Love Nouveau (26 page)

“Would you like water or perhaps something to eat? The kitchen is closed through the night, but I can steal something from the secret stash for dads-to-be in the labor and delivery ward.”

Did she really just say that? I tilt my head at her quizzically, slack-jawed. I’m still incapable of processing this miscarriage, but her comment sears me to my core.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” Julie busies herself organizing the tray again, shifting her focus from her obvious lack in tact. She bites her lip and looks to the side. “You know, it’s okay if you need to shut down or cry or scream. Or even feel confusion, or maybe even relief.”

Thank you, Dr. Phil.

I open my mouth to respond, but words fail me. When people spend their energy telling you what to feel, it’s hard not to feel anything but nothing at all. How do I even start to grieve a life that never started? That I never even knew existed? How the hell am I even supposed to feel? Because right now, I simply don’t feel anything.

My eyes drift beyond her and I see Phoenix’s silhouette appear in the doorway. Why the hell is he even here? He’s listening intently as his fingers trace the rim of his styrofoam coffee cup. I eye him suspiciously as he raises a single finger to his lips in the shadows. My insides soften ever so slightly at the sight of him, but my instinct sounds a foghorn in warning.

Visions of him lingering all over that girl flood my memory. What the hell is he doing? How long has he been standing there? Why isn’t he with his girlfriend? I roll the word around in my mind and instantly find myself jealous. The emotion is relatively foreign to me.

I want him to run next to me and hold me in his arms. I want to slap him into the next time zone. I’m not sure I can deal with my current situation
and
him at the same time. Jesus, how much other shit can I possibly deal with right now?

I can only assume he has passed himself off as family to gain access here. Admittedly, he’s the last person I thought I’d see, but relief washes through my core and, for the first time, I feel like a little more than a hollowed out shell of a woman.

“Can I get you anything to make you comfortable?” Julie asks. I return my attention to her again quickly.

“May I have some pain killers? Maybe something to help ease the cramps?” I ask softly.

“That shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll be back with something shortly.” Julie finally leaves me to my thoughts and Phoenix approaches the edge of my bed.

We evade each other’s gaze. I can’t help but feel like I’ve betrayed him somehow, but he wouldn’t be here if he didn’t care, right? He’d be off with that girl. Do I even want him here right now? Yes. Yes, I think I do. As angry as I am, I need answers. And he has them.

Seconds, minutes, hell even hours could have passed with tensions rising high, electric currents curling through the air, charging the space between us.

Eventually, I will myself to lift my eyes and gaze over him. Light from the hallway accents his mussed up hair and an unfamiliar scruff traces his jawline. His eyes are like sinkholes, studying the floor as if he were committing the pattern to memory. It’s clear that he is at war with himself. I have never seen him look more beautiful and honest than he does in this very moment. There is a beauty to his darkness. And a darkness to his beauty.

“What time is it?” I croak in a whisper.

He looks down at his watch. “Just after three in the morning.” His eyes finally find mine and together we release a collective breath. “Sully mentioned there was a family emergency, that Genevieve’s sister was in the hospital. Your last name is Phillips and I always just assumed Gen was short for Jennifer, so it took me a while to put two and two together,” he admits softly with a frown as he rubs the back of his neck.

“I took my grandmother’s last name while I was in Italy,” I explain faintly, trying to control my conflicting emotions.

He absorbs my words with a silent nod. “What happened?”

Oh, that’s rich. What happened? Is he really asking me this right now? I shut my eyes tightly to quiet the screaming in my head and take a calming breath before I respond.

“Are you freaking kidding me? What happened?
You
, you lying conniving asshole. You and that girl.
That’s
what happened.”

So much for that calming breath.

“Jesus Christ, Ivy. Is this about the girl I was with the other night? Do you even know what you’re talking about?” He looks at me in bewilderment. “That was Hailey, Sully’s ex. Months ago, before I ever even met you, she begged me to be her date to this stupid wedding. Anything you
think
you saw between us was nothing more than me being a supportive friend to her.”

I pause, taking his comments in slowly. Even with his truth, it still doesn’t explain all of the other lies.

“Why didn’t you tell me that Sully’s was the wedding in Chicago? And what the hell kind of name is Sully, anyway?”

Phoenix sighs. “Cortland James Sullivan III. Our group of friends growing up always called him Sully since his name is so damn pretentious. It just stuck.”

I nod my head, thinking back to every detail he’s ever confided in me about his friend. The infidelity. His asshole tendencies. The need for money to help his family climb out of bankruptcy. It all starts fitting into place.

“As for the wedding, I knew that if I mentioned it, you’d expect me to bring you as my date. And trust me, that was what I wanted more than anything. To get to spend time physically next to you, kissing you and dancing until our feet were blistered. But I promised Hailey months ago, before I even met you, that I would be her date for the night. I couldn’t go back on my word, especially with their fucked up history. She deserves closure and a shoulder to get through it all.”

Phoenix runs his hand through his hair, clenching his jaw. “I never in a million years expected us to be standing up in the same wedding, Ivy.”

Neither did I.

His admission, while painful, makes sense. More than anything I would have loved to stand up in this wedding with him as my date instead of Rachel. He cautiously approaches the side of the bed and pulls his chair close. Instinctually, I turn my hand toward over and he cautiously reaches out and grabs it, his thumb tracing the inside of my palm. My soul softens ever so slightly.

