| |
"He's a good man," Mom tells me through the phone.
I smile at Richard – Dr. Carter – and walk beside him. A month has passed since I left the hospital. I only come for my therapy with Richard. As weeks passed, Richard offered me friendship – more like a courtship. The therapist managed to tickle my parent's fancy, and now they think he should be more than just my therapist.
This sucks! My parents' sacrifices feel like a prison to me. I want to unleash my rebellious and wild side, but guilt always arrests me. They like Richard and enjoy the interest he shows me. I have to pretend to enjoy it, too.
Richard is not that bad. But he's not that doctor. It's been a month, and I still haven't seen Doctor Malone again.
“I have to go, Mom,” I hang up after seeing the doctor at the children’s garden of the hospital. Richard holds my wrist when I walk in a different direction. I glare at him and pull my hand away.
I slowly walk toward the doctor, pinning my eyes on his face. It is him. Just as I first saw him. Curly brown hair, clean look, thick lips, charming brown eyes. He's like a math teacher who can easily make me want to fail yet excel in calculus only to keep seeing and impressing him.
I didn't notice it before, but he's more muscular and fit than many doctors. The doctor looks more like an athlete with his build. I gulp as his physique raises my temperature. I haven’t been wild for years, and he's waking up that side of me.
My chest burns with strange desire while watching his broad shoulders and wide arms. Oh, how I long to be in those strong arms.
Yes. I'm a virgin. I'm known as a wild child, but the farthest I went was a blow job. The hopeless romantic in me is more powerful than my wild side. I want my first to be romantic but not too gentle.
You know the type where the man pulls you close to him, ravishes your lips, and the only thing left is for you to give in to your feelings. No man has ever done that. Man? I should mean a boy. I slept all those years that I couldn’t find such a man.
Also, there’s always something stopping me from going all the way. Either my parents come home or the police bust the party. Maybe I was meant to die a virgin, only I refused to. I almost laugh at the thought.
"Dr. Malone!" A little girl in a patient robe clings to his other arm. He lifts his arms and swings the child. One by one, kids run to him for their turn. His face exudes his innate kindness to kids. And it’s enough to tickle my heart and make me giggle softly.
“Haven,” Richard calls.
Dr. Malone must have heard him. He stops and looks in my way. A smile breaks across my lips as a greeting to him. “It is you,” I say while taking a step closer.
The other doctor tells the kids to give him a short break. I stop walking closer when he gives me a hostile look. Totally different from what I saw when I woke up. His dark eyebrows almost switch places. His smile has faded; his lips wrinkle as he frowns.
Stupid. I forgot about what my mother told me. He’s the doctor whose wife died because I came back to life. The man who bought my heart for the woman he loves. Of course, he’ll be angry at me.
“Haven,” Richard gently holds me by the elbow. He looks at the other doctor and says, “Alex.”
“Richard.” His voice! It is him.
The confirmation revives all of my feelings of seeing him for the first time. My heart rumbles and wants to roll out of my mouth to prove my excitement over knowing that it's him. Dr. Alex Malone notices me looking at his hands. I want to hold his hands again and feel the desire to live from his warmth. He quickly puts them in his pocket.
Alex flicks some quick smiles and walks away from us. Richard pulls my elbow to urge me to leave. I scowl and walk away from him. Richard calls me again, making Alex stop and turn to me.
"I-I want to apologize," I stutter as part of me disagrees with why I'm apologizing. Why should I apologize for getting a miracle? For rising from the dead?
"Apologize that you are alive and my wife is dead?" Alex is blunt with his words, but they sharply cut into my heart. He looks away after some guilt appears in his eyes. "Do me a favor, Ha... whoever you are. Don't ever try to be in the same place with me."
“Watch your mouth, Alex!” Richard steps in. “It’s not Haven’s fault your wife died.”
Alex's lips twitch as he glares at me. He knows that it is my fault, and it angers him. He lost his wife despite doing everything to save her, but it all ended in vain. And he has no one to blame.
“Just stay out of my way,” Dr. Malone warns and walks away.
“Never mind him,” Richard whispers while slipping his hand on mine. “He’s one arrogant parachute doctor.”
As I watch Alex leave with his shoulders dropped, I can’t stop wanting to alleviate the pain he feels for losing his wife. He’s right. I should not be in the same place as him. My presence is like a salt that will always remind him of his pain, even when I want to heal his misery.
#
"Are you sure you're allowed to be here?" Leslie, a nurse who has become my new best friend, jokes.
