Page 53 of Fragile Kiss (Fragile 2)
Please leave for work already. Dammit, why is my hair not drying? “Yes, in the morning.”
“Can I drive you?”
“Sure,” she replied without thinking.
“Awesome. So you’ll text me when you’re done with Katharina?”
“Yes,” she answered shortly.
Finally he got the memo. “Sweet. I need to, uh, go now. To my workout.”
“Have fun,” Lillian said half-mindedly, in the midst of a battle between her hair and the comb.
Cayden stumbled over his words, finally landing on a simple “Yep.” He turned and walked out, and the reality of him being gone only hit Lillian when she heard the door close behind him. Suddenly the room felt strangely empty. She was glad he wasn’t there interrogating her with petty questions anymore, but having him there adding such a distinct energy to the room and then disappearing... In her rushing to get ready, she couldn’t place the weird absence she felt now, but what she did know was that it didn’t feel right.
Being without him didn’t feel right. Being apart from him at all didn’t feel right.
She couldn’t help but entertain thoughts of running after him. She knew he wasn’t totally gone yet; the elevator was too far away for him to have already reached it unless he was running. Cayden wasn’t the running type; he always walked with that self-assured saunter, holding himself like he was the king of the world. Lillian, on the other hand, was the running type. She was always running somewhere for something. Running errands, running late, running to her clients’ doors to knock at the last second considered on time.
Okay, I don’t do that so much anymore, she consoled herself. I did at first, but when Claire saw me running through her yard that time I realized it wasn’t professional.
At heart, though, she was still a runner. She was definitely too high-stress to be a good match for Cayden. Not to mention her flare-ups were triggered by stress. Other things too, of course, but stress was her biggest problem. Even after all this time since her diagnosis and testing medicines and weeding out trigger foods, she was still stressed most of the time—to the point that it felt normal.
I wasn’t stressed a few months ago, she countered the negative voices in her head. That was a great—
She stopped. It was true: earlier this year, for a period of a few months she had been significantly less stressed. She could count on one hand the number of times she had shown symptoms of a flare-up. Just as she wondered why, the reason smacked her in the gut.
During those few months of so little stress, she had been with Cayden.
Shaking her head to snap out of it she leapt into the room to check her phone, which was dead. She cursed loudly, desperately hoping the walls were soundproof, and scrambled through her bag to find the external battery. Naturally, it was at the very bottom. Untying her charging cord at lightning speed, she shoved it into a power outlet and pressed the “on” button so many times she was scared she would break it. The only response it gave was a “Phone will turn on at 5%” message.
“It’s okay,” she told herself, returning to the bathroom. “He just said it was 8:30 before he left. I’ve got about half an hour. Easy.” Wishing her phone was alive enough to turn on some music she hummed to herself as she slapped on some makeup, tried to do a decent job with her eyeliner, and laid her outfit on the bed.
First time wearing these, she nodded at her choices. Black with gold jewelry works great any day. Dress for the job you want, right? Millionaire personal organizer? Yes, please. Pulling on the shirt, she looked in the big wall mirror at how it hugged her in all the right places. It had been a more expensive buy, but it made her look like she had her curves back.
Ah, the pre-Crohn’s days, she sighed. The days she had a body that was far less frail. It had been a struggle, adjusting to the new way of life that changed her appearance more than she liked. Either way, she was in a much better place health-wise now. She turned sideways and backwards, admiring her shirt from all angles. You look great, body. Especially in this top. That seam at the waist is working wonders!
A little noise from her phone perked up her ears. It’s about time you were turning on, she thought at it, pulling on her pants. The sounds that followed were unexpected, however; this early in the morning, she usually only had a couple of beeps from texts she had missed. Her phone was letting through what sounded like at least twenty text messages and a few phone calls.
“What the heck?” she muttered, suddenly worried that Katharina had been trying to reach her. Please don’t let it be a schedule change I missed. Please don’t...
She unlocked her phone and was met with an inbox full of unread messages from the last person she would have expected: Andrew’s parents.
Call us, please.
Are you okay?
Tried to call you several times.
We’re with him, it’s okay.
The air in her hotel room suddenly turned to sludge. It took all her strength to scroll down the message thread to find the first one, but they all seemed disjointed and she couldn’t make sense of the urgency.
She opened voicemail to find three from Andrew’s mom, Frances.
“Lillian, Andrew was just in an accident on his way to work. The hospital just called. We thought you should know.”
Her guts felt like they were being pulled out of her body. She played the second voicemail.
