Unbreakable (15 page)

I wanted to tell him all of it, so badly, and yet how would that help? A temporary catharsis. But Cory belonged to the bank robbery and I had to let that go first, completely, if I was to move on.

“I can’t…come back,” I whispered. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Oh.” His eyes clouded and he let go of my hand. “Okay.”

“I’m going to marry Drew.”

“I know.”

“I should go.”

“Yeah, okay. Thanks for the cupcakes.”

“Of course. Okay, well…” I stood up slowly, not wanting to end this way, so uncomfortable and awkward and unreal. “Goodbye, Cory.”

“Goodbye, Alexandra.”

I didn’t know why, perhaps it was that I was never going to see him again, or perhaps it was the way he’d said my full name—like it was a secret I had told only him—but I bent to kiss his cheek. That was my intention, and whether I altered course at the last moment or he turned his face, I couldn’t say, but I found my mouth on his, my lips brushing his gently in a soft kiss.

It should have ended there. A chaste peck and nothing more. But I lingered and felt his hand slip up to cup my jaw. His mouth opened ever so slightly and I couldn’t help but respond, to take his lower lip in mine, to nip and suck it gently, a burning urgency smoldering in us both.

This close, his clean, warm scent defeated the pervasive hospital odors and I reeled slightly at the heady feeling that was stealing down my limbs and between my legs. I started to pull back and instead opened my mouth wider, my tongue venturing to slide against his. God, he tasted so good, so clean and warm and velvety soft.

He moaned and the hand holding my chin slipped into my hair. He pulled gently, tilting my head to the side for better access, sweeping his tongue deep into my mouth. My eyes fluttered open a moment, and my legs turned rubbery. I had to brace myself over him, fighting a very real urge to straddle his erection, which was tenting the hospital blankets. The fact that he’d had surgery only two days before hardly registered. Not to me, and obviously not to him.

I didn’t know how far we’d have gone had he not been hooked up to a heart monitor. Cory’s pulse must’ve been racing—the machine beeped frantically and a nurse jogged in to check it.

“Damn, and here I thought you were going into cardiac arrest,” she laughed.

I straightened quickly and Cory tossed a pillow over his groin. Both of us were breathing heavily, both of our faces flushed, like teenagers caught making out.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” the nurse said. “I’ll let you alone. Just take it easy.” She winked.

“No, uh, no. I’m going. I have to go.” I smoothed my hair. “Goodbye, Cory. Goodbye.”

He offered me a version of his crooked grin, his eyes betraying him. The spark of passion we’d been kindling was there, but fading into sadness. Or resignation.

“Goodbye, Alex.”

I stared at him, drank him in one final time, and then hurried out of the room without looking back, down the corridor, and into the parking garage, which was mercifully free of press.

“Move on,” I said in the quiet confines of my car, my hands twisting around the steering wheel. “Yes. The robbery. The monster squad. And him.”

I raced my car over the streets of Los Angeles, trying to put as much distance between myself and Cory Bishop as I could. But he was right there on my lips and tongue, and the sound of his pulse racing on the monitor as we kissed resounded in my mind. The machine had betrayed him but my heart had been racing just as fast.

And still was.

Alex

Though the very last thing I wanted to do was discuss the bank robbery with the Posse, I dutifully showed up at the Belvedere on Monday at noon sharp. It was my turn to pick up the bill, after all, and I’d be damned if I’d show any weakness. I was
fine.

I’d had dinner with my parents on Saturday night—mercifully without Drew who’d begged off for a work commitment—and endured their endless questions about the robbery, and then their worry over my living alone in the bungalow.

My father had been satisfied with my explanation but Mother thought the sun rose and sank in Drew’s honor, and was concerned that I was going to “lose that fine, upstanding young man” if I wasn’t careful. But I had managed to assure them that it was romantic notion for Drew and I to not see so much of each other before the party, and the dinner had ended with hugs from my father and only one mildly suspicious look from Mother.

And I’d had only one nightmare that weekend—a doozy, if I cared to admit it, which I did not. One in which Dracula dragged me before a firing squad composed of blinding lights that illuminated the splattered blood on my clothes. He leaned to me, his cold, dead eyes so close I could see nothing else.

“Hope he was worth it,” he said, putting the gun to my head. The shot was almost as loud as my scream. Almost.

But otherwise…

“I’m fine,” I said, answering Minnie Pitman’s pitying stare. “Really. It’s been a week and…I’m fine.”

I felt Lilah watching me and kept my eyes averted when she said, “A week? It’s been four days.”

“Well, I just can’t believe you were involved—no,
at the center
—of something as big as that hostage situation,” Antoinette said with more than a touch of envy tingeing her words. “Tell us all about it. Tell us about the end. Is it true the ringleader had singled you out? That he was about to…Um, well…”

“Kill me?”

Rashida shivered and Lilah looked away, shaking her head.

