. That I don’t know what I’m going to do just yet.
That I have so much to think about. I didn’t think I’d get this.
I promise you, I did not. I assumed they liked my name among the finalists and that would be that.
So, I just need a little time, baby. That’s all I’m asking for. But don’t… do not give up on me.”
Raven’s gaze burns into me, tears clinging so delicately yet so boldly to her eyes, refusing to fall.
A noise cuts through and it takes each of us a moment to realize that it’s a camera clicking and that no one is talking.
That the only sound besides the blood rushing through my ears is the rumbling of the train on the tracks.
We have a very public audience. An audience that is filming us. Photographing us.
In my moment of panic, I didn’t think, and I didn’t care.
Hell, I still don’t. But Raven does. I know she does. She doesn’t want to be plastered across some trashy magazine calling her my girl of the week or speculating about her.
I cup the back of her head and press her into my chest, doing my best to shield her. “Christ. I can’t stop fucking things up with you. Can I?”
“How are you this famous?”
I chuckle, my lips in her hair. “Fuck if I know. Carter and Landon especially think it’s absurd. Most of the time, I just ignore it.”
“This is going to be everywhere.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Clearly, I keep finding new and inventive ways to make your day brighter.”
She giggles into me; her fists clenching my scrub top and thank God. She’s still here. She’s still holding on. She’s not running from me.
“I want you, Raven. This is not me choosing something over you. Please know that. I’m not abandoning you. No matter what I do, we’ll figure it out. Together.”
A nod. That’s it.
The T comes to a stop and with it the shuffling of people all around us. I shift us to the corner, keeping my back to the car and her tucked into my chest, hidden from view. The T starts to move again, and I hold her the entire ride up to Symphony Hall, both of us holding our tongues.
I walk her inside and kiss her again before I’m forced to leave. But right as I turn to go, she grabs ahold of me again, dragging me back. “Find me when you’ve made your decision and we’ll talk more then. Until then I need time of my own. And space.”
I don’t want to agree to that. I need her now more than I think I ever have. I need to feel her close and know she’s not slipping through my fingers while I work this all out for us, but I understand her asking this and I nod.
I leave her here, my heart thrashing violently from within me.
I return to the hospital, round on a few patients, smile through the congratulatory texts and phone calls and pats on the back, grab my stuff, and head around the block to see my mom. My mind is still spinning, my thoughts stringing me in a hundred different directions.
Right before I enter the building, Kaplan and Landon are walking out.
“She’s sleeping,” Landon says by way of a greeting.
“Dad is with her now, but they ran all kinds of tests and things today and she’s wiped.
She’s back up on the floor, though, so that’s a good thing and they said depending on the results of her scans and tests, she might be able to go home the day after tomorrow. ”
“Thank Christ for that. Maybe I’ll hold off on visiting her then. Go in later or first thing tomorrow. I’m working here tomorrow anyway.”
“Probably a good idea,” Kaplan agrees. “She’s going to have a long road ahead of her, but she’ll get there.”
“Let’s hope this is the last major scare she gives us for quite some time,” Landon intones.
No kidding. “I won a major grant today and could possibly lose the love of my life. Anyone up for a burger and a beer?”
“Raven said she wouldn’t stay with you?” Kaplan stares at me as if I just grew horns before his eyes. “I spoke with her today. Told her all about the grant. I assumed she was asking so many questions because she was either planning on going with you or sticking it out with you.”
“She hasn’t said either way about sticking it out with me, but she’s not coming with me.”
“Shit. What will you do?”
“I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to accept it or not. What? Why do you look so shocked?”
“I don’t know. Because the Treesprite Grant isn’t something you turn down.”
“Thanks, Kap. Very helpful.”
“Just keeping it real. Was Raven okay? Poor girl is so blindly and foolishly in love with you.” Kaplan shrugs when I flip him off. “I just feel like she could do better.”
“You mean like you?” Landon quips.
“That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard in my life. No. Not me. But definitely someone else.”
I punch his shoulder. Hard. “Thanks, brother. Always appreciate the love and support.”
“Fine. How’s this? You went four years without each other. What’s another two?”
I shake my head as we fight the wind, heading up toward Mission Hill and the pub across the way. “Not helping. And not possible.”
“Then I guess a burger and a beer it is. On me. At least until you figure the rest of your mess out.”