Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
Eva
“Sweetie, I’m telling you, it was all over Vogue - black and blue are in.
A little bit of MAC, and some lip gloss, and no one will ever notice those bruises” Gwen teases as she sits in the chair across the room.
I start to laugh, but I’m cut off by the pain which immediately fills my rib cage.
Wincing, the nurse checking my vitals stops to monitor me.
After a few short breaths, she waits until my face relaxes back to normal before going back to the work she was doing.
“Don’t make me laugh, I can’t take the pain,” I groan at Gwen, who watches over the nurse’s actions like a protective older sister.
I don’t know how she did it, but somehow Gwen snuck past security early and was let in to visit me a little after 6:30 this morning.
I wasn’t sleeping, so the visit was a welcome surprise.
Last night, after my mother, father and brother left, I fell asleep for a while, but woke up around 2 a.m. in horrible pain.
When the meds the on-call nurse brought me finally kicked in, I was left with my thoughts.
Thoughts of giving up everything I built my whole world around for someone I can’t live without.
“A few more hours until we can give you some more meds. Is there anything else you need?” the nurse asks as she finishes her tasks.
I just shake my head. She picks up the water jug on the hospital table next to me and shakes it.
“I will bring you some more water.” Glancing at Gwen she pauses briefly before looking back at me and making her way toward the door.
“Try and get some rest, okay. You don’t need a lot of activity. ”
I nod as she disappears behind the curtain blocking the doorway. Once she’s gone, Gwen immediately starts to make her way back to my side. She comes to a stop by my bed and takes a moment before speaking. “I don’t like her. She looks at me like I’m trouble.”
I smile. “You are trouble.”
She shrugs her shoulders and paces around the small bedroom space, glancing at my vitals, then at the items on the sink across the room. Finally, she makes her way to the window and stares out at the storm still brewing since yesterday. A look I can’t read hangs in her eyes.
“You okay?” I ask. She spins around to look at me, confusion hangs in her eyes, but behind it, there is sadness
“You’re asking me that, look at you,” she laughs gesturing toward the bed. “You need to focus on getting you better. Don’t you even think about me right now. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
She comes back over to the bed and sits down. Tears well in her eyes as she fidgets with a string on the hem of the blanket hanging off the hospital bed. Her phone alerts to a text, and I watch, wondering what she is hiding as she reads it quickly before looking up at me.
“Michael and Rex are on their way with your parents. I suppose Noah will be here soon, too.” Her eyes roll as she sets her phone back down next to her. My heart beats to an anxious rhythm at the thought of seeing Noah again.
“Noah?” I ask. “Was he here yesterday, too?”
Gwen shrugs, and I try to fight back the emotions her nonchalant shrug provokes. Sadness. Regret. Heartache. They rise inside until I find it hard to breathe. Pushing my feelings aside, I look across the room and stare at a crack in the wall.
“What happened yesterday?” Gwen asks. I glance over to see her finishing typing out a text. She sets down her phone and says, “Why were you driving so fast? What were you running from?”
My head falls back against the hospital bed as memories resurface. The phone call. The drive to Gatsby’s. Our fight. My need to outrace the world around me.
“Did he do this? Did he hurt you?” Gwen asks bitterly.
Did he? No. He didn’t. I hurt myself by never letting go. By continuing to chase a dream that eventually became so insignificant compared to our love. But, how do you put that into words? How do you explain something to someone that you are still struggling to understand yourself?
The more I wrap my brain around it, the more I sound childish, stupid, and selfish.
Admitting I’ve made this mistake is more than just saying I’m sorry.
It’s coming to terms with a person I can’t believe I let myself become.
A person who was so wrapped up in themself, they couldn’t see all they ever wanted, all they ever dreamed, was already standing right in front of them.
“No,” I whisper. “Noah didn’t do this.”
“What happened then?” my best friend insists.
“I got a call for a job in L.A,” I explain, figuring the best place to start is at the beginning.
Gwen sits up tall. “What?”
I nod. Closing my eyes, I feel a few tears fall down my cheeks. I bring my right hand up and wipe them away, but they keep falling. Gwen stands and grabs some tissue. Handing it to me, she sits and waits to hear more.
