Cool sensation, my ass.
I hadn’t been in one of these claustrophobic tubes in years. My visit usually consisted of a shitload of blood work and some poking around. But my oncologist retired and the new guy insisted on the pelvic MRI after feeling me up, even though the thickened cardboard area in my groin hadn’t changed in fifteen years. If he wanted to ‘make sure nothing was hiding,’ who was I to balk with an expert.
So after remaining virtually motionless for thirty minutes, alone with my thoughts and only one person on my mind, I was relieved when the drums fell silent and the narrow table slid out.
Exactly a year ago I left my old life behind and dove headfirst into one I never considered possible. That one chance encounter, a coincidence you could call it, a fluke, maybe fate, a stroke of luck that we crossed paths.
Paths. Pop’s words came flooding back. Two very different paths merged, hit a few bumps then fused into one. Until that path came to a screeching halt, the impossible blocking its way, one saw beyond it and took the chance and kept going and the other came to a dead stop.
This was me trying like hell to catch up.
“Thank you. Have a nice day, ladies.” I waved to the women behind the reception desk, checking off another square on the to-do list. Good for another year.
“Mr. Craig, if you’d like to wait, the radiologist is reviewing your scan now. We’d usually send the report to your oncologist, but since you’re, umm, you know…”
Yeah, I knew what she was getting at. I sat on the board, so they were kissing ass. I should have appreciated the VIP treatment, but the last thing I wanted was to sit and wait. Now I had to.
“Thanks. I appreciate it.” I planted myself in a seat and immediately checked my phone. Habit. An obsessive one since Tal veered off our path. A tiny red circle lingered at the top of my messages and my heart skipped a shitload of beats, not just one, like it did every single time. Hope did that to a person.
Fine here.
Good to be around others in the same boat.
Weather’s nice.
I leaned forward and raked my hair, I couldn’t breathe. It felt like an elephant parked itself on my chest mid-sprint. Fine. Good. And the fucking weather. Twenty-eight goddamn days, she finally returned a text and this is what it said. So much for playing catch-up.
“Mr. Craig, you okay?”
Without realizing, I stalked halfway to the exit. I needed to get the hell out of here before I made a scene. Not sure how I would explain pelting my iPhone through the receptionist’s glass divider.
“I’m gonna grab a coffee, I’ll be back.” That was a lie. I was beyond pissed and had no intention on sticking around. Once I hit the open hallway, I sucked in air and pinched my brow, attempting to bring my eyes back into focus. I was not fine. I was the furthest thing from good. And I didn’t give a fuck about the weather.
I was so wrapped up I didn’t hear Chase approach. “What the hell is going on, why do you look white as a sheet?”
“What?” I hissed back, not in the mood to deal. “Give me a minute, man. I need a minute.”
“You see the oncologist today? Why are you coming out of radiology, they scanned you?”
“What gave it away—the fact that I hate hospitals, and I’m standing outside of the MRI suite on my day off? Doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure it out.”
“You’re a dick.”
“That’s fair.” Our little exchange distracted me long enough to pull my shit together. “What are you doing here? Thought you were going away for your anniversary.”
“Leaving tonight. Took your advice, took the rest of the week off. Now you going to answer my question—you get scanned?”
“Just got done.”
“Good, I’ll take a look. First, talk to me.”
Yeah, okay. He thought it was that simple. He thought I was going to make sense of these last four months in a couple of sentences when my mind was a jumbled mess of disjointed fragments. But what was scaring me the most was how they were all being pieced together.
“Just go read my scan so I can get the hell out of here already.” The scan was the least of my worries, but if this made him feel useful and bought me some time to figure out how to get rid of the deafening fight taking place in my head, so be it.
“Meet me in my office, I’ve got some KimCore contracts for you to look at. And do me a favor—go get yourself a drink and preferably something with sugar in it. You’re so white you’re fucking green.”
First Sierra, now Chase. How was misery supposed to look?
The coffee smell added to my nausea and since I had gotten used to the acidic burn I opted for an OJ. I found the stack of contracts on his desk and dropped them into my bag. My to-do list just got a little longer. Not that it mattered. The only thing I cared about topped that list. Fixing things with Tal.
I watched familiar grey clouds twist through the gusty wind, reminding me of the last time I was in this chair. It was Chase who was uncertain, had no clue what the future held and whether children would be a part of theirs. It sucked big time, watching them mourn miscarriage after miscarriage—Lili a hormonal disaster, and Chase beating the crap out of himself because he couldn’t fix it for her. But they figured it out, yeah it wasn’t ideal, but who the hell determined ideal? They were together and had two beautiful lives on the way. And when all was said and done, neither would remember what couldn’t be fixed, they’d only remember that they lived through it. That would be their story. Not ideal … lived … done.
“Son of a bitch.” I cursed myself for being so oblivious. Everything didn’t have to be ideal to be beautifully done in the end. Things were rocky and nothing was certain, but this was our story and Tal and I just needed the chance to live it.
“Who you talking to, asshole?”
I jerked forward and dragged the back of my arm across my damp forehead.
“Your scan, it’s all clear.”
Clear.
“Clear,” I repeated. Because it was … crystal clear. The reality I was blind to, refused to see, and avoided since Tal lay in a pool of her own blood was now center ring. A total knock-out would have been a walk in the park compared to the vicious beatdown of clarity.
It was never her.
It was me.
She left so I could figure this out. She left so I would start living again.
Crystal fucking clear.
Chapter 27 Perfect
“Follow the corridor to the left, it weaves a bit, then straight through the sliding doors.”
I nodded at the woman behind the concierge’s desk and followed her instruction through the marble lobby.
“Rehab, sure it’s not the Ritz?” I mumbled under my breath. The walls might as well have been plated in gold. This place was over the top. Only problem, it was covered in flowers. I rounded the last corner to face a wall of glass separating me from the breathtaking deep red rock contrasting against the bright blue sky. Reminded me of that time Tal and I hiked the Grand Canyon. A great memory that involved that simple act of placing a foot in front of another one that should never be taken for granted.
The automatic doors slid open, allowing the warm dry air to mix with the ice cold air conditioning and I squinted against the sun. I cursed my sunglasses that I threw on the dash of my rental car, but it didn’t matter because my eyes were magnets, jumpstarting my legs and leading me right where I belonged.
Plush lounge chairs lined the crystal blue pool, all facing the spectacular rock formation waterfall. The magnificent desert backdrop extended to the horizon. It was quiet, still early. A lone chair in the far right corner had two bare legs with perfectly manicured crossed feet. I’d seen this photo before; in fact, it was etched into my memory from the second I opened that text. But this wasn’t a moment captured and recorded in time. This was live. This was real.