Page 46 of Returning Your Love
A blonde woman in pink scrubs met him halfway across the distance between them, and they fell into each other’s arms in view of where I sat. Their shared sobs echoed in my ears, and I cringed, wishing I could disappear and give them privacy.
“T-Tell me she’s okay. Please,” the man begged, clinging to the back of her shirt.
“I’m so sorry,” his friend whispered.
He wailed, slumping to the floor, lost in his grief as I ought to have been. The nurse went with him, wrapping him in her arms.
My throat ached for the man and the loved one he’d lost?—
Fuck.
Tara.
Shelly’s best friend was a nurse and lived in Berlin.
I stared at the two hanging on each other in shared grief, my brain stuttering briefly.
Need to get out of here.
Can’t—breathe.
Standing, I walked past them on stiff legs, ignoring the two on the floor, my focus on getting outside where I could fill my lungs with fresh air.
Shelly had been traveling to Berlin a hell of a lot since midsummer. Visiting her best friend, my ass.
That man sobbing his heart out had been in love with my wife.
And she’d been pregnant.
Ice chilled my bones, keeping me blessedly numb.
The automatic doors swished open, and a quick glance revealed Jamie a ways down the sidewalk to my left, sitting on the cold ground, head in his hands. I longed to go to him but needed to be alone in silence for a while, to find a place to allow myself to fuckingfeelsomething other than nothing.
My work boots scuffed on the cement walkway as I headed right. Once around the corner of the building, I stared up at the night sky, cloud cover blocking out stars that would have brought me a sense of peace or at least a good memory to possibly take away the horror of my life my emotions hadn’t yet caught up with.
My cell burned a hole in my pocket.
Closing my eyes for the span of a single heavy heartbeat, I pulled it free.
Shelly’s message from earlier in the day shone back at my eyes, bright in the darkness.
Shell:I found out this morning that there are men who can keep their promises. Tomorrow, I’m meeting with an attorney to file for divorce. Please do something right for a change and don’t make this difficult for me.
I re-read her first sentence twice. Her meaning hadn’t computed when I’d been anxious to get to the hospital, but I understood now.
That man on the hospital floor had given her everything I hadn’t.
If I’d done more, listened to her griping, and changed my behavior, neither of us would be where we currently were.
Me standing alone outside a hospital, her body growing cold on a metal gurney.
Why didn’t sorrow send me to my knees?
Wasthere something more I could have done to keep our marriage from falling apart? Had my actions or lack of them been the reason she’d sought out another lover? I hadn’t hated my wife, so why wasn’t I a crying mess?
Sighing when a good husband would have been half-mad with grief, I dropped my head. I put my cell where I wouldn’t be tempted to reread her text over and over since I didn’t need additional agony when my thoughts were a swarm of angry bees.
“Chaz?”
