Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Adam
“How long does it take to get a cab to the airport?” Ani, standing at the reception counter, asked the concierge.
It was the next morning, and I sat in an open lobby surrounded by potted palms, tropical-colored sofas, and bright parrot prints on the walls. As I sipped my coffee, I pretended that I hadn’t been hanging out waiting for her—Ani—to show.
I was not stalking her. Being the sole person who knew of her crisis, I felt a responsibility to check on her and make sure she was okay. But now, apparently, she was leaving and going back to face the chaos she’d left behind.
Good, I told myself. I was absolved of responsibility. Now go out there and get some sun.
I waited for relief to wash over me. After all, she was someone in the middle of a massive emotional crisis, and I was here for rest and relaxation, not to help a stranger who didn’t have anyone. Instead, I felt a strange twinge of disappointment.
Maybe I’d somehow gotten myself too wrapped up in her plight. Maybe I was sitting here because this woman, whom I didn’t even know, had done something for me that no one else had been able to do in the two years since Liv passed—woken me up from the dead in some supercharged manner.
Either way, I had no further obligation to help her. Even though that look in her eyes had haunted me, causing me to toss and turn all night. I sensed her absolute aloneness—because that was what I also had inside of myself.
The woman standing at the counter looked a lot different from yesterday.
Petite in stature, she wore a navy sleeveless shirt, jean shorts, and sandals.
She had a halo of blond curls—I never would have guessed that her hair was naturally curly—and no bird’s nests today.
She looked appealing and pretty, like someone ready to enjoy a week in the sun.
Plus, she had a really cute butt.
Which really startled me. Because I’d been fairly dead below the belt since Liv died.
But I swear, I was not interested in her that way.
“Could I please schedule the cab for two p.m.?” she asked.
Okay, she was definitely leaving. My heart sped up as it often did in the ER, and I found myself reacting before I could think. I stood up and intercepted her as she turned away from the concierge desk.
That was when I saw her face. She wore no makeup, and her eyes were puffy. But she was stunningly pretty, far moreso than with the cakey, heavy makeup she’d worn yesterday.
I should have known right then that I was in over my head.
“Oh hi, Adam,” she said in a friendly tone. “You don’t have to check on me—I’m fine.”
She’d called me out in her first sentence. “Great to hear it,” I said. She’d been blunt, so I would be too. “You’re leaving?”
She bit her lower lip in worry. “I’ve got to go back and deal with the mess I made.”
“That’s the physician in you talking.” Be careful, I cautioned myself. Don’t interfere. You don’t even know her. Yet I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
“What do you mean?”
“Responsible. Never giving up. That kind of thing. Most of us are like that.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Those aren’t bad traits.”
“No, but maybe sometimes it’s okay to let other people take care of things. After what you’ve been through, some might say it’s okay to take a few days off.”
“Wait.” She flicked her gaze up at me. “Did you say us?”
“I’m an ER doc.”
“Oh.” She took that in. “Well, thank you for checking on me. But I’m absolutely fine.”
“You look much better than yesterday,” I said. She looked amazing, period.
“In appearance maybe.” She tapped her head. “But in here, it’s still pretty wild.”
I laughed. I liked her self-deprecating humor.
And the fact that she was able to joke after all she’d been through.
It spoke of resilience, something I always respected in anyone because of my own situation.
“Hey, you’re dressed, and your hair looks really nice.
I mean, not like a bottle of glue got stuck in it. ”
She almost laughed at that. But not quite. Instead, she smoothed down her curls and said, “Well…guess I’d better go pack up.” But she didn’t move.
Before I could think about what I was doing, I seized the moment.
“Did you—did you have breakfast yet?” I could feel myself turning red, but I kept rambling.
“Because I haven’t. You should have breakfast—with me.
I mean, so that you don’t eat alone.” I couldn’t believe what I’d done.
But something in me just couldn’t let her go.
Again, I heard that warning voice in my head. What the hell are you doing, Adam?
I didn’t really know. But before I could beat myself up more, she said, “I am a little hungry, now that you mention it.”
We walked toward an outdoor restaurant surrounded by palm trees and took a seat overlooking a sparkling aquamarine ocean.
The water was calm, the breeze gentle, and the warm sun felt wonderful on my skin.
