A Whirlwind of Color - Chapter 25 #2
This woman was the adorable one. Not Scarlett. Scarlett leered at me. Ellen was simply wonderful. Or she was an intruder that creepily knew way too much about my family. I was willing to take my chances though, because the omelet looked amazing.
“This is fantastic,” I said after taking my first bite.
Ellen stood up. “At least your taste buds haven’t forgotten what they like. That’s probably a good sign. I’m going to go make sure we have all the ingredients for your favorite meals all week. After all, if one sense comes back, surely the rest will follow.”
I wasn’t sure if that was true. But I hoped she was right. She could be. I hadn’t remembered liking mushrooms and peppers in my omelets. Yet, here I was devouring this one. I stopped mid-bite, my cheeks full of food, when I heard the front door open.
I swallowed down my bite without fully chewing and almost choked. I had no idea why I was nervous to see him. Maybe it was the letter I still had folded up in my hand. Or maybe it was the fact that I knew how badly I'd messed everything up. I just wanted today to be better.
James stepped into the living room in just a pair of running shorts and sneakers. No shirt. All the abs. Sweat dripped down the muscles in his chest. If I still had food in my mouth, I’m pretty sure it would have fallen out because my mouth was probably hanging open. Calm down.
Despite his hotness, he looked nervous, like he hadn’t expected to see me. And pale. His face looked really, super pale. “Hey,” he said.
“Good morning,” I said at the exact same time, blurring out his hello.
He smiled for the briefest of moments before it disappeared again. “Is it okay if I use the upstairs shower?”
“Um…yeah. Of course. I cleaned up the towels on the floor.”
“You didn’t have to do that. Ellen would have this morning.”
Good, he does know her. And then her name finally clicked in my brain.
But not because I remembered her from before.
It was because Rob had mentioned her to me.
He had joked around and pretended Ellen was James’ other wife.
It all made sense now. “Yes, Ellen seems very nice. But there’s no way I would have made her clean up after me.
It was my fault.” I thought about the letter I had read.
If I had tried to kill myself, the stunt I pulled in the bathroom was a thousand times worse.
He raised his left eyebrow at me. “She doesn’t mind, Penny. It’s her job.”
“But still.” The letter was burning a hole in my palm. Ask him.
“You’re supposed to be taking it easy. For a little while longer.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
He took a deep breath, his chest rising slightly.
That’s when I noticed the faded scar on his ribcage.
And the one on his stomach. But they weren’t as alarming as the scar right above his left peck.
It didn’t look old at all. I was pretty sure there were still stitches in it.
How had I not noticed that yesterday when he kissed me in the rain?
I swallowed hard. Well, I had been rather distracted.
I looked back up at his pale face and he immediately looked away from me. Like he didn’t want me to realize he was staring. Or maybe it was something a little more than that. Stop hiding things from me. “Where were you?”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “I’ve been doing physical therapy a few days a week.”
I tried to force myself to stop staring at his perfect hair. “For?”
“Penny, I’m fine. I’m not the one you need to worry about. You made it pretty clear why you came back.”
There was more to that sentence and we both knew it.
You made it pretty clear why you came back, and it wasn’t for me.
He was right. I came back for Scarlett and Liam.
But I was pulled to him too. It was like we were two sides of a magnet and he was drawing me in with his six pack abs and brooding smile.
“I’m going to go take that shower,” he said.
“When are you going to tell me what happened?” I stared at his pale face, willing him to tell me the truth.
“It’s not a long walk to the hospital. After I shower, maybe we can talk on our way over to see Liam?”
Liam. I bit the inside of my lip. I thought I’d have a bit more time to process everything before meeting my son. But I’d take what I could get. I nodded. “Yeah, that sounds good.”
He didn’t say anything else. He just walked away, giving me a wonderful view of his strong back and firm ass. I sighed and leaned back on the couch. James was the perfect storm. Giving me just enough to need more. I could feel myself being pulled closer to his chaos.
Him saying he wouldn’t sleep in the same bed as me?
Now I couldn’t seem to sleep without him.
Him saying he wouldn’t touch me? Now I wanted him to.
Desperately. I couldn’t just erase how I felt yesterday in his arms. I looked down at my half eaten omelet.
I was decidedly not hungry for anything but James.
***
I kept my arms folded across my chest so that I wouldn’t be tempted to reach for James’ hand.
Not that I could've even if I'd wanted to. He was keeping his distance from me. A whole person could fit between us on the sidewalk. And sometimes they did, almost knocking into me. God I hate New York. It was loud and crowded and…I glanced at James… lonely . I hadn’t expected it to feel so horribly lonely.
“Scarlett will be up in about an hour,” James said. “I’d like to be back before then. She hasn’t had a normal day in quite some time.”
“Of course.” It had been like this ever since we started our walk.
He wasn’t giving me anything. If I was going to learn about what happened, I needed to steer the conversation.
The hairs on the back of my neck rose as a chill ran down my spine.
I glanced over my shoulder. It was the same sensation I’d had in the apartment.
Like someone was watching me. Two of our security guards were a few paces behind us.
Certainly they were watching us. It’s just in my mind.
I turned my head back before I gave myself a chance to collide with anyone on the sidewalk.
This was my chance at getting answers, not pretending I was being followed.
“So someone tried to hurt me?” I wasn’t even sure if I believed that anymore.
