Chapter Twenty-Four
Rose braced herself against the doorway. Whatever Dr. Myers had to say wouldn’t surprise her, but it would add to the pain she was about to deliver, both to Steven and herself. Part of her wished the doctor had been delayed. Then she could have done what she came to do and escaped without hearing about Steven’s condition. But the other part, the part that had questioned over and over whether she was making the right decision, needed to know Steven was going to be okay.
Dr. Myers moved beside Steven. “You were lucky. It wasn’t a heart attack or a seizure but convulsive syncope. Which basically means you fainted due to loss of blood or oxygen to your brain. It can often look like a seizure.”
Steven sagged against his pillow, and his lips turned up in a tentative smile. “That’s a relief.” When Dr. Myers crossed his arms, Steven’s mouth tightened. “Isn’t it?”
“This was yet another warning sign that your heart is under too much stress. Syncope episodes are common following a cardiac arrest, but it’s a bad sign. It means you aren’t healing as well as you should be.” Dr. Myers took a deep breath. “Stress can be one of the worst things for someone with heart disease. Your body is already in a vulnerable place, and it’s trying to heal. But if you don’t provide it that time and space to heal itself, you won’t survive the next heart attack.”
The way he said it, with authority and conviction, seemed to finally break through to Steven. It was no longer a question of whether he would have another heart attack but when and how severe. A hole opened in Rose’s chest, and she pressed a hand to it as if it was a gunshot wound and she was trying to stanch the bleeding. But the bleeding was internal and emotional, and there was no way to stop that outpouring of pain.
“I understand.” Steven’s voice was strained. It sounded so broken and childlike. Rose almost went to his side to comfort him, but she stopped herself.
“I hope you do.” The note of doubt in Dr. Myers’s voice was unmistakable. Rose peered over his shoulder at Steven, and her breath bottled up in her chest. Maybe he was finally comprehending the seriousness of his situation. She squashed that feeling of hope before it could spread. Even if he did see reason, it was too little, too late.
“We’ll be keeping you here for observation for a few days, then we’ll discharge you.” Dr. Myers glanced at Rose before continuing. “I’m willing to send you home instead of back to the inpatient rehab facility but only if you follow my instructions to the letter.”
“I will,” Steven mumbled. He shot a mournful look at Rose. “I promise.”
Her resolve faltered, especially when Dr. Myers patted her hand on his way out. But once they were alone again, she straightened her shoulders and marched to Steven’s bed.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, taking her hand. “I should have listened to you. But I promise I’ve learned my lesson, and I will take better care of myself. What happened was Michael told me he’d been offered a position in DC. He asked me about a full-time position or a partnership, but I told him I wasn’t ready for that. When I realized how much finding a new law clerk would set me back, I panicked.” He sighed. “But clearly I need more help. I’m going to talk to Michael and see if I can convince him to stay, but I’ll also start putting out feelers for a new law clerk so I can get them in before he leaves. It’s going to work out. I promise.”
Tears pricked her eyes, and she blinked them back. How long had she wished he would take that action? How long had she prayed he would take his health seriously? And he finally had. Too little, too late repeated over and over again in her head, like a scratched CD.
“I’m glad you plan to take better care of yourself.” She was proud that her voice shook only a little.
“I don’t want to be a burden to you.” He lifted her hand to kiss it, but the contact would be too much.
She pulled away and stepped back. The hurt in his eyes pierced her heart, but she couldn’t back down. The heart attack had been a warning sign, not only for his health but also for where their future was headed. She needed to rip off the Band-Aid and allow her pain to bleed out so she could start over.
Sucking in air for strength, she lifted her left hand and slid the engagement ring off her finger. Steven’s eyes widened and flickered back and forth between the ring she held out and her face. It took effort, but she managed to arrange her features into a neutral expression despite the category-five emotional hurricane building inside her.
“Rose.” His voice was hoarse and strangled. “Don’t do this.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do this anymore.” She was amazed at how calm she sounded.
