Chapter Sixteen
Elise woke to the soft swish, swish of someone moving around her bedroom.
Which would’ve been concerning, especially since the last thing she remembered was climbing into her bed last night, alone.
But it wasn’t. In fact, she didn’t even have to wait for her eyes to finally un-blur to know Harper was shuffling around her bedroom.
“Morning,” Elise muttered. Her head felt cottony, but not terrible. A mild rolling in her stomach reminded her that she’d spent most of yesterday with either her head in the toilet bowl or trying to look at the horizon.
“You’re awake,” Harper said, catching her eye. She was standing at the end of the bed, bent over and fussing with a tray.
“Well, I’m not dead,” Elise said, sitting up. Her body felt like a truck had run over her a few times. “Not yet anyway.”
Harper placed the tray on Elise’s lap and a glass of water with a slice of lemon floating in it on the bedside table.
Elise looked down and felt her heart swell a few sizes.
The toast was cut into perfect halves. A tiny bowl of strawberries sat beside three slices of deliciously ripe-looking melon, and there was a handful of macadamia nuts in a small ceramic bowl.
“How’s your stomach?”
“Like someone took it out of my body, placed it through a grinder and shoved it back in place again,” Elise said, running a hand through her curls.
They were knotted beyond the capabilities of her fingers.
She needed a leave-in conditioner and a detangling brush ASAP to fix the bramble patch that was her hair.
Harper laughed. It was warm and breezy, and if Elise hadn’t already been feeling better, she probably would have right then and there.
“Well, you look a million times better,” Harper said. “Yesterday you were the same color as two-month-old feta.”
Elise lifted a limp hand toward the tray. “Where did you find all this?”
“I made a little pit stop at the villa kitchen,” Harper replied. “Ursula cooked up a storm. I could’ve gotten you a truffled goat cheese omelet, but I thought it might be a little too rich for your stomach.”
“You thought right,” Elise muttered. Harper was treating her like a Victorian convalescent.
All she needed was a fainting couch and a bell to ring.
“Thank you.” She picked up a strawberry that Harper had cut in half and brought it to her lips.
It was both sweet and sour and soothing.
“Not just for the food,” Elise added once she’d swallowed. “For everything.”
Not only had Harper held her hair back, rubbed soothing circles between her shoulder blades, forced her to stare at the horizon, and escorted her off the boat, but she’d also walked her back to her house, tucked her under the covers, made her a cup of black tea, and organized Gillian to step in for the rest of the day.
At some point, when Elise had stopped feeling like she was being tossed around in a giant-sized cement mixer, she’d found herself staring at her cell phone screen, waiting for an explosion. And when there hadn’t been any emergencies, she’d actually felt disappointed.
It was then that she’d realized with startling clarity that a major part of what she enjoyed about her job was being needed. Was that healthy? Elise had no idea. She made a point to ask her therapist once she got back to LA.
“The group date is starting in an hour,” Harper said, sitting down on the bed beside her. She squeezed Elise’s ankle, which felt so delectable she nearly groaned over her toast. “Are you up for work today or—”
There was a sudden, loud knock on the front door. Elise barely had time to catch Harper’s eye when Monica called, “Elise. Are you in there? Code blue.”
Code blue? What the hell was code blue?
Elise scrambled out of bed so fast her vision wobbled.
For a second, the floor tipped, and her knees swayed.
She was on her way down. But then Harper caught her by the elbow.
“Take it easy,” she said, looking concerned, which once again had Elise melting.
Had Michael or Daniel ever looked at her like that?
Like they would lie down on the floor to cushion her fall?
No, she decided. They had most definitely not.
“You’re still weak from yesterday, remember,” Harper added.
Elise nodded and smiled. “You’re making it a habit of saving my life.”
Harper chuckled. “You’re worth saving.”
If she melted anymore, she’d be a puddle. Elise fanned her face, fought the urge to kiss Harper, and slipped into the living room. She’d barely pulled open the door before Monica stepped past her.
“We’ve got a big—” She stopped in her tracks when she saw Harper walk out of the bedroom. “Oh,” Monica said, frowning. “I didn’t know you were—”
But Elise didn’t let her finish her sentence. Or allow Harper to say something. In fact, she wished Harper had stayed out of sight. She was entirely surprised by this, considering how mushy for Harper she’d felt just a second ago.
“Harper’s just showing me some photo edits from last night’s rose ceremony,” Elise said, her voice a little too high, a little too fast. The last thing she wanted was for Monica to think something was going on between them.
Which there was. There were a whole lot of things. Both physically and emotionally.
Elise didn’t catch Harper’s gaze but could feel her eyes burning holes into the side of her face. “What’s the emergency?” she asked, clearing her suddenly dry throat.
With reluctance, Monica tore her gaze off Harper and said, “Megan is freaking out. She’s refusing to come out of her bedroom and says she won’t participate in the next date.”
“Why?” Elise stammered. Just as she thought everything was going according to plan, a bomb had to detonate. She refused to admit that a tiny part of her was secretly pleased to feel indispensable. She was needed. That much was clear.
Monica touched her fingertip to Harper’s camera that was resting on the four-seater circular dining table. “She thinks she sent home the wrong contestant last night.”