I was pretty sure I had tried to hurt myself.
The note in my pocket was proof enough of that.
James looked straight ahead. “Dr. Nelson. Your OB-GYN. While you were pregnant with Liam, he said he found a heart murmur that had been there all along that was getting worse the longer you carried our son. He claimed your last OB-GYN was negligent not to tell us. But he made the whole thing up.”
“I don’t have a heart murmur then?” I didn’t know what that meant so I was happy it wasn’t true.
“You didn’t until him. He successfully gave you one as he slowly poisoned you and our son.”
Poisoned?
“Your heart murmur is mild again now, after the delivery. Your cardiologist believes you’ll have a normal, healthy life without any surgical intervention. We were lucky we figured out what was going on when we did. Before it was too late.”
All I heard were the words surgical intervention and before it was too late . I had almost died. This crazy doctor had poisoned me. And for what? “Why would a doctor do that? I don’t…”
“We think he wanted his practice to be number one. The OB-GYN you had for Scarlett retired, but his practice was still considered the best in the city, even though Dr. Nelson was now considered the best OB-GYN. He couldn’t shake the reputation of the practice, so he tried to deface them. By blaming your death on them.”
But I didn’t die. Right? I pinched the inside of my arm. I still had trouble believing this life was real sometimes. I couldn’t just embrace it as easily as everyone wanted me to. “You know all this and he’s still not in custody? Was it not enough proof?”
“No. We have all the proof we need. We have the whole thing recorded.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“The police think he skipped town. There’s a warrant out for his arrest.”
I glanced over my shoulder again. Was that why I felt like someone was watching me? Was it possible that Dr. Nelson was out there right now? I shook away the thought. “Do you think he’ll try to hurt me again?”
“We don’t know. But even if he does try, he won’t succeed.”
I should have been freaked out. I should have had more questions.
But I didn’t. Maybe because part of me still felt like I was dreaming.
That none of this was real. Besides for that nagging feeling that someone was watching me, I didn’t find his story alarming at all.
I didn’t even really know if I could trust his account.
I had a note that explained everything a little differently.
“So let me get this straight. A crazy doctor drugged me in an attempt to make it look like I had a slowly growing heart murmur that would lead to my untimely death?”
James finally looked over at me. “I guess that's the gist.”
I laughed.
He scowled.
“That’s the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard. He walked into our house with cameras everywhere and spiked my pills? He must have known he’d be caught. What a whack job. Hold on, so if I was poisoned, what happened to you?”
“Ellen swapped our weekly pill holders in our suitcases. I took a few days worth of the pills.”
“You didn’t notice the difference?”
“I thought Ellen just got a new brand of multivitamins. I didn’t think anything of it.”
He was absentminded. That much was clear. And apparently he relied on Ellen a lot. I wondered if he relied on me as much. “So I went into a coma, delivered a premature baby, and lost my ability to have any more children in my lifetime. What happened to you?”
He grimaced. I just wasn’t sure which part had upset him. “I’m fine,” he said.
“You’re not fine. I saw the stitches on the side of your chest. Your face gets pale when you exercise. And you keep running out of breath. You’re out of breath right now.” I grabbed his arm to stop him.
“I’m going to physical therapy. I’ll be fine soon enough.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Why? So you can make a joke of the whole thing like it doesn’t matter?
You were in a coma. You delivered a premature baby.
You lost the ability to have more children.
It’s not all about you . There’s another side to the story.
My wife who I love with every ounce of my being was in a coma for weeks.
I thought I was going to lose her. And she delivered a beautiful, helpless, broken little boy into this world without her.
I had no fucking idea what I was doing without you.
I don’t know how to take care of a baby by myself.
Let alone one as tiny and sick as him. And you didn’t just lose the ability to have children.
We lost the ability, Penny. We . There is no you and me, we’re an us.
We can’t have any more children. If we lose Liam, that’s it.
We don’t get another chance. So don’t make light of this situation. It’s not just your life, it’s ours.”
“I’m sorry.” It was a lame apology. It made it seem like I hadn’t listened to a single thing he'd said. Like his pain hadn’t shaken me to my core. “I’m sorry,” I said again, but it sounded just as lame as the first time.
He pulled his arm out of my grip and ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s fine.”
But it wasn’t fine. There was nothing fine about his demeanor. I had hurt him. Yet again. Apparently it was all I was capable of doing.
He started walking again and I had to jog to catch up to him.
“James, I do care. I didn’t mean to joke around about what happened. But of course I care.”
“I’m not asking you to care about me. You’ve made it pretty clear that isn’t something you want. All I’m asking is that you’re here for our son.” He stopped again and took a deep breath.
I tried not to cringe. I had the oddest sensation that I was just as likely to lose him as I was to lose Liam. And not in the loving sense. Clearly I had already lost him there. But he looked ill. Was he dying?
James leaned forward. For a second I thought he was going to kiss me.
My heart started beating so fast I thought it would break out of my ribcage.
The one kiss we had shared was seared into my brain.
I wanted another. I wanted him to press my back against the car again.
I wanted to feel the rain on my skin. I wanted to feel alive. He leaned even closer.
And then he opened up the door behind me, breaking the spell. He moved away as quickly as he had drawn close, and stepped inside of the building. More questions than answers swirled in my head. And now I was the one left out of breath.