Heart Conditions (The Breakup Doctor Series Book 3) (22 page)

We never talked about her pregnancy.

As the chatter of my busy mind began to quiet, I realized that things became clearer all on their own, like the blue sky patiently waiting to be revealed when the billowing storm clouds dissipated.

I’d kept myself away from Ben, despite being in love with him, because I’d wanted to find out who I was on my own. Yet as soon as I’d seen him again, I’d defaulted into fix-it mode. Without realizing it, like Nina Edelburg, who’d left her boyfriend in St. Pete when he didn’t accept her ultimatum, I’d put my own goals on hold while I tried to figure out ways to make things right, to make Ben once again want me back.

I saw that now for the mistake it had been. But it was an equal mistake, I was growing to believe, to have thought that I had to isolate myself until I finally became the person I wanted to be.

Human beings aren’t solitary creatures. We aren’t meant to be alone—and we don’t have to be to figure out who we are and what we want. I’d been afraid to make a commitment until I finally had everything just perfect in my life, but I saw now that I’d be alone forever if that was my standard.

Sometimes you just had to jump, and trust that you’d figure things out on the way down.

twenty-six

I was nervous as I walked down the aisle, but I also couldn’t wait to get there.

The black-and-brown dog was waiting in the same patient position when I got to his kennel, almost as if he’d known I was coming: sitting calmly facing the gate, tail gently wagging against the concrete. When he saw me walking down the row with Angela he stood and his tail sped up, but still he didn’t leap up barking like all the other dogs were doing. He merely watched me expectantly, as if he knew I was here solely for him, and when Andrea reached for the gate to let him out he took a step back, as if politely waiting for her to come in, before I crouched down and held out an arm.

“Here, boy!” I said. “Come on, buddy. Let’s go home.”

He trotted out immediately, as though he’d only been waiting for my invitation.

I’d forgotten to bring a leash—Angela kindly gave me one of the donated ones the shelter kept on the wall for just this purpose. And on the way home I realized that I hadn’t thought to buy him a dog bed, or toys, or a brush for the hair that was already longer than the last time I’d seen him, or even a bag of food.

But that was okay. We’d figure all that out.

I hadn’t had a dog since I was a child, and I’d never borne the sole responsibility for one. But I thought I was finally ready for the commitment. And the risks.

On the way home we stopped at a pet-supply megastore on 41, and although I was concerned about trying to wrangle an unfamiliar creature in an unfamiliar environment, I brought the dog in with me.

I needn’t have worried. He zigzagged down the aisles as I shopped, avidly exploring everything at his level, but he never even drew his leash taut, periodically turning to check that I was still behind him. Andrea had warned me that often shelter dogs—especially older ones—took a while to bond to their new owners, but already he seemed to feel the same deep draw to me that I’d felt to him from the get-go.

I got just the basics—a bag of food, some treats, and a brand-new collar and leash (purple, to suit his regal bearing). Once he settled in and we got to know each other, we could come back and pick out toys and a bed and whatever else I saw we needed as I learned about him.

Back at my house I let him off the leash just inside the garage door.

“Okay, buddy. This is your new home. Go check it out.”

The dog made a wary circuit as I trailed behind him, investigating every single room, one after the next, as noncommittal as a potential home buyer on a showing. Finally he stood at the back door and glanced back at me. I obliged, letting him onto the porch, and after another thorough exploration of the lanai he stood at the screen door until I pushed it open too. Then he walked outside, went straight to the largest of my oak trees, and lifted his leg—right in Jake’s favorite spot. He came trotting immediately back inside, curling up into a comma on the Saltillo tile and grinning up at me as if saying,
Now I’m interested in the place.

I called Sasha and asked if she and Stu were free to drop by, and thirty minutes later I opened the door to see the two of them side by side.

“I have something to show you,” I said, opening the door wider.

“You got a doggie!” my animal-crazy brother cried, and dropped to a crouch in front of the animal, who sat close at my side. Stu rubbed his ears and neck and shoulders, exclaiming over the dog, who grinned amiably enough at my brother, but otherwise sat calmly.

“He’s the one from Andrea’s shelter?” Sasha asked me over their heads.

I nodded. “I wanted you to meet him.”

“What’s his name?” Stu asked, dropping to a full sit. I joined him, and after a moment so did Sasha, the three of us ringing the dog on the concrete floor.

“Slick,” Sasha answered, just as I said, “Winston.” She glanced at me.

“Look at him.” I indicated the dog, who was lying on his stomach in the center of our circle with his legs neatly tucked, stately as a New York library lion. “He’s too dignified to be a Slick.”

As if he agreed, Winston inched closer to me, pressing alongside my leg.

“I can’t believe you got a dog,” Stu said, watching enviously as Winston clearly made his human allegiance known.

“Yeah,” Sasha said. “What happened to ‘it’s too much commitment’ and ‘it’s guaranteed to eventually break your heart’?”