I told myself I was doing this for her, but who was I kidding?
Even knowing her such a brief time, I felt captivated, wanting to know more about her, not wanting to say goodbye forever.
Someone filled our cups with coffee. I looked over the menu but saw that Ani was staring off into the distance.
I shut I and set it down. “Not hungry?”
She smiled a little, but I could tell from her eyes that she was doing that on my behalf. “Coffee’s okay. Breakfast might be wasted on me.”
“Did you have dinner last night?”
“No.”
“Okay, I’m going to order us some things. And you can eat or not eat.”
“Honestly, I hope you don’t feel responsible for me—your basket-case seatmate on the plane.” She flicked her wrist dismissively. “I’m fine, really.”
I studied her carefully. “My guess is that you don’t like being fussed over.”
“Normally, I don’t need anyone to fuss over me.”
Independent. Strong. Those traits were coming out despite her crisis. But I needed her to understand something. “Look, I—I feel a little lost here. Helping you is giving me a little bit of purpose.” Or I’d be headed straight back on that plane today too. “So I’m just going to go for it, okay?”
She flashed a real smile this time, and it was a stunner. “Go for it.”
I went ham on breakfast and ordered crepes, eggs, fruit, yogurt, and a banana protein smoothie that she took a couple of sips of.
I distracted her by telling her random stories about how I chose medicine, how my mom raised me as a single mom, and how all I wanted was to see her retire and enjoy herself.
Ani looked at her watch. “Almost time to go.”
I didn’t know what to say. I’d just met her—who was I to want her to stay? But I did.
“I see it both ways,” she said.
I frowned. “See what?”
“I see a lot of chaos when I get back. And crying—not only from me. And friends trying to help me. Which means I’ll have to think about everything all the time. But here I have a lot of time to think too. So I don’t know what to do.”
“Exactly my problem.”
She assessed me carefully. “You’re really nice, but how do I know you’re not a serial killer?”
I opened my wallet. Handed her my hospital ID, my Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians, my driver’s license, my Giant Eagle card, and my library card.
She flipped through everything until she found the bright orange one at the back. “You have a library card?” She flipped it onto the table. “Then you must be okay.”
That made me wonder what kinds of books she liked. I found myself wanting to ask and felt guilty about it. Because I hadn’t been interested in anyone since Liv. But also because I shouldn’t be interested, of all women, in a runaway bride in the middle of a crisis.
“If I stay,” she said, “I don’t want to talk about Tyler, but I want to say one thing. He’s not a bad person, and I do love him. But he wasn’t my person. And he didn’t share my idea of a happy life.”
“What’s your idea of a happy life?” I couldn’t help asking.
“Happy chaos—you know, like, kids and dogs and…everything. That’s what I want someday—to be in the middle of the fray. Tyler envisioned our life as the kids having nannies and babysitters so we could have couple time over drinks every evening before we kissed our freshly bathed children goodnight.”
A cold sense of remorse hit me because I used to want that kind of happy chaos too. But not anymore. I could never give myself to anyone like that again, much less to a child. I was dead inside. Empty. I wasn’t exaggerating—that was the truth. But of course I kept that horrible fact to myself.
“Did you and Liv have any kids?” she asked.
“We were trying for a baby before Liv got sick, but it never happened.” Month after month when Liv found out she wasn’t pregnant, she’d cry.
That was heart wrenching, but even worse, the very day she was diagnosed with cancer, she’d looked up at me tearfully and said that it wasn’t ever meant to be.
That was an awful moment, the first of the heartbreak.
With a bitter taste in my mouth, I couldn’t help thinking that all our dreams and plans—our life together—was never meant to be.
I thought I was managing to keep my expression neutral, but Ani saw right through it. She reached over and squeezed my hand, her eyes filled with compassion. “I’m sorry.”
Her touch felt so good. No one had touched me in a long time.
People comfort you, but no one touches you—it’s just a line that most people don’t cross.
I didn’t realize how much I missed it. “It’s funny, how you believe you know how life is going to go.
You fall in love, you get married, you expect things without even thinking about it.
A house, a dog, kids. You don’t expect that the girl you knew since eighth grade would be gone forever by the time you were both thirty. ”