Page 15 of The Scars I Bare
I thought Mrs. Joyner must have taken pity on me in my bewildered state. Her face turned round and warm, like that of a parent comforting a young child. But, before she had time to answer all my questions, the door to the exam room opened, and my questions were answered with a single, glance.
“Cora?”
I’d like to say the woman who had nursed me back to health after my accident looked up at me and fireworks exploded as our eyes met, like they did in the sappy rom-coms Molly always made me watch. But, instead, the second recognition passed across her face, I saw something closer to horror.
Or maybe it was awkwardness because that was exactly the emotion that was coursing through my veins. That, and extreme confusion. Cora Ashcroft had been there for me in a time of my life when I needed someone most.
She was the stranger I’d clung to when my family was hours away. She was the bright light I’d turned to when all I saw was darkness. And she was the woman I’d thought could be so much more…
That awkwardness in her eyes only doubled when she glanced down at the schedule she was holding and called out my name.
“Um, Dean?” she said, her voice lacking the confidence and bounce I remembered. “I guess you’re next.”
I placed a finger to my chest, pointing to myself like a goddamn idiot. “Me?”
She nodded, her eyebrows lifting in amusement. There was a total of three people in the small waiting room. Of course she meant me. Less than sixty seconds since this woman had crash-landed back in my life, and I was already acting like a moron.
Again.
No wonder she looked less than pleased to see me.
Rising to my feet, I walked the short distance to the door that led to the back of the clinic. With only two exam rooms and a small lab, there wasn’t much to it, but I slowed to a halt and let her lead me in. She grabbed my chart from a stack on the nurses’ counter, which Jake had no doubt pulled that morning, and placed it underneath her arm. As I averted my gaze, we started down the hall for the farthest room in the back of the building. As I followed her, I took a moment to reacquaint myself with the nurse who’d nearly stolen my heart.
To an unfamiliar eye, she looked the same. Her hair, although a bit shorter, was still the same deep shade of auburn. Under the harsh fluorescent lights of the clinic, the long, flowing locks appeared to be an ordinary shade of brown, but every time we passed a window and the light hit, a few strands would glisten a gorgeous mahogany red. Try as I might not to look, her body hadn’t changed a bit either. Even dressed in plain-colored scrubs, I could see the curve of her hips and the swell of her breasts as she turned the corner into the exam room.
But, looking past all that, the beautiful hair and the gorgeous body, something was missing.
And I couldn’t quite put my finger on it yet.
As she set my chart down on the counter, I took a seat, forgoing the exam table for one of the chairs instead.
Cora’s dark brown eyes met mine before settling back on my chart. Her posture was rigid, nothing like the laid-back nurse who used to come in and visit with me on her lunch break just because she knew I might be lonely.
“So, uh…what is the nature of your visit today?” she asked, swallowing deeply before looking up at me once more.
I heard Jake’s deep voice in the hallway as he said his good-byes to a patient. Laughter broke out between them as the silence grew between Cora and me.
“Checkup,” I finally answered, distracted by the commotion in the hallway. “Just my annual checkup.”
“Right, okay. Then, I guess I should have gotten your weight,” she said, clearly flustered. She frantically tapped her pen against the paper chart as the ruckus outside finally dissipated. “The scale is back at the nurses’ station. I can just—”
“Why are you here?” I asked rather bluntly, causing her mouth to nearly fall to the floor. “I’m a solid two twenty, by the way. No need for the scale.”
No longer hunched over my chart, she stood upright, staring at me with shock written on her face. “I just moved here.”
“But why?” I pressed.
“Why not? You always said you loved growing up here—when you were…I mean, I think I remember something about you saying you liked it. So, when I was looking at different places in the South, I thought I’d give it a try.” She shrugged, firmly crossing her arms over her chest.
At least she remembered me.
I snorted, “Your husband agreed to that? People down here don’t have much need for high-priced lawyers.”
Her eyes shifted to the side, focusing on a photo on the wall—something a local photographer had taken of wild ponies at sunset. “He and I aren’t… we’re not together anymore.”
“You’re divorced?” I said, my eyes homing in on her left hand and then up to her neck. Sure enough, that gigantic ring that had always swung from a chain around her neck—probably to keep the planet sized diamond from cutting a hole through her sterile gloves, the one I somehow managed to miss every time she came into my room all those years ago, was indeed missing.
She nodded, confirming my question. “It was final just last month. We’d been separated for over a year though.”