If what he says is true, I made a huge mistake running away from him and into Matt’s arms. He didn’t lie to me time and time again as I had assumed. My guilty conscience grows and I close my eyes, wanting to vomit from my royal fuck up. I can still feel Matt in me and on me. And I can only hope that Phoenix doesn’t sense my unease.

“I'm sorry if I’ve hurt you, Ivy. I’m so, so sorry. I should have been honest with you about the wedding from day one.” He takes my hand in his and plants a soft kiss upon it.

Shit
.

I’m the one who should be apologizing. Not him. I have screwed up in ways he never thought possible. Well, given my track record, maybe he did see the possibility all along. But there is no way he would forgive me for what happened. Ever. I know I need to tell him the truth, but I can’t. At least not right now.

I close my eyes, swallow slowly and give a tight nod. “It’s okay. I understand.”

The stillness between us weaves a thread, tying us together once more.

“So do you want to tell me why you’re hooked up to all these machines? Are you all right?” He scoffs under his breath. “I mean, clearly you’re not. But are … are you going to be okay?”

The way he stumbles over his own words is adorable. It pushes my insides beyond butterflies. There is a whole damn safari raging a stampede in my ribcage from that single look of love in his eyes.

“I … I don’t even know where to begin, Phoenix.”

“You can tell me, Ivy.” I focus on his fingers as they trace the lines of the palm of my hand.

Can I really tell him? I don’t know. I doubt he wants the truth of just how damaged I am. I take a slow, deep breath. The kind of breath where you take in so much air you feel as if your lungs will burst right through your rib cage. I know that what I’m about to tell him will change everything. A piece of radical honesty that will tell me exactly everything I need to know about him.

I swallow hard.

“Yesterday morning I woke up bleeding,” I begin slowly. “When they admitted me to the hospital, blood tests came back positive for infection. Apparently the infection could have … could’ve caused a miscarriage.” I can feel my heartbeat quaking in my ears as my hands begin to shake.

“Wait. You’re pregnant?” His face blanches and he withdraws his hand. My palm and fingers hurt with vacancy and my pulse churns fast to the point of nausea. And if I’m being entirely honest with myself, the sting surprises me when he speaks in present tense.

“No. Well … no. I’m not,” I say, trying to capture his eyes in mine. “Truthfully? It has to be a mistake as I haven’t slept with anyone in about a year.”

It’s an over-share, but I don’t want Phoenix to think that I'm still prone to reckless nights with strangers like the old Ivy would do. Even so, I can see it in his eyes that he thinks I’ve been sleeping around behind his back for the past two months. He thinks that I’m incapable of change just because I used to be a whore. While that may be partially true, I elect to leave Matt out of the equation. Bringing him up now will only complicate matters, and there is too much at stake to risk bringing up that mistake in a moment of self-hatred and desperation.

The look in Phoenix’s eyes is wounding. I can’t tell if he believes me, but I’m worried that he doesn’t. Everything I’ve allowed myself to feel for Phoenix over the past few weeks has been so terrifying and fulfilling. I’m determined for him to see the truth in my words.

“I swear to you, Phoenix,” I plead. “Since I met you, there hasn’t been anyone else.” I sit up and try to reach for his hand, but the tug of the IV tubing pulls me back.

Please believe me. Please believe me. Please believe me.

If I think it hard enough, perhaps I can will him to understand that I’m telling the truth.

I watch the light leave his eyes as he is at war with himself. My pulse beats deep within my toes, and I’m suddenly very aware of everything—the hushed childlike humming of my monitors, the flickering light shining under the bathroom door, a distant car alarm resounding the night air, the soft hiss of Phoenix’s breath as he exhales between his teeth.

He opens his mouth to say something, then promptly snaps it shut. My vision starts to blur as tears begin to pool in my eyelids. “You’ve never given me a reason not to believe you.” He takes my arm in both of his hands and traces his fingers down my forearm to the palm, squeezing it ever so slightly. The memory of his kiss lingers in my hand. “Rest your eyes, Ivy. You need your sleep.”

We fall asleep, just like that, with his head against the side of my bed, holding me the only way he physically could.

Phoenix has breathed hope back into my life.

JUST AS THE MORNING LIGHT spills into my bedroom, I hear a soft knock and my mom pushes her head through the cracked door.

“Hey, sweetie, how are you feeling today?” She rushes to my bedside, fawning over me. She is clearly putting on a show since I’m not alone. Her actions say one thing, but her eyes tell a completely different story. Phoenix exhales heavily and squeezes my hand before slipping into the en suite bathroom. My mom’s eyes follow his path, a questioning look on her face.

She opens her mouth, presumably to comment about Genevieve’s groomsman in my hospital room at such an early hour, but I beat her to the punch.

“I’m fine, Mom,” I deadpan. “You must remember meeting Phoenix the other night?” I give a nod in his direction, unwilling to share our deep history and how I’ve known him for a few weeks now.

She smooths the blanket at my sides and plucks a few tiny fuzz balls, casting them to the floor. There is no way I’m going to dive into a monologue about my inner emotional turmoil eating away at my soul. Or how I’m so beyond confused that I could be this generation’s immaculate conception. And I sure as hell am not about to explain who Phoenix is or what he means to me. Especially not to her.