I grinned, lifting one shoulder as I stroked his soft crooked ears. “I don’t know. I guess I decided the trade-off is worth it.”

We sat in amiable silence in our little circle for a while, all three of us watching Winston like a fascinating new toy. “I’m so glad you saved him,” Sasha finally murmured.

“No.” I looked back down to where my dog lay contentedly beside me, feeling loneliness trickle away and my heart flood with pure comfort and affection and warmth. “I think maybe he’s saving me.”

Sasha and Stu wound up staying for a late lunch, and for a few hours we were back to normal. If there was any tension between them about Sasha’s job offer or the decision I suspected she was still wrestling with, I didn’t see it, and I didn’t ask about it. When they left I hugged them each goodbye at the door, and while Stu knelt to commune with Winston, I turned to Sasha.

“Want to go grab dinner one night this week?” I asked her. “Or go shopping?”

She searched my face as if looking for a hidden agenda, but I could tell when she realized there was none. I was through trying to “fix” things. Her forehead smoothed and she gave the beginnings of a smile. “Yeah. I’ll call.”

After they left I walked Winston, and took him into the backyard to walk the perimeter of his new domain with him, and fed him, realizing only as he finished the last of the bowl that five o’clock was probably too early; he’d be hungry again by bedtime.

He and I were still getting used to each other. But already I felt less alone. Happier. More able to face things I knew would be emotional.

Like seeing Michael.

I called and asked him to come over—I couldn’t leave Winston on his first night in an unfamiliar place. After Jake had destroyed my bedroom the first time I’d left him alone at my house, I wasn’t in a hurry to lose another set of nice textiles to freaked-out-dog teeth.

When Michael showed up the dog simply stood beside me in the doorway when I opened it, as if we were a couple welcoming a guest into our home.

After Michael fussed over Winston and we were settled in the living room, I didn’t waste time working up to things. A quick, clean blow was kindest—I knew that firsthand—so I simply stated things, as kindly and gently—but directly—as I knew how.

Pain flitted through Michael’s eyes at my words. “I had a feeling that’s what you called me over here to tell me.”

“How did you know?”

He was leaning forward in the armchair across from my sofa, elbows on his knees and hands dangling between his legs. “You used to look at me a certain way,” he said slowly. “Like every day you’d hit the lottery and you couldn’t quite believe it.” A sad smile curved his lips. “I haven’t seen that in your eyes since I came back. Except once.”

“You did?” I said, surprised. The reason I’d finally called Michael over was because I’d realized that that feeling I’d once had for him had long since gone.

“The night we saw your ex downtown.”

My throat ached, and I turned my gaze away. “I’m sorry, Michael.”

He lifted his shoulders. “It’s my own doing. I blew it. Thinking we could pick back up again was a long shot…but I had to try.”

His words hung between us for a few moments. “Do you remember the day you proposed to me?” I asked him.

A sad grin crept across his mouth. “Underwater Jesus. Dropping the ring. God.”

I smiled back, remembering. “It was such a unique way to ask me to marry you. So romantic.”

“Yeah.”

“But…” I shifted on the sofa, not sure whether I should say it. “A part of me was always afraid the real reason you did it that way was so you didn’t actually have to speak the words.”

Michael looked as if he’d taken a plank in the face. “That wasn’t why I did it!”

At his raised voice Winston sat up, moving closer to me and facing Michael in an alert position, as if warning him to be cool.

I shook my head, stroking the dog. “I don’t think it was, consciously. But I always wondered if even then, a big part of you wasn’t sure.”

“I don’t…I don’t know,” he said, as if the idea were only just dawning on him.

“It doesn’t matter. The thing is…even though I thought that, I said yes anyway. I wanted it so badly, and I was afraid that if I asked you—if I said anything at all about it—you’d change your mind. So what I’m saying is, don’t blame yourself for how things happened. I chose not to look too closely at what I knew was right in front of me.”

The words lay heavy between us.

“I don’t think I can stay here,” Michael said finally.

I nodded. “I get it. Let’s talk a little later, then, when we—”

“No,” he interrupted me. “I mean here in Fort Myers.”

Now it was my turn to fall silent. “But…” I said finally, “what about working together?” I swallowed, a pain I hadn’t expected sliding between my ribs. “What about us…our friendship?”

His grass-green eyes clouded. “I can’t be friends with you, Brook. Not now.”

“So all that was BS, then?” I fired off angrily. “About just wanting to be back in my life on any level?”

“No! I meant that! I still mean it. But, Jesus, Brook…” He threw himself backward in the chair, rubbing his temple with a hand. “How am I supposed to be around you…with you…and know that no matter how strongly I’m feeling for you…you’re not feeling the same things? Especially when I have to watch you feel them with someone else.” Pain and regret ripped a jagged edge in his expression.

“That’s…not happening. That ended a long time ago.”

“But you still have feelings for him?”