“You know, I never stopped applying at the L.A. Times.” I start to shred the tissue in my hand a little as I gather my thoughts. Through hiccuped tears, I keep my confession going. “They called, and wanted to interview me.”
“Eva, that’s awesome. Oh my God! Your dream girl!”
I close my eyes wincing at her use of the word dream. I nod a few times as the hurt of letting go rises inside. I take a few deep breaths before continuing.
“So,” I continue through sobs. “I raced over to tell Noah. I mean I had never mentioned it to him before or anything. I had been applying down there for so long, I honestly never really thought it would happen, you know? But it did, and all I wanted to do was share it with him. Even after…”
My voice trails off as my head falls forward and I cry a little harder.
Gwen scoots her chair a little closer. I look up as she nods her head for me to continue. Blowing out a breath, I smile at how silly most of this might sound to someone else. At how stupid I feel finally coming to terms with it myself.
“Well,” I smile sarcastically. “When I got there, he didn’t exactly want to talk to me. I turned off my phone all weekend and I hadn’t said a word to him after everything happened between us at my party.”
“Really?” Gwen asks surprised.
I shrug again and look down at my hands still shredding the tissue. “I didn’t know what to say. I gave him the cold shoulder after not remembering what I said the night before. And then all that happened with Trevor.”
I blow out a breath and look up.
“Well, you can’t blame the guy then, can you?” She asks bluntly. I know she’s right, but it hurts to hear the truth.
“Then I told him I got a call for a job in LA. To say he was less than thrilled is an understatement,” I laugh sarcastically.
“Well, I don’t blame him for that either. So what are you going to do?” Gwen asks, taking a side I didn’t believe she ever would.
I shrug, remembering her words from almost a week ago.
“If you tell me your dreams are to marry the sexy, southern, tall, construction-working, hot volunteer firefighter from Kentucky and have a million babies, possibly being barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen the rest of your life, I’ll respect that. But I won’t accept it.”
How can I tell her honestly the way I feel now and have her believe me?
Sitting back in her chair she lets out an exasperated sigh, “God, you really love him, don’t you?”
Silence stretches between us. In it, I hear my grandmother.
Your road doesn’t lead here anymore.
“I can’t live without him,” I cry..
Gwen blows out a breath. Sitting up straight, she taps her fingers on the edge of her chair. “Okay. But then what about L.A.?”
I look out the window. My life has forever been changed by one man.
If Noah and I stand a chance at reconciling, I have to let go of my dream.
It’s an easy choice to make, because I’ve finally realized, he’s my dream.
My life would be empty without him. If I went to L.A.
, it would no longer feel like home because - he’s my home.
“That dream, it can’t work,” I say sternly.
“It was never meant to be. People change. No matter what, I’ve got to let go.
I’ve got to leave it behind. There is no use fighting anymore.
Not when I feel the way I do. This time, my mind’s made up, and nothing and no one can change it.
It’s time to say goodbye. Goodbye to what I’ve held onto for far too long. ”
Gwen leans in and rests her elbows on her knees. “If you’re sure?” I hear her ask me.
I nod my head. “I’ve never been more sure of any decision I’ve ever made in my entire life.”
She nods her head as the nurse comes back through the curtain leading out into the hall.
She hands me my cup, now full of water, and I take a sip.
She goes back to work checking on my bandages.
I look over at Gwen. She smiles like she has finally received the confirmation she needed to hear all along about my feelings for Noah.
“Well, I say you’re about to embark on a new adventure neither one of us saw coming then,” Gwen grins.
My smile matches hers as she goes back to checking her phone.
Blushing, her smirk grows as a new text comes in.
I sit in silence with my new decision. Oddly, the dream that used to weigh down my heart finally set me free when I released it.
Letting go, I feel empowered. Undefined.
Like the whole world is mine for the taking.
Not just the little slice that I thought I always wanted.
A moment later, Michael rounds the corner through the curtain into my room.
Hot on his heels is my mom and dad with flowers in their arms and worried looks on their faces.
Michael hands me one of two Starbucks cups he is holding.
I take it, and notice a small piece of my heart breaks when I look behind the three of them, and wait for a face that I begin to fear might never show.