Tears filled his eyes. “Why?”
“I begged you, repeatedly, to take it easy, slow down, take better care of your health.” A lump formed in her throat, and she could barely speak. “But you wouldn’t listen to me. You blew off my concerns as if they were nothing.”
“I’m listening now.”
That was probably the worst thing he could have said. Her hands shook as she tried and failed to gain control of her anger. “Now? Now that you’re back in the hospital?” She gestured to the machines he was hooked up to. “And I suppose you’re also finally listening to what your body has been trying to tell you, too, right?” The pounding in her ears increased in rhythm. “But you wouldn’t listen to me. I may not be a doctor, but I’m not an idiot either. I knew what your workload was doing to you and how stressed you were after your accident. I tried to reason with you. I tried to convince you that you were making a mistake, but you wouldn’t listen.” Her carefully put-together demeanor cracked. “So, now I’m done listening to your excuses.”
“We can postpone the wedding, if that’s what you want! We can reschedule it for next summer or for however long you wish.” He reached for her, but she moved farther away. “But don’t do this. Don’t throw away everything we have because I made a mistake.”
“A mistake?” She stared at him. Is that all he thinks this is? “A mistake is when you mess up the numbers in a budget or forget an important date. Ignoring your health and brushing off the advice of medical professionals isn’t a mistake. It’s a choice.” He opened his mouth as if to respond, but she didn’t give him the chance. “I didn’t come here to convince you that it’s over but to tell you it’s over.” Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them back. “I love you too much to sit by and watch you kill yourself.”
“Rose, please—”
The pain in his voice might have made her falter at one time, but the more he fought her, the more resolved she became. No matter how much she loved him, she had chosen the right path—for both of them.
“No.” For once, she didn’t try to temper the finality of the word with excuses or platitudes. It might have been only one word, but it was a complete sentence.
“Please, Rose.” His eyes searched her face. “I love you, and I promise, I’ll do everything the doctors tell me to do.”
“I hope you do.” And she meant it. “I hope you listen to Dr. Myers, to all of your doctors, and follow their advice.” Her voice cracked because the alternative was something she couldn’t bear to consider. If breaking both their hearts was the only way to get him to understand the gravity of the situation, so be it. At least she could walk away knowing she’d done everything she could to save him. But it was time to save herself.
Her emotions bubbled up inside, and it was only a matter of time before they spilled over. She had to leave before he saw her break down. He would only take it as a sign that he needed to push harder.
With a small smile, she grasped his hand one last time and gave it a squeeze before turning and bolting from the room. She ran past Lanie and Max on her way out, but she didn’t stop to speak to them. They would find out everything soon enough.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” Rose’s mother asked.
Rose nodded then remembered she wasn’t on video chat. “Yes, Mother, I’m sure.”
She hadn’t wanted to FaceTime her parents, afraid they would see right through her facade, even on the other side of the world. After she’d gotten home, she’d spent a good hour sobbing into her pillow. When her tears ran out, she forced herself out of bed and washed her face.
Her mother sighed on the other end of the line, and Rose braced herself.
“Aren’t you being a bit rash?”
She bristled. “I’ve been asking him for months, even before the accident, to slow down and take it easy. I thought the heart attack would be a wakeup call, but it wasn’t.” Calm down. Getting in an argument with her mother wasn’t going to help things. “And now, he’s passing out from stress, and I don’t know what else to do. I’ve tried to reason with him. I’ve tried nagging, begging.” She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “He dismissed my concerns or made empty promises. I started to wonder, what kind of future can I have with someone who so easily disregards my feelings? What if that bleeds into other areas of our relationship? What will happen when we have children?” She took a deep breath. “I love him. I do. But sometimes love just isn’t enough.”
The line was silent, and she held her breath as she waited for Mom to respond, though she supposed it didn’t matter whether her mother agreed with her or not. She’d made her choice.