I frown and order a beer. I’m twenty-four and old enough to hit a bar if I want to. Or screw a cheese and wine party my parents organized to introduce Richard to some of their friends. Who calls a cheese and wine party a party? The last time I remember a party had to have some beer, some music, some – guys making out on top of a washing machine – or it could have just been me.
"Why aren't you invited to that party?" I ask. "You've been my nurse for three years, and those old folks forget about it."
"Nurses don't matter as much as doctors," Leslie gulps her drink. "More so if you're an immigrant and brown-skinned."
“I’m sorry,” I utter softly. “My parents can be... irritating.”
Leslie takes away my beer, forcing me to look at her. She raises an eyebrow and says, "What are you doing now with your life, Haven?" I look at her, confused. She gives me back my beer and explains, "You have a second chance to live. So, seize every moment. Do the things you like just as you do those you don't like."
I take the beer and drink almost half of it until Leslie stops me. It's my first beer since waking up. I look at her, and we end up laughing. She's the only one who knows that I don't like Richard. He's a good therapist but as a man...
Alex is that man.
“Still thinking about him?” Leslie asks.
“Alex Malone?”
She laughs and answers, "So, you are?" I blush, and Leslie laughs harder. She pinches my cheeks and teases, "You're so cute."
Leslie is the only one who knows that secret. She's a hopeless romantic like me and thinks that meeting Alex is my destiny. She's a fan of Sleepless in Seattle and creates this fantasy that Alex and I are MFEO. Though I'm not that childish when it comes to romance, I still believed it until this morning. There's no way Alex would want a woman who robbed his wife a second chance at life.
“Even if I think of him, he’ll never think of me. And if he does, it’s because of his wife.”
Leslie looks around and moves a little closer to me. "Want some info?" I give her a curious look. "We immigrant nurses are boundless when sharing gossip."
"I don't think I...."
“His wife cheated on him,” Leslie declares before I can refuse. “Why else would he request a DNA match for his son?”
Leslie must have thought it would bring me hope. Or that I'm free to desire Alex because his wife's death was her punishment. But I think differently. If Alex wanted my heart for his wife, he must have loved her so much. It only seals the coffin on my chance to ever be in a romance with him.
"Another beer?" Leslie gives me a warning tone after I order another one. Her face suddenly turns pale when a man sits at the other end of the counter. I look at the man, and he seems surprised to see Leslie. "I have to go."
"Les," I call. The man stands and walks after Leslie, too. I shake my head, drink my beer, and order another. "Everyone has a romance except for me." The bartender smiles after hearing my murmur. "Oh, wait. My parents are arranging it for me right now."
I slam the empty beer mug and order another. The bartender pauses before serving me another and looks behind me. I blow a loud breath and laugh. Sleeping for so long must have affected my tolerance. It only takes me three beers to get drunk. How else will Alex Malone be behind me if I'm not?
“Give it to me,” I tell the bartender.
Somebody grabs the beer before the bartender can put it down. Alex? I’m not drunk. It is him.
“What are you doing?” His deep voice sounds as frustrated as he talked to me this morning. “You just got out of a coma, and you’re getting ready for another accident.”
His blunt words struck me again, reviving the guilt that Richard tried to heal me. The heavy burden of knowing that I survived the accident, but David didn't. The accident was my fault for teasing him!
A short laugh of frustration escapes my mouth. This is who I am gonna be to Alex. Somebody who robs the lives of other people. I killed David. I killed Alex's wife, too.
I ignore him and pay the bill before walking away. I trip on a chair and almost fall, but Alex is quick to grab me. "I'm not drunk," I push him away and head to the parking lot.
“What are you doing?” Alex takes my car keys from me.
"What are you doing?" I snap at him while trying to get my keys back. He hides them in his pocket. "Why do you care?"
“Why do I care?” He pauses but continues to glare at me. “You want to be in an accident again? You want to give hope to people and crush it?”
Him and his words! Every muscle in my body shakes as my anger and guilt fight against each other. Two months of therapy and trying to believe that things happen because they had to and not solely because of my mistake all get pushed down the drain because Alex puts the blame on me.
Something grows inside my chest, and it's becoming heavy. Just as I learned, I calm my heart with heavy breaths. But it only drowns me in heavy burden. Until I can't breathe or no longer know how to.
“Haven,” Alex sounds worried. He holds my hands and shakes me a little.
"I'm sorry," is all I can say before everything blacked out.
#
