“Fuck,” I cry, sounding like a goddamned broken record.
“Oh my God,” she cries and claps a hand over her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I—I have to go. I’m sorry.”
She runs out and because of my stupid fucking prosthetic, I can’t get up and chase after her. I crawl to the bed and pull myself up, and then limp downstairs only to see her run out the door. Adrenaline must be overcoming her fear. A car service is waiting. She dives into the backseat. I see her bending over, blowing into a paper bag as the car speeds away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
JAKE
“You bastard,” I say, ripping the door open.
Isaiah is on his phone and he looks at me coolly as I charge in. “I have to go now,” he speaks into the receiver, “an emergency has arisen. Here’s Sarah. Make an appointment, first available free date.”
“You’re goddamned right this is an emergency,” I snarl. “What the fuck did you say to Natalie today?”
I want to leap across the desk and strangle him.
“Have a seat, Jake.” He gestures toward the chairs.
I plant my palms on his desk and lean over. “No, I won’t fucking sit down. Now tell me what you said to make Natalie leave. I know you said something and I want to know what the fuck it was and how you’re going to fix it.” He stares at me. “Now,” I roar and pound on the desk.
Isaiah jerks back and then rises. He waves to the person behind me. “No, Sarah, we are just fine. No need to call the cops.”
“You don’t know that,” I fume. “I’m two seconds away from taking you down, no matter what our history.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “Now, son—”
I cut him off with a slash of my hand. “No, you don’t get to ‘son’ me. I am not your patient. I am not in your platoon. You don’t get to tell me what to do. You are going to sit down and you are going to listen good. You took something from me that was vital. You broke her, and you need to call her right now and fix it.”
Hands spread, he shrugs helplessly. “That’s just it, Jake, she is broken, but I can’t fix her and neither can you. She has to get better on her own. I spoke with Dr. Terrance—”
“You did what?” I ask incredulously. “I came to you because I fucking trusted you, Isaiah. You knew I didn’t like this guy and that I thought he did more harm than good.”
“So are you.”
I rear back as if he struck me. “What?”
“You aren’t good for her either.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Isaiah comes around his desk and stops a little too close to me for his own safety. My right hand curls into an involuntary fist and the left follows seconds after.
“You were enabling her. In your house, she didn’t need to go anywhere. You saw to her every need.”
“So what? She was having therapy. You yourself said she’d get better in her own time.”
“She wanted to get better for you, not for herself.”
“That’s bullshit. She wanted to be better before I ever met her. She was outside her apartment and walking down the street, going to local cafés. Her progress and subsequent reversal had fuck-all to do with me.”
He takes a step back and then another as I advance on him. “You’re not a therapist, Jake. You were her lover.”
“Am,” I say stonily. “I am her lover. Will be. There will be no one else for her.”
He shakes his head. “You’ll never be happy if she’s not sufficiently well.”
“Fuck you, Isaiah. You don’t know what makes me happy or what I need. As long as she was happy, that’s what fucking mattered. When she was ready, she would have left the house. When she was fucking ready. You think taking her away from people who love her was really the best decision?”
“I do, yes,” Isaiah says, with the pompous reassurance of a man who’s fucked with one too many minds.
“If you weren’t twenty years older than me, my fist would be in your face. Don’t ever call me again, Isaiah. I don’t want to have anything to do with you.”
“Jake, wait,” he calls.
I don’t turn around or answer any of his pleas. That man is dead to me. I want to break something or someone, and if I stay another minute in his presence, I will lay him out. He messed with me; worse, he shit on Natalie. He’d said something to her, made her think she was weak and less-than.
Instead of building her up, he tore her down. Did no one recognize how strong she was? In her own time, my ass. Everyone was imposing a time line on Natalie that fit their idea of when she should be at what mental health marker.
Did I care that she didn’t leave the townhouse? Fuck no. Did I care that she preferred to spend her time locked up in her two rooms on the third floor? Double fucking no. I care that she looks at me like I could lift the world on my shoulders. I care that when she smiles, my whole day gets better. I care that she’s clever and talented and can think rings around me. I care about the sweet way she and Sabrina have bonded. I care that she loves me and that I love her. That she, in the noncorniest way, is my other half. Probably my better half.
At home, I find Sabrina in the kitchen. There are already two full boxes of cookies and from the looks of it, she’s well on her way to a third one. She gives me a sad, trembly smile. “I thought I’d bake some cookies for her.”
Folding Sabrina in my arms, I try to comfort one woman in my life. “I’m going after her. She’ll be back here sooner rather than later. I have her treadmill desk. She loves that damn thing.”
“Do you think she’s all right?”
“She will be.”
And I’ll be there to hold her hand and celebrate every success, even if it’s just answering the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
NATALIE
Jake calls, but I can’t bring myself to answer the phone. I huddle nude in the shower. I couldn’t make it from the car into the building without vomiting. I had to lean over the planter and spew my guts into the soil in front of a bunch of strangers. Chris, the night doorman, held my hair and my suitcase and then helped me upstairs to my apartment.
I managed to get to the bathroom before losing whatever was left in my stomach. Shaking like a leaf, I stripped down and sat in the shower waiting for the hot water to warm me up. I’m sweating like I ran a marathon and I can’t catch a full breath. When I break down into full-on ugly sobs in my apartment, there is no one to hear me but my walls.
I hear the phone ring, and I can see Jake’s face smiling back at me. He let me take it one morning after he’d gone down on me. He had this intensely satisfied look, and I thought it was wonderfully perverse to take a picture of him right after he’d wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
His smile was full of wicked intent and it thrilled me to look at it. Even as wretched as I feel now, I still can’t prevent my body from reacting to that look and the memory behind it.