“It’s better this way,” she continued when her mother didn’t respond. “Can you imagine how much worse it would be if we had gone through with the wedding? Now, we can both move on, and maybe I’ll go back to Baltimore.”
Her mother tsked, and Rose rolled her eyes. That was the other positive point for Steven. Her parents had never liked the idea of her working in a hospital in Baltimore. They hated the city and worried about the things she would witness while working there. She hadn’t had the heart to tell them it didn’t really matter where she worked, gruesome sights were pretty much universal. In Cedar Haven, she might not have seen gunshot wounds, but she’d seen some tractor accidents that were far bloodier.
“Maybe you can come home to Korea,” her mother said.
Rose cringed. The possibility that her mother would mention a return to the home country had crossed her mind, but she’d hoped it wouldn’t be during that conversation.
“I’ll think about it.” Though they both knew that was a lie. “Anyway, it’s getting late, and I’m working the early shift tomorrow.”
They said their goodbyes, and Rose collapsed onto her couch. The one saving grace in the whole awful situation was that she hadn’t moved in with Steven yet. She didn’t want to imagine how awkward it would have been to try to find a new place to live when he was released.
She had just flipped on the TV when there was a knock at the door. She debated pretending not to be home. There were only so many people who would have stopped by her house at that time of night.
“Rose? It’s Lanie.” A pause. “I know you’re in there.”
With a sigh, she stood and opened the door. Lanie leaned against the wall outside the condo, her eyebrows pulling together. She held up a brown bag.
“Thought you could use some wine.”
Rose rocked back on her heels, not sure how to react. Without waiting for a response, Lanie pushed past her and set the bag on the counter before removing two wineglasses from the cabinet.
“You planning to stand there all night, or are you going to join me?” Lanie asked.
Bewildered, Rose shut the door and went into the kitchen. Lanie poured two large glasses of wine and handed one to Rose.
“What are you doing here?”
“Bringing you wine.” Lanie shrugged. “And I figured you might want some company.”
“So you’re not here to convince me to reconsider?”
“Would you listen to me if I was?”
Rose shook her head.
“Then I’m not.” Lanie carried her wine into the living room before sinking onto the sofa.
Unsure of what else to do, Rose followed and sat on the other side, keeping some distance between them. As close as Rose had gotten to Lanie recently, she was Steven’s sister, and Rose suspected that was where her loyalties lay.
She waited to see if Lanie would start the conversation, but her future sister-in-law… Scratch that, her former future… No, that didn’t quite work either. While she debated how to define their new connection, Lanie leaned back and gazed out the window. Her face was serene, and she seemed perfectly content to sip her wine and sit in silence.
But Rose was like a firecracker left too close to a bonfire. One small spark, and she would explode. She shifted in her seat, hoping the movement would break Lanie’s reverie and force her to speak. When that didn’t work, she heaved a sigh to break the silence.
“Something wrong?” Lanie asked before taking yet another unbothered sip of wine.
Rose couldn’t put her finger on why, but the nonchalant attitude grated on her nerves more than if Lanie had stormed in demanding answers. The former Rose could have understood, because breaking up with Steven had been like pulling the pin in a grenade. Just because she left before it detonated didn’t mean she expected to escape unscathed.
“Why are you really here?” Despite her best attempts at trying to keep her temper in check, the question came out much more harshly than she’d intended.
Lanie blinked. “I told you already. I wanted to be here in case you needed to talk.”
“Even if I did need someone to talk to, you wouldn’t be my first choice.”
To her surprise, Lanie’s expression became pained. “Ouch.”
“I’m sorry.” Rose pursed her lips. “Actually, no, I’m not. Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re Steven’s sister. You may have your differences, but he’s your family, and I don’t expect you’ll understand my reasons for doing what I did.”
