“How?”
“I followed you.”
“Why would you follow me? You told me to leave.”
“I told you to go home, Talie. To the beach house. I didn’t mean for you to leave town.”
“The beach house isn’t my home, Gavin.”
“Yeah,” he said, looking away. “I know.”
I started picking at the little white pill-balls on the blanket.
“I shouldn’t have said what I did.” Gavin began, his voice filling with regret. “I knew it would hurt you. When you went running through the storm back up the beach, I called to you, but you didn’t hear.”
He knew it would hurt me, yet he said it anyway.
“So I followed you. When I saw you driving away, I panicked. I was worried so I followed. I caught up just in time to see your car flip off the road.”
“You said it rolled over the bank?”
His eyes seemed focus on the memory of what he saw. “I pulled up to the side of the road and jumped out of my car, leaving the engine running. Your car was upside down, only partially lying on the bank. With the current and the wind the way it was, I knew it was only a matter of time before the entire thing sank.” As he spoke, his hand slid across the bed and intertwined with mine.
“I screamed your name, and when you didn’t answer…” He looked up at me. “I was fucking scared.”
“Gavin.” I sighed. I reached up with my free hand and touched the side of his face. He leaned into the touch.
“I rushed up to the car and looked inside. Shit was everywhere and water… water was filling it up fast. If it hadn’t been for the seatbelt—” He broke off, looking back up at me. “I pulled you out, talking to you, trying to get you to say something. But you were unconscious. I assessed your injuries as best I could and decided not to call an ambulance. I didn’t want to risk waiting for them to arrive.”
“You brought me to the hospital?”
He nodded. “They know me here,” he said. “I pretty much took over the ER when I brought you in.” He gave me a wry smile.
I couldn’t help but return it.
But his smile didn’t last very long. It faded then like a pair of blue jeans washed one too many times. “You were so still and pale,” he whispered. “It was just like…”
He stopped talking and looked away.
“Just like what?”
When he didn’t reply, I pressed. He was talking more to me right now than he ever had before, and I wanted to keep the conversation going.
Softly, I pushed my hands into the spiky hair at his forehead and wrapped my fingers around it, lifting his head so I could look in his eyes.
“Just like what, Gavin?”
Something in his expression twisted. He took a shuddering breath.
And then he replied.
“Just like the night my wife died.”
26
Talie
He had a wife.
Gavin was married.
A woman who died.
She left him all alone.
“You were married?”
He tried to nod, but I was still gripping his hair. I released it, smoothing it back away from his face. It didn’t stay down, but sprang right back up into crazy pieces.
“Tell me,” I said softly, wanting nothing more than to listen.
He shook his head and looked away. The pain he was feeling was palpable. It lay heavy in the air. Now I understood that look I sometimes saw in his eyes, the look of someone with scars inside them.
I didn’t push him any further. I didn’t tell him I was sorry or coo little words to try and make him feel better. My words wouldn’t help him. No one’s words would. This was something he was going to have to live with every single day for the rest of his life. Telling him I was sorry wouldn’t even come close to easing that kind of pain.
We sat there in the room with nothing but the monitor beeping steadily behind us. I ran my fingers through his sun-kissed hair. The way it felt sliding between my fingers somehow eased the tightness in my chest.
“We were high school sweethearts,” he said after a while. I continued stroking his hair, just letting him know I was there and I heard him.
“I knew I was going to marry her from the time I was sixteen years old. She was something,” he said. The fondness in his voice made my eyes briefly close. “She hated math and loved Doritos. She was on the track team, the cross country the school had. She had these long legs that just went on for miles. They ate up the pavement with ease.”
“What was her name?” I whispered.
“Danielle.”
“It’s a beautiful name.”
He made a sound. “She hated it. Made everyone call her Dani.”
He glanced up at me, his blue eyes full of memories. “She was a tomboy.”
I smiled.
“Anyway, we went to college together. She graduated before me and got a job as a teacher and coach of a track team. When she graduated, I asked her to marry me. She said the only reason I wanted to marry her was so she could take care of me while I suffered through my residency at the hospital.” He laughed. “But she said yes anyway, saying someone had to look after me.”
Oh my God, my heart was tearing. Literally ripping in half for him. I didn’t know how to feel this kind of pain. I didn’t know how to help him, to make him feel better.
“You’re a doctor?” I asked, trying to hide the catch in my voice.
“I went to med school. I have the degree. I never finished my residency, though. She died right after I started.”
“Oh, Gavin.” I sighed, once again pulling my fingers through his hair.
“That day, the day she died, sometimes it replays in the back of my mind… tormenting me. Reminding me that I let her down.”
“How did you let her down?”
I wasn’t sure if he heard me or if he just needed to say it all in his way.
“I’ll never forget that day,” he said, looking off into space. I might have thought he was no longer present in the room with me because of the faraway look in his eyes, but his hand reached out and his thick fingers wrapped around mine.
It was my turn to be his anchor.
And when Gavin began to talk, it was if I were right there in that day with him…
27
Gavin
The shifts at the hospital were going to kill me. I suddenly understood why half the doctors in the place were gray haired or bald. Dealing with life—with other people’s lives—was demanding and draining. I couldn’t afford to have a tired day. I couldn’t afford to be low on energy. People depended on me. They looked to me for answers. Some of them looked to me for hope.