Chapter 26 #2
“I have my ‘anyone,’ thank you,” I say tartly.
How have I missed this, that everyone I know dislikes the man I crushed on for a little over a year?
Did I have my rose-tinted glasses on for all that time, yet again?
My stomach flip-flops a few times as I head toward the bathroom in the hallway and give the door a kick.
It’s Brad all over again. This is how it started with him.
My choices are clearly mangled. First, Brad seemed wonderful to me.
Then I spent less time with my family. With my parents and Cordell.
Then we moved away to a city I didn’t know.
I stopped working. Stopped doing what I loved because he wanted all of my hours.
Then I stopped having friends. I fell pregnant.
My beautiful baby is the best thing to come out of my marriage to Brad. The only good thing.
Then, once Sally was delivered and my attention shifted to her, the verbal attacks started. The emotional abuse. And that never ever stopped.
Then I walked. Her birth rewired my brain.
Even through the fog, I understood that something was wrong.
Or at least I tried to leave. But no matter what I did, Brad was the boomerang ex I couldn’t get away from because I needed a place to live.
And taking money from Cord? It seemed like such a bad idea then.
Because then I’d be beholden to the man who seemed to want to control my daughter.
Cord and I hadn’t gotten along for ages at that point.
And so I ended up living in Brad’s house, and getting a restraining order away from him.
Ugh. The jigsaw mess I’ve made of my life.
I kick the door again. “Tom? The nurse sent me up here. Someone answer me or else I’m abusing you for not being Tom.” I sip my coffee, retreat to the opposite wall, and wait.
The door opens a few minutes later. Tom emerges, his hands still damp as he wipes them on his scrubs.
They tremble the finest amount. His hair is lanky and greasy, and it hangs in thick strands about his face.
But it’s his face that shocks me. At least, at first. Then I look closer, and that’s the tip of the iceberg.
Deep, dark circles hang under his eyes set in a too-pale face that has nothing to do with shift work and too many late nights. Okay, so that last part isn’t strictly true, but it’s not everything that’s going on with my ex-crush.
Already high cheekbones are too prominent, gaunt and angular. And when I add all that information into the overload currently processing in my brain? His scrubs hang off him in drapes of loose pink material that weren’t that bad a few weeks ago.
The last time I studied this man properly.
Either my Hottie McNurse got real sick, real fast in the last few weeks, or he’s exerting control over something he shouldn’t be.
“Tom?” I offer my coffee. I know he hasn’t been sick but I ask anyway, “Are you feeling better?”
He looks at me in surprise. “I’m not sick, Winnie.”
Oh. A sense of sadness descends over me as a mothering sense replaces anger.
I force a smile I neither believe in nor feel.
“No, but I bet you’re both tired and worn out from last night, right?
I might have heard. This place, you know?
Sorry I wasn’t there. I sent some messages this morning, but I’m not sure how many made it through. ”
His shoulders shift under his shirt, little more than bones encased in pink cotton. “Yeah, I missed those. Kinda lost my phone last night after… you know. I didn’t have a great night,” he mutters. His eyes flick up to me in a hard stare that belies his words. Blaming. You weren’t there.
I’ve seen that stare before on another man, a man whom I loved, right before his whole person flipped. My stomach plummets.
“Oh, yeah. That sounds like it sucks,” I reply casually over the incessant beating in my chest cavity that attempts to drown out everything else.
I still want to help Tom, but the urge to back away from the sickness in him is strong.
I can’t fix him, but maybe I can still do something to help, even if I couldn’t with Brad.
“We drove back from my brother’s last night.
Crashed afterward, or I might have come out. Where are you playing next?”
His eyes dart along the corridor. “I’m not sure.”
“Really? I thought you had a calendar laid out with all your booked dates set up.” I smile, pretending like him that there’s nothing wrong even when it’s staring at us right in the face.
I wonder how long it’ll take him to tell me, but I suspect his denial phase will last for a long, long time. More time than I have.
“Yeah, I did. Listen, Winnie. I gotta get back to work…” Tom drifts toward the nurse’s station, where every one of them watches our interaction from a distance without butting in. Not one of them says a word or comes any closer.
I sip my coffee. “Sure you do.” I pull my phone out and send a message off to Keith. He replies fast enough that he shoots to the top of my friends list for freaking ever.
Done.
I sigh my relief.
“Well, that’s good, then.” Tom edges away.
“Hey, you got any of those chicken sandwiches with you?” I follow him along the hallway, keeping my steps easy and light. Keep sipping my coffee even though it’s nearly all gone. I can play this game too, and pretend all day long. It’s all too easy to fall into old habits.
“No. No, not today. Sorry about that.” Tom takes another step away from me.
“It’s okay.” I amble forward.
Once that would have hurt, my need to chase him rising. Was that what I’ve been doing? Damn. I do need to reset my expectations. Later, though. When I have a cowboy in front of me covered in Coyote dust.
“I really need to go. Don’t you have somewhere else to be right now?” Desperation edges into Tom’s tone when he can’t shake my stalker paramedic ass.
“Winnie! I’m glad I found you. Great going last night, man.” Keith jogs along the hall and claps a hand to Tom’s shoulder. I swear the touch goes right through. Keith’s face would be comical if his expression weren’t so puppy-eyes sad. He nods to me. “Good coffee?”
“The best.” My smile is tight. My whole face.
“Great.”
Tom looks between us as we bar his escape on either side of the hallway. “It’s not even six a.m. Can’t you two find something else to do?” He frowns at the dark-haired woman who steps up to my side, her arms full of forms and clipboards. “It’s not like this is an—”
“Intervention?” I smile wanly. “Yeah, Tom. It is. And from what I hear, it’s been needed for a while now.
Not because of the gigs or the drinking or the attitude toward others, even though those things can all be fixed too.
I mean, the ‘feeding me when you never feed yourself’ thing.
Going into the toilets and throwing up. The weight loss, so rapid that I’ve been away and busy for a few weeks and I can see a marked difference in you.
Not just in weight, but in muscle mass and your general health.
But also the denial.” I step back at that point and let Demi argue with him.
Because Tom does argue. Again and again and again.
Keith stands beside me the entire time. “You did good, kid.” He squeezes my shoulder as I clutch an empty coffee cup I can’t put down.
“I missed an eating disorder in a man I crushed on for a year who sings shirtless in clubs onstage. What kind of medic am I?” I shove the words out, disgusted with myself on more than one front.
Keith shrugs as though our previous argument meant nothing. Not to me. Every miss eats at my conscience. “Yeah, but you did figure it out. Not everything is cut-and-dried. You know that, right? Not everything is perfect or simple.”
But what if I want it to be?
I stand there and watch, beyond useless and utterly helpless, as one of our own is led away to whatever future he has left, for now.
And… I’m not going to be there with him.
Tom throws me a piteous glance over his shoulder, seeking something—reassurance, support, love—but I have nothing to give.
I’ve been back a handful of hours and I’m already running on empty.
I want to fall into West’s arms and cry.
Instead, I let Tom be taken away, and I do nothing at all.