Lanie leaned forward and set her glass on the table. “Really? You don’t think I feel like my brother has brought this on himself?” She lifted her hand and began ticking things off on her fingers. “He left the rehab facility early against medical advice, went back to work sooner than was recommended, worked himself to the bone despite everyone in his life telling him to take it easy, then has the audacity to fight with you about your very reasonable request to postpone the wedding.”
Rose opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t find the words. Apparently taking satisfaction in Rose’s obvious shock, Lanie sat back on the couch with a triumphant smile.
“He may be my brother, but he’s being a real knucklehead. I’m hoping the breakup will be the wake-up call he needs.”
“But it won’t change my mind,” Rose insisted.
“Good.” Lanie raised her glass and clinked Rose’s. “It serves him right.”
Is she serious?Her brother was laid up in the hospital as they spoke, but Lanie didn’t seem the least bit fazed by that fact. Or by the reality of what Rose had done.
“Though I appreciate your support, I wonder if it’s a bit misplaced.”
“How so?”
Rose squirmed in her seat. “I mean, he is your brother, and he is in the hospital.”
“As a result of his own actions.”
“But don’t you feel even the slightest bit sorry for him?”
Lanie raised an eyebrow. “Do you?”
Is this some weird version of reverse psychology?Does Lanie think by acting as if she doesn’t care about her brother, she’ll get to the heart of how much I do care?
“I’m not completely heartless—”
“It’s not heartless to call someone out on their actions.” Lanie shook her head. “Am I worried about Steven? Of course. But does that mean I don’t think he’s reaping what he’s sown? Absolutely not.”
Rose’s mouth fell open in shock while Lanie went on sipping her wine as if she hadn’t confirmed everything Rose had been feeling for weeks. And Rose had to admit that for once, she didn’t feel quite so alone.
“Look, I love my brother. But he can’t get out of this one with empty promises. If he wants to live to see his business thrive, he’s going to have to make some changes. If he wants a chance to grovel at your feet and beg you to reconsider, which I have no doubt he plans to do, he’ll have to prove he’s going to do what needs to be done to get better.” Lanie gave her signature one-shoulder shrug. “He gambled with his health and the love of his life, and he lost.”
“Don’t you hate me, though?” Rose pressed. “For kicking him while he’s down?”
Lanie snorted. “Are you kidding? I’m surprised you didn’t do it sooner.”
Frowning, Rose stared at her hands. As much as she appreciated Lanie’s support, something didn’t sit right with her. While yes, Steven should have paid more attention to his health, she didn’t love the idea of him sitting alone in a hospital room.
“That means a lot to me,” she said. “But I do worry about him.”
Lanie’s face softened. “I know you do, and I do too.” She laid her hand on Rose’s. “And I worry about you.”
“Me?” Rose stared at her. “I’m perfectly fine.”
“Are you?” Lanie tilted her head. “You broke up with the man you planned to marry.” She sniffed. “I wasn’t engaged to James, and I still struggled after we broke up.”
Tears pricked behind Rose’s eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She didn’t want to cry, not with Lanie there. She wanted to wait until she was alone, when she could have a full-on wallow fest. Thank goodness she’d had the forethought to stock up on ice cream. The best comfort for a broken heart was a pint of Ben and Jerry’s.
But Lanie’s probing eyes wreaked havoc on her resolve. Rose cleared her throat. “Okay, maybe I’m not fine at the moment.” Squaring her shoulders, she lifted her glass and downed the rest of her wine. “But I will be.” Her gaze fell on the wedding binder teetering on the edge of the coffee table. “Though while you’re here, maybe you can help me. I don’t want to bother Carissa, and I should get a start on calling the wedding vendors.”
When she moved to pick up the binder, Lanie put a hand on her arm. Rose shot her a questioning look, but Lanie shook her head.
“Not tonight.” Lanie stood and retrieved the bottle of wine before pouring them each another large glass. “Tonight, we wallow and let the dust settle.”
“But—”
“Trust me, Rose. You’ll thank me tomorrow.”