“You mean Nadia?” Elise asked, vaguely remembering Gillian’s text after the rose ceremony. Something like Nadia out. Girls r shocked. It had been a shock because Nadia had been one of the favorites. Elise had forgotten all about the text until now.
“Yes,” Monica said. “She said she had a dream last night, and apparently in her dream she was getting married to Nadia. Now she believes she sent home her soulmate.”
“Megan is a pediatric surgeon,” Elise said without thought. Apparently, years of medical training hadn’t made her immune to spiritual revelations.
“I know,” Monica said, nodding.
Harper made a little throat-clearing sound and seemed like she wanted to add in her two cents, but Elise cut in before she could say anything at all. “I’ll go speak to her,” she said, already walking back to her bedroom to put on a bra.
~~
Megan wasn’t a pretty crier. Elise knew that sounded cruel, even in her own head. But sitting on the carpeted floor beside her, she couldn’t ignore the way vivid blotches crept up Megan’s neck like some skin disease.
“I think Nadia might be the one,” Megan muttered into her palms. She had her knees up, her back pressed against the foot of a saffron-colored chaise, and her hair stuck to her cheeks in damp strands.
“I made a huge mistake sending her home last night. I don’t know what I was thinking.
Clearly I wasn’t…” Her voice cracked, and the last word collapsed into a small sob.
“Okay,” Elise said softly. She almost reached for Megan’s hair to stroke it in a motherly kind of fashion, but that would’ve felt too awkward. Elise wasn’t the motherly type at all. “Walk me through it again. Slowly.”
Megan sniffled and clutched the lemon-yellow pillow like a life raft. “It felt like way more than just a simple dream.”
“But it was a dream,” Elise reminded her quickly as she watched another tear roll down Megan’s cheek. “Just remember that, alright? It was just a dream.” Unfortunately, Elise had a feeling she hadn’t gotten through to Megan at all.
Megan sucked in a shaky breath, the kind that sounded like it scraped against every organ on its way in.
“Nadia and I were in this stone church.” Her voice cracked on the name.
“It was a beautiful old church with massive arches, stained glass, and these vines with cherry blossoms creeping up the stone. There were candles everywhere. Nadia was standing at the altar wearing a white satin suit. She looked gorgeous. Like an angel.”
“Angel,” Elise repeated. She immediately thought about her angel, Harper, whom she had brushed off earlier like some dust on her shoulder.
Harper had made sure Elise survived the boat yesterday, had force-fed her bits of dried toast last night to get something in her system, and had brought her breakfast in bed this morning.
She was an actual angel. Which was why Elise’s stomach was roiling at her behavior earlier.
She’d practically shoved Harper into the shadows when Monica arrived and rushed off right after Monica had left, with barely even a word to Harper.
“Yes,” Megan muttered, bringing Elise back to the room.
“Anyway, all of a sudden I was standing by the altar and she was walking toward me. She took my hands and said, ‘Megan, you’re the love of my life.’ And then there were doves flying in the air, and everyone was clapping.
And I think Michelle Obama might’ve officiated the wedding, but the details are a little fuzzy.
” A new tear slipped out, and Elise had to use every ounce of willpower not to roll her eyes.
“When I woke up, I just knew I had made a mistake sending her home.”
Elise inhaled through her nose. A very big part of her wanted to reach for Megan’s shoulders and shake some sense into her.
You’re a pediatric surgeon, for goodness’ sake.
You basically studied for a decade and operate on tiny babies with tiny beating hearts, and now you think a dream is some kind of omen?
Instead, she lightly touched Megan’s arm and said, “It’s only natural for you to feel emotionally overwhelmed right now.
You’re under so much pressure, and I can see you care so much about doing the right thing. ”
Megan sniffled loudly and wiped her nose with the back of her wrist.
Elise winced. She then quickly leaned over to the small rattan coffee table and grabbed a box of tissues. “Here,” she said softly, placing it on Megan’s lap.
Megan plucked one out and pressed it to her eyes. She wasn’t wearing an ounce of makeup, which thankfully meant no mascara was trailing down her cheeks. “So you don’t think it was a sign?” she whispered before blowing her nose.
Elise shook her head. “I think it was your brain trying to make sense of a rough night,” she said.
Then, because she knew how to handle fragile bachelorettes, she added, “You’re allowed to doubt yourself.
I’d be worried if you didn’t. But there was a reason you didn’t give Nadia a rose.
I know you didn’t make the decision lightly. You’re not that type of person.”
Megan stared at the balled-up tissue in her hand. She tried to force a smile, but only more tears came out. “I feel like I’ve gone mad.”
“You’re not mad,” Elise said. Although, truthfully, Elise felt she was, in fact, acting a little mad.
“You’re just human. And you’re under a microscope.
It’s completely normal for you to feel this way.
Everything will be fine. You made the right decision.
” Had she actually? Elise had no idea. “Today is a new day, a fresh start. Remember, there are eight other contestants whom you chose to give a rose to.”
“You’re right,” Megan decided, picking up another tissue. “You’re absolutely right.”
“I am.” Of course, Elise was right. Ninety-nine percent of the time she was right. And then, for the first time since Elise had walked into Megan’s bedroom, Megan looked almost ready to stop crying.