Page 87 of My Heart Before You

She didn’t even know why he was here—hadn't taken the time to read the chart or even the diagnosis once she recognized his name. Giving herself a firm internal shake, she told herself she had to be what he needed today, and that was his nurse.

“Are you okay with me taking care of you today?”

“Yes, my dear.” He used his other hand to pat hers lightly. “It’s always better to be surrounded by those who care for you.”

Her lips lifted at the corners as Gian, one of the night nurses, stood in the doorway. “Oh there you are, Emilie. Can I give you report?”

She squeezed Bo’s hand as she said, “yes,” and followed him into the hall to the charting area. Her shift started off in its normal busy fashion, and it wasn’t until early afternoon that Barbara found her in the medroom.

“How’s Bo?”

Glancing up from the injections she was preparing, she said, “His EF is low and his sats keep dropping. He’s stable right now though. They’re starting him on all the heart failure medications to try and improve things.”

Gian told her Bo had come in overnight having what the ER doctors thought was a heart attack and was sent immediately to the cardiac cath lab to clear the potential blockages in his heart. Only after they were inside his heart, guiding wires into his arteries beneath fluoroscopy imagery, did they see that all his vessels were clean. The catecholamine surge that led to what looked like a heart attack was caused by stress. It was under echocardiogram that they saw the telltale ballooning of Takotsubo cardiomyopathy.

“I’d say I couldn’t believe it but I can.” Barbara’s shoulders deflated. “If anyone could have ‘Broken Heart Syndrome’ it would be Bo. He loved Mary so much.”

“I know.” Sorrow echoed in her words.

“I’d tell you to take good care of him, but I already know that you are.” Her manager patted her back before leaving.

After giving her other patients their IV medications, Emilie headed back to Bo’s room. Any extra time she had today, she intended on spending it at this man’s bedside. She was placing a warm blanket over his legs when his words caught her off guard.

“Shannon told me that she saw you and Colin having lunch at the diner.”

The day came flooding back to her. The touch of his hands and mouth as he made love to her again right in his kitchen. The sloppy grin that wouldn’t leave his face over lunch. The way his eyes pierced hers after he told her he loved her.

She tried to stifle the strident gasp that dragged into her squeezing lungs and focused her attention on perfecting the tuck of the beige blanket around Bo’s feet.

“He’s a good man,” Bo said.

The fingers of her right hand curled over her chest, and she used them to push the fallen braid from her shoulder in an attempt to cover her reaction.

SheknewColin was a good man, but being a good person didn’t protect you from being inexplicably wiped from the earth.

“I know right now life seems long, but let me tell you, it’s over in an instant. Even lying here at eighty-two, it seems like just yesterday that Mary and I were having lunch at midnight together in that cafeteria downstairs.”

This was a topic she could talk about without feeling like she was unraveling. “You never told me the story about how you met,” she said, moving to the IV pump to check the titration of his pressors.

Half expecting him to go into one of the long, lovely stories Mary often shared with her, the shock of his next words sped down her spine.

“We fell in love a lot like you and Colin did, working together at the hospital.”

Her fingers tightened around the cool steel bar as she ignored the pulsing in her throat.

“Oh?” The strangled word was released in hope that he’d continue to talk about the woman who she still loved and missed.

Her nurse phone rang in her pocket, and relief thumped in her chest. Never looking Bo in the eyes, she murmured that she needed to answer the phone and walked outside his room. Once tucked into the charting area, she answered the simple call, notifying her that MRI was coming to take another patient to their scheduled exam. Rubbing the knot between her brows, she tried to push down her tense shoulders.

She felt Colin before he uttered a word. His familiar scent fully encapsulated her, making it hard to keep her breathing even. All-encompassing pain vibrated through her veins at his presence behind her. She struggled against the immediate, intense impulse to lean back into the heat of his solid body. Pressing both hands flat onto the charting desk in some febrile attempt to ground herself, she took a halting inhale.

She wanted to ask if he was okay, to ask if his ribs were better, if he could sleep at night because she couldn’t, if food tasted like chalk and metal mixed together, but that would defeat the whole reason she was torturing the both of them in the first place.

“Emilie.” His voice was low, the usual timber of it running a shiver down her spine. This time, however, there was a guttural sadness in her name that crushed her immediately. She pressed her eyes closed tightly. “Can we talk?Please.”

The pleading quality of his words made her want to spin and wrap her arms around him, but she forced herself not to move. If she turned around and he saw her eyes, he’d know this wasn’t what she really wanted. Then he’d fight for her.

No. She had to keep this going. She wasn’t strong enough to be with him, even if she wanted to be.

---