CHAPTER THREE
SETH
We eat lunch like that, hands linked across the island, and I can't remember the last time I felt this present. This alive.
The afternoon passes too quickly. She finishes her work, and the whole time I follow her around like a shadow. I help her carry things and find excuses to touch her hand, her shoulder, and her waist.
She doesn't tell me to stop.
When she leaves to clean another of the cabins, promising to return to cook dinner at five, disappointment clenches hard in my gut. I know I shouldn’t, but I reach for my laptop just to check up on a few things.
Hours later Jennifer returns and catches me on the phone, and I feel like a little kid caught doing something wrong.
Which is ridiculous. I’m a grown man, probably a good ten years older than she is.
Yet, I also feel disappointed in myself when she silently frowns at my phone and goes into the kitchen without a word.
I hang up on my assistant, Bryan, and hurry after her. “I was only returning a few calls. I wasn’t overtaxing myself in any way.” I don’t mention the flutter in my chest as my temper climbed as my assistant droned on about the upcoming meeting that I would be missing.
“It’s none of my business,” Jennifer says smoothly, pulling items from the refrigerator.
That stops me. She’s correct; it isn’t, and there’s no reason for me to feel defensive about what I was doing. Still a pang vibrates through me, a craving for her to make it her business. I want her to care, dammit.
“Right,” I mutter, running a hand through my hair and turning away to go back to my phone, which is currently blowing up with messages from my assistant.
Stomping back to the bedroom, I send Bryan a fast text and then turn off my phone.
Dinner is plated and waiting for me when I return, and Jennifer is finishing washing up the last of the dishes. Mournfully, I look at the single plate and her unsmiling profile.
“Enjoy your dinner,” she says, pulling her keys from her pocket and heading to the door.
I beat her there and grip the doorknob in my hand. “Same time tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
I'm standing too close again, but I can't help it as I gaze down at her. “Jennifer?”
Wary brown eyes reluctantly meet mine. “Yeah?”
“Thank you. For today. For...” I gesture vaguely. “Being here.”
She smiles, soft and genuine. “You're welcome, Seth.”
After she leaves, I stand in the empty cabin and realize something.
It's not the rest that's causing me to feel more alive. It's not the quiet, or the lake, or the forced break from work.
It's her.
Jennifer, with her kind eyes and sweet smile and the way she makes me want to be present instead of always chasing the next goal. She makes me want to breathe. To live. To be more than just my company and my bank account.
I want her. Not just physically, though Lord knows I do. But I want her laughter, her conversation, and the way she looks at me like I'm a person, not a dollar sign or a business opportunity.
I eat my dinner of chicken and salad and then pace the cabin for hours, too restless to sit and too wired to sleep. When I finally go to bed at midnight, I lie awake thinking about tomorrow. About seeing her again.
About the fact that I have three and a half more weeks here, and then I'm supposed to go back to my old life.
Except I don't want my old life anymore.
I want whatever this is. This feeling of coming alive after years of just existing.
I want her.
***
I wake at 3:17 a.m. to pain.
Not sharp. Not sudden. Just a steadily building pressure in my chest that makes it hard to breathe. My heart is racing, hammering against my ribs like it's trying to escape.
This is it. This is how it happens, the end.
Fuck! It can’t end now.
My fingers clutch at the twisted, sweaty sheets as moisture leaks from my eyes to run down my cheeks as my chest hurts and hurts.
No, this can’t be it. Not when I just found Jennifer.
I sit up too fast, and the room spins. Fresh sweat breaks out across my forehead and runs down my back. I fumble for the lamp on the nightstand and knock over the water glass. It shatters on the floor, but I barely hear it.
Can't breathe. Can't fucking breathe.
My phone. Where's my phone? Should I call 911? But what if it's nothing? What if I'm just panicking and I waste their time and-
The pill organizer. Tuesday night. I grab it with shaking hands, pop out the small white tablet. Nitroglycerin. Under the tongue. The doctor said if I ever felt chest pain-
It dissolves bitter and metallic. I close my eyes, counting my breaths like the cardiologist taught me. In for four. Hold for four. Out for six.
In for four. Hold for four. Out for six.
The pressure doesn't ease.
My laptop is across the room on the desk. I could check my symptoms. But I know my symptoms. I memorized them in the hospital after the collapse. This could be angina. Or it could be another panic attack. Or it could be the big one.
In for four. Hold for four. Out for six.
I think about Jennifer. About how she smiled at me today over lunch, our hands linked across the island. About how she looked at me like I mattered, like I was more than my net worth or my company valuation.
I think about dying in this bed before I ever get to kiss her. Before I get to tell her what she's starting to mean to me.
Slowly, so slowly I almost don't notice, the vise around my chest begins to ease. My heart rate drops from hummingbird-fast to merely too fast. Some of my panic ebbs away.
I sit there in the lamplight, surrounded by broken glass and fear, and realize how close I still am to the edge.
One month. The doctor gave me one month to prove I could change, could slow down, and choose to live over achieving. But old habits die hard. I spent hours on my laptop today when Jennifer left. Checked email. Reviewed quarterly projections. Let myself get pulled back into the current.
And my body is reminding me what happens when I forget.
I get up carefully and test my legs. Steady enough. As I clean up the broken glass, my hands still tremble slightly. In the bathroom, I take my blood pressure with the monitor on the counter: 158 over 98. Not as bad as it was in the hospital (180 over 120), but not good. Not where it needs to be.
Back in bed, I stare at the ceiling and make myself face the truth: I'm not out of danger. Not even close. This reprieve, this month, it's not a vacation. It's a lifeline.
And I'm going to grab it with both hands.
When I finally fall back asleep sometime after four, my last thought is of Jennifer's smile and the way her hand felt in mine.
I have to get better.
I have to survive this.
Because now I have something worth living for.