I looked down at Winston, wanting to see anything else but the look in Michael’s eyes. “I do. That doesn’t just go away.”

“No,” he said quietly. “Not for everyone.”

My gaze snapped back up to meet his. “It didn’t just ‘go away’ for me with you, Michael. Why do you think I haven’t been able to have a healthy relationship since we broke up? I couldn’t get
over
you. You’ve been even more present with me since you left than you were when we were together.”

“Then
why
? If it’s not because of this…this other guy…why isn’t it there anymore for us?”

“Something’s still there, Michael. It always will be. How could it not? But”—I gentled my tone, but knew it wouldn’t soften the words—“not like it was.”

I saw him flinch.

“Maybe too much happened between us. Or maybe I’ve changed too much—we both have. I don’t know why.” I spread my hands helplessly. “But you still matter to me so much. How can you just leave again? How can we
not
be in each other’s lives?”

He shook his head wearily. “I just can’t. Not yet. Give me some time.”

“How much time?”

I knew it wasn’t a fair question even as I asked it. Veruca Salt rearing her impatient head again.

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “A while.”

That hurt—a lot more than I’d expected. Michael had once felt like a limb—something I couldn’t imagine ever living without. But then, after he left, I’d grown so used to
not
having him in my life—how could he feel so essential again, so quickly?

“I wish it were different,” I said, hearing childish hurt in my voice.

“God, Brook, so do I,” he said fervently. He stood up, as did Winston, as if ready to escort him out. “I have to go.”

“Michael—”

“Don’t, okay? Please. Just…Goodbye, Brook.”

He didn’t look at me as he let himself out the front door, and the sound of it closing behind him echoed in the silence of the room like a thunderclap.

I stayed up late, the aftermath of all the emotions Michael and I had stirred up again churning inside me. Regret was chief among them—for what might have been for us if things had gone differently, but mostly for what I knew Michael was feeling now. I’d felt it myself for so long after he’d left, and though there had been a time when I’d have wished that on him and so much more, now all I wanted was to ease his pain.

But I understood where he was coming from. After all, up until recently I was the queen of “You can’t be friends with your ex.” At least when one person’s feelings still ran high—all that was was an exercise in self-torture, as Michael had said: watching someone you still fiercely loved
not
love you back the same way. I couldn’t begin to blame him for wanting to spare himself that pain.

But I also viscerally understood the other side of that equation for the first time. Just because I didn’t care about Michael that way anymore didn’t mean I didn’t care about him, period. I did—so much that losing him all over again felt like a fresh wound ripped into my chest. I hoped that one day, when the feelings weren’t so raw, we could try again to be friends. Until then I’d have to learn all over again how to live without him—at least for a while. I had to respect his choice, even though it wasn’t mine.

But what
was
my choice was my friendship with Ben, I’d realized in the darkest hours of the night. Winston lay stretched out on the floor beside my bed on an old blanket I’d folded into fourths, his eyes shining back up at mine in the filtered moonlight every time I angled my head over to look at him, as if worried that if he shut them, he’d wake to find himself back in his concrete kennel in the shelter, all of this a dream.

I could understand what Michael had to do because I felt the same way with Ben—I couldn’t bear to watch him be so happy with Per…with Pamela when I still ached for him.

But the alternative was to cut him out of my life completely. And like Michael and me, at the core of what Ben and I had once had was a solid friendship. Now that I knew directly how much it could hurt for someone to rip that away, I couldn’t make myself do it to Ben.

Yes, it might tear my heart out of my chest to see him and Pamela grow closer, to say goodbye when they left to travel across the world together and work side by side. It might feel like my guts were being eviscerated when they came back, maybe got married…had kids.

Or maybe by then my feelings would finally have faded enough to let me truly be happy for him—for the two of them—and be part of both their lives, the family friend who’d turn up now and then for parties and dinners and occasional holidays. Auntie Brook.

The idea made everything in me contract.

But one day it wouldn’t.

And until that day, I decided as the sky began to lighten outside my window, I could choose to still have Ben in my life on some level—even if it were so much less than I wanted. Even if it meant I had to figure out a way to cope with the hurt of it until it finally went away.

And that was when I called him.

My hand shook as I pressed “call” on my phone early that Sunday morning.

“Hi,” came the familiar voice, curling around me like a fleece blanket on a cold night. Ben sounded surprised.

“Hi.” The single syllable shook, and I cleared my throat. “I wanted to let you know I can’t make it to Dog Beach today.”

There was a long silence, and then: “Okay. I figured.”

“But I wondered if you and Jake would come to Lakes Park instead? There’s…someone I really want you to get to know.”

This time the silence stretched so long, I thought he’d hung up. I knew when I’d called that there was a good chance he’d say no.

“Please, Ben,” I added quietly. “It’s important to me.”

I heard him take in a breath, then let it out, and then: “Okay, Brook. What time?”