Page 6 of Deceitful Vows

I start my lie with a head bob. “Yes.”

He sees through my deceit instantly, and the disappointing flare it blazes through his eyes cuts through me like a knife.

“I was also hoping to see Aleena. It’s her birthday today.”

Aleena is my baby sister. I haven’t seen her since her last big birthday, and although I will most likely be turned away again today like I was two minutes into her eighteenth four years ago, I couldn’t let her day slip by without acknowledging that I want to be a part of her life.

When I walked out of our family home twelve years ago with a broken heart and a bag full of dirty clothes, I was walking away from our mother’s expectations for our lives, not her.

It was never about her.

Even with Dr. Hemway’s brooding mood announcing his patients’ confidentiality is of the utmost importance to him, I can’t help but ask, “Do you see her? Does she still come here?”

It takes him half a beat to answer, and his reply fills me with more relief than panic. “No.” My relief morphs into hurt when he murmurs, “But I specialize in infertility, and Aleena has never had…”

“To worry about that,” I fill in when words elude him. I smile to assure him the sympathy in his eyes isn’t necessary. “Two very different women cut from the same cloth.” He looks like he wants to strangle me when I push the boundaries of our friendship even further than a mishap in billing. “Has she visited Dr. Stoltz at all the past four years?”

“Zoya—”

“You don’t need to give me any details. Just a simple yes or no answer.”

His delay this time around has me sitting on pins and needles. The additional niggle to the constant pain forever invading my body is worth it when he abruptly snaps out, “No.”

Who knew one tiny word could offer so much relief? The weight on my shoulders seems manageable, and the curdling of my stomach simmers to barely a boil.

My reprieve is short-lived.

Dr. Hemway piles a heap of uncertainty back on when he hands me a card with an appointment for next month, along with a brochure for post-operative care following laparoscopic ablation. It reminds me of the hell I experienced two short years ago.

“You won’t be able to drive for a week or two, so you will need to organize to stay somewhere local after the surgery again.” I haven’t even combed through the minimal list of people I can rely on when he continues speaking, halting my search. “Kiara and I will happily accommodate you if you don’t mind nine p.m. bedtimes and watered-down whiskey.”

His offer knocks me back a step, but I hide it well. “You had me until watered-down whiskey.”

He returns my smile before lowering his eyes to his business card. “My phone number is on the back. I’m only a phone call away if you have any issues, day or night.”

I’m saved from looking like a sentimental shmuck by one of Dr. Hemway’s colleagues asking to have a word with him.

He signals that he will be with him in a minute before returning his focus to me. “Do you have any questions?”

The seriousness radiating out of him has me wanting to say something inappropriate. The reminder of his loved-up expression earlier stops me.

“I think you’ve covered everything. For what you missed, I’m sure your brochures will make up for.” My dramatic fan of the pamphlets I’m referencing isn’t as stellar since I left one-half of them on the desk in his examination room.

Dr. Hemway will always be the only man who can read me.

“I’ll grab it,” I say, interrupting his request for the receptionist to return to his examination room to gather the brochure on preferred sex positions for endometriosis patients.

“Are you sure?” he checks. “Usually the nurses have to drag you into my examination room kicking and screaming.”

“Because you get too much pleasure torturing your patients with below-freezing duck bills and unheated lube to buy heat-able instruments.” My twenty-seven-year-old head pays more attention to the quickest flash of heat that creeps across his cheeks than my seventeen-year-old head ever would have before I remind him that his colleague is waiting for him. “I’ve also taken up enough of your unpaid time.”

“All right,” he caves. “But if you don’t arrive for your appointment next month, I’ll take a temporary placement at Myasnikov Private. There’s no reason for you to live in pain, Zoya, and if the only way I can prove that to you is through forced intervention, I’ll do that. You’re not just a patient to me. You are family.”

I never thought I’d get hit with the feels during a trip home, but his last two comments smack me in the gut with sentiment.

He waits for me to jerk up my chin before he farewells me with a smile and then joins his colleague at the side of the reception desk.

I’m tempted to leave without the brochure he handed me in the examination room. My wailing libido just refuses to accept another voiceless promise.

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