Minnie clasped her hands together. “Oh dear, how dreadful. But then that young man stopped him. Stopped the whole robbery.” She leaned forward over the table. “I’d heard he jumped on one of the desks with one of those automatic weapons—”

“One that he killed a robber to get,” Rashida put in.

“
Yes!
” Minnie said, her eyes alight. “And then he just started shooting. Is that true?”

“Not remotely,” I said.

“But he did stop the robbery, this hero of yours?” Antoinette asked. “And saved your life?”

“Yes, but he it wasn’t as Rambo-esque as the stories have made him out to be. He was scared. We were all so scared and he…” My memory folded back to that awful moment, until I could feel Connor’s gun pressed behind my ear and Cory’s low voice,
Let her go or I’ll kill you…

Lilah, sitting to my left, squeezed my hand. “Alex? Are you all right?” She fixed the others with a dirty look. “We need to talk about something else.”

“No, it’s fine, I’m fine, sorry.” I shook off the memory and forked a bite of salad. It tasted like paper but I managed a smile. “Anyway, the moral here is never believe everything you hear.”

Antoinette stirred her iced tea. “Ah, but what we see with our own eyes is another matter. I’ve seen pictures of your bank hero. The news did a little feature on him.” She fanned herself with her napkin. “He’s yummy. I mean, wow.”

“Is he?” Minnie asked, delighted. “I hadn’t seen.”

“God yes,” Rashida chimed in. “He looks like one of those fire fighter pin-up men. You know, like from that calendar? Hot Heroes?”

Antoinette laughed. “Exactly! All muscle and brawn. One of those men who are so astonishingly good-looking you just want to set your house on fire so he’ll show up.”

They laughed, but for Lilah, who was shaking her head at me.

“He’s not like that at all,” I said. “He’s smart and funny and noble—”

“I’m sure he is, honey,” Antoinette said, her laughter subsiding. “We just can’t help but appreciate his more
obvious
attributes.”

I could see they were expecting me to smile politely and let them off the hook for laughing but I said nothing.

Minnie cleared her throat into the silence. “But let’s talk about you! You were all over the news! In that hospital parking garage. They called you the—”

“Jackie Kennedy of United One,” I finished. “I know and it’s ridiculous. Such sensationalism.”

“Well, what did you expect?” Rashida asked. “It’s a sensational story, in the more tawdry definition of the word. You, covered in your hero’s blood.”

“He has a name,” I said.

“Cory Bishop,” Antoinette supplied with authority. “He’s a construction worker, or was. Someone let it slip that he has no job and no health insurance. A struggling working man.”

“Was that you?” Rashida asked.

I was so appalled, it took me a moment to realize she was talking to me.
Do we always talk about people’s personal business like this? As if it was nothing?

“Was it me that what? Let it slip?
No,
” I said, tossing my napkin over my salad, my appetite vanished. “I would never talk about him like that, let alone spill it to the media. And he has a job,” I snapped. “Though not every job comes with a full boat of health insurance.”

Another silence fell and I fought for calm, to not let them see me so flustered.
“Anyway, what difference does it make? What he did was completely heroic and selfless, and has no bearing on his income whatsoever.”

“Are you going to see him again?” Rashida asked. “Have you seen him? Since the robbery?”

“Of course,” I said. “He saved my life. I visited him in the hospital on Saturday and we…said our goodbyes.”

“You did?” Lilah asked with more curiosity than I thought even she intended. “You won’t…remain friends with him?”

“I haven’t thought about it,” I replied, pleased that that lie came out as casual as if I’d been discussing the weather. “Now, I don’t want to talk about him—or the whole terrible mess—any more.”

Antoinette smiled in a way that was supposed to appear sympathetic but looked more satisfied than anything. “Of course not, dear. You’ve obviously had a terrible ordeal. You don’t need to talk to us about it if you don’t wish to, but I
do
hope you’re talking to someone. Professionally, I mean.”

“You mean a therapist? Not necessary.”

“Have you thrown yourself back into your work?” Rashida asked. “I know that getting back into the same routines after a crisis can help restore a sense of normalcy.”

“Um, no,” I said, faltering again. “I’ve taken a leave of absence from work.”

Shocked stares and raised eyebrows met this from three of the four women around me.

Lilah sat up quickly. “A paid leave. Just for a few weeks, and didn’t you tell me you were thinking of taking some vacation time to help your mother plan the wedding?”

I smiled gratefully at my friend.

Antoinette frowned. “Just last week you said your mother was going to handle everything and that your schedule would remain ‘blissfully unaffected.’”

“I remember that too,” Minnie said, only she clapped her hands together. “Oh, but I’m so glad you’ve changed your mind and are going to jump in and spend some time planning your big day. Drew must be ecstatic. Can you pull him away from EllisIntel long enough to at least pick out the cake?”

