I swallow over the lump in my throat as I nod my head because the diagnoses I’d imagined were so much worse and daunting. “How long until she wakes up?”
“That’s up to her body and the doctors. They did give her a mild sedative to allow her body to settle some, so they’ll probably bring her off that later today and then it’s a wait and see… but she’s a fighter. Has been responsive and seems to be struggling to wake up.”
All I can do is nod once again while tears well in my eyes before I blink them away as relief and hurt surge through me. “Thank you for talking to me,” I whisper as she scoots her chair back and nods in kind to me before walking away. She’s almost to the door when I speak without thinking. “I didn’t know she was… That’s not the kind of person I am…” I’m not sure why I feel the need to explain to her that I didn’t knowingly fall in love with a married woman, to let her know I’m not that guy. Maybe so she doesn’t regret her decision.
The nurse falters in her footsteps, keeps her back to me, but nods her head. “I figured as much by the way you came barreling into the ward. A man acting like that doesn’t know. I’m sorry for you too.” And with that she exits the room and leaves me alone with my thoughts.
I slump back in my chair and close my eyes as I let my thoughts war against one another. I’m the fool here. I should leave and never look back since the woman played me like a damn violin, but I can’t find it within myself to leave just yet. A small part of me hopes that there is some huge misunderstanding, that she’s going to wake and clarify everything, because I can’t comprehend that she doesn’t love me. If I was watching someone else go through this, I’d tell them they were a sucker, to cut their losses and leave with some of their dignity intact.
But I just can’t bring myself to put one foot in front of the other and walk out of the hospital. Only I know the passion in her kiss, the raw honesty in her eyes. God, I am a sap. Honesty? It seems that word doesn’t apply to Beaux Croslyn at all.
The longer I sit here, the more I hold on to that fact, shoving away how much I care for her, and try to focus on the anger I feel – at her, at John, at the whole fucking world. But then as the reality of my situation comes crashing down on me in this solitary waiting room, the eddy of my thoughts whirls back to the fact that there has to be a reason why she’d let me fall in love with her when she was committed to someone else.
Her explanations about her past filter through my anger, make me recall my fears that she had an abusive ex or a bad situation at home that she was escaping. Could that still be true? Is John one of those missing pieces that Beaux purposefully left unexplained? And if so, how does it all fit together?
Further, why the fuck do I care? If that was the case, then she should have just told me. Wouldn’t she at least have told me there was someone else and that it was complicated?
Stop making excuses for her, Tanner. She played you from the get-go, made you believe her time and again until you fell for her. Fell for her? Shit, more like yelling “Timber” at the top of my lungs in a forest-full-of-falling-trees type of fall for her if I’m being honest with myself. And yet through everything, rooftop confessions, afternoons spent making slow and sweet love, trying to teach her the lay of the land, none of it mattered because in the scheme of things, I was being played on every level imaginable.
Now I know I should walk away while I can. Grab my bag and go the fuck back to my reality where the possibility of being hit by opposition fire seems ten times more appealing than having my heart toyed with by a woman like Beaux and an angry husband in a hospital room that I don’t even belong in.