Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 72892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
I barely ate dinner. It’s been the story of my life since Gaines said goodbye to me that day in his apartment. I felt the shift in him before he walked away, and my world has felt off its axis since then.
“I’ll get you a glass of water.” Astrid rushes toward the sink.
I try to stand again with greater success. “I’m fine. All knitting, and no eating is not a great combination.”
“It’s not,” Penny agrees. “Promise me that once you run your errand, you’ll go straight home to bed.”
I raise my hand as though I’m taking a vow. “I promise.”
The girls say goodbye to each other with hugs, I share one with everyone in the room, and grab my tote to take off.
Astrid stops me just as I’m about to leave the room. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I look into her eyes. “I’m fine.”
She studies my face. “If you’re not, you can talk to me.”
“I got a little dizzy when I stood up,” I tell her honestly. “I need to eat better, sleep more, and laugh a little.”
I need to move forward with my life because Gaines has. He’s out drinking champagne and having dinner at a nice restaurant.
“Do all those things starting now, Eloise.”
I adjust one of the buttons on the cardigan she’s wearing. “I will.”
Playfully, she tugs on one of the big red buttons on the white sweater I’m wearing. “Good.”
I crack open my poetry book to page forty-two. I can’t read the poem that’s printed there. I may never be able to do that again.
The poem is a sweet promise to a lover. It encompasses everything I felt for Gaines. The hope for the future. The vow to never look back.
A tear streams down my face to dot the center of the page.
I don’t try and wipe it away because it’s fitting. It’s a reminder of loving and losing.
I glance down at his bedside table. That’s where I found the book sitting next to my broken diamond bracelet. It’s sitting atop a small blue velvet sack. I pick it up, noticing the clasp has been repaired.
I should send Gaines a text message thanking him for that, but I can’t. Not yet, at least.
I know I’ll cross his path again at a family gathering, but I’m hoping by then, my courage will have returned, and I’ll possess the strength I thought I once had.
I sit briefly to wrap the bracelet around my wrist. I push on the clasp and it snaps into place.
When I stand, my chest tightens. It’s not enough to stop me, though. I won’t let a broken heart destroy me.
I place the business card Gaines gave me with his key code on the nightstand and I walk out of his home and his life.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Gaines
I send Eloise another text message. It’s a repeat of the one I sent her thirty minutes ago.
Gaines: Please call me. It’s important.
I stand in the entrance to the ED and wait for a response from her. Nothing comes.
“Dammit,” I swear. “Please call me.”
“Why call when I’m right here?”
I glance to my left to find Evan heading toward me. I don’t offer a greeting. I just stare at him.
“What is it?” His face goes ashen. “What’s happened?”
I can’t fucking explain it to him or anyone because I am barred by law. I’m standing in the middle of a hellish situation that I can’t clearly see my way out of.
If that’s not bad enough, Logan rounds the corner in a sprint, headed toward the ambulance bay.
Jordan Whitman is hot on his heels. Striped red and orange socks are his accessories for tonight.
“Incoming,” Jordan yells to Evan. “Cardiac arrest. Twenty-three-year-old female. She fell down the steps at a subway stop. Trauma to her head, and ankle.”
Jesus.
“You’re not on duty,” Evan reminds me. “You don’t have to be the hero at every turn.”
He’s right. I’m here to check on a patient in the CCU and to figure out what I need to say to Eloise to guarantee we have a future.
I step back when I see what’s coming my way.
Jordan is standing on the bottom rail of the stretcher performing chest compressions. Logan has a hand on the woman’s head as the EMTs hurriedly steer the stretcher toward its destination in what I imagine is a trauma bay.
I get a glimpse of an open white sweater and a pink bra beneath it. A long mane of brown hair is matted with blood. When the patient’s lifeless hand falls off the stretcher to hang off the side, I’m on my knees.
A thin silver band circles her thumb and the diamond bracelet I bought her is wrapped around her wrist.
A panicked growl erupts from somewhere deep inside of me as I watch them wheel my beautiful Eloise past me.
I try to push past Evan to get into trauma room one. He struggles to hold me back. Logan rushes at me. He joins in to help Evan by placing a shoulder against my chest.