“Drew can’t spare the time,” I said slowly, and though I hated to do it, I knew I had to tell them first. Antoinette’s husband worked with Drew at EllisIntel and if I didn’t talk about it now, Antoinette would hear it through her garden club or tennis club, or any other club in which the EllisIntel ‘family’ congregated.

“In fact, we’re going to be spending some time apart before the engagement party. I’ve moved back into my bungalow.”

Another round of stares, this time from everyone, as I hadn’t told Lilah either.

Minnie put her small, birdlike hand to her chest. “You’re…separated?”

“Honestly, Minnie, don’t be so dramatic,” I said, firming my voice. “Of course not. Drew and I have been together every day for six years. We both think it a romantic gesture to spend time apart leading up to the big events.” Another lie that slipped easily off my tongue. I watched it land on my friends from behind my ice tea glass.

“So you’ll still see him occasionally?” Antoinette asked, skeptical. “It’s not a total blackout?”

“Of course not. We just won’t be living together, but we’ll still see each other.”

“When?” Antoinette asked pointedly.

My confident demeanor started to erode, but before I could answer, a busboy dropped a huge platter of dishes and silverware somewhere behind us. The cacophony of shattering porcelain was enormous against the exterior floor of the restaurant and propelled me out of my seat. I knocked over my ice tea, my heart clanging madly in my chest.

“Oh my god, I’m sorry.” I tried to wipe up the spill with a hand that trembled violently. “I’m okay…I’m okay.”

Lilah put her hand over mine while Rashida sought a waiter to help clean up the mess.

“Darling,” Minnie said in a soft voice, after the waiter had departed, “I think you need to see someone.”

“She’s right.” Antoinette flipped a lock of blonde hair off her shoulder and leaned over the table, folding her perfectly manicured—un-trembling—hands, one over other. “Alexandra, you aren’t working, you’re not living with Drew, and you’re awfully defensive about an impoverished man who did a heroic thing for you but, for all intents and purposes, is a complete stranger.”

“Not to mention a clear case of PTSD,” Minnie said, as if her degree were in clinical psychology and not art history.

Antoinette nodded solemnly in agreement. “What did you say, Rashida, about returning to normal routines after a crisis?”
“They can help facilitate the healing process,” Rashida—also not a psychologist—said with authority.

“Exactly. And you’re doing nothing of the kind.” Antoinette reached into her purse and pulled out a business card. “This is a friend of Paul’s. I asked for his card the second I heard you were in that bank.” She slid it across the table. “There is no shame in needing help.”

I hesitated. Of course Antoinette was right. Countless people had been helped by therapy, regardless of what my mother’s views on ‘strength’ were. Even so, taking that card from Antoinette Phillips felt like admitting defeat.
Not
taking it, however, was a different kind of defeat, at least at this table. I straightened my shoulders and put on a thin smile. I’d recovered slightly from the shattered plates and my hand only trembled a little as I reached for the card and dropped it into my purse.
“I’ll think about it.”

#

The other ladies departed at one o’clock, but I had nowhere to go and nothing to do, so I lingered over paying the bill. The others had politely protested that I should be allowed to skip, given my recent circumstances, but I insisted. It was my turn.

Lilah remained behind. I could feel my friend’s watchful gaze on me as I scribbled my signature on the bill.

“Okay, they’re gone, tell me the truth,” Lilah said. Her dark, almond eyes were warm with concern, but stern too. “Are you really okay?”

“If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me that, I could buy the Belvedere.”

“We’re worried about you.
I’m
worried about you.”

“Don’t be. I can handle it.”

“Handle what? Being kicked out of your office? Because I know that’s what the evil half of your bosses did to you for Munro. Or how about living apart from Drew? The others may have bought that bullshit about the
romance
of it, but I know Drew’s idea of romance is eating takeout together over your desks as you both pull an all-nighter. So right after this trauma happens, you’re suddenly split?”

I toyed with the pen. A thousand excuses came to my mind, followed by a thousand defenses of Drew. Instead I heard myself say, “We don’t have sex. We haven’t had sex. Not in six months.”

Lilah sat back in her chair, stunned. “Six
months
.”

“And not for six months before that. And before that, during college and law school, maybe once a month.
Maybe
.”

“Jesus, Alex…”

I shrugged self-consciously. “I chalked it up to being busy. I still do. Back then, we were busy with getting our degrees and then jumping into intense careers. There were plenty of excuses. But it got worse.”

“Do you think he’s…got someone else?”

“No. He’d never do that. And every single solitary time he’s canceled some plan or stayed out late, I could always call him and he’d be where he said he’d be. Moreover, he doesn’t have it in him to cheat.”
Unlike me, apparently.

“But the infrequency isn’t the worst of it,” I continued. “What’s worse is the complete lack of passion. There’s no fire. He usually has to get himself drunk and the entire glorious event lasts a few minutes.” I sighed. “I feel terrible talking about it…about him, like this, but…”