Julian (Beautiful Mine #1) (17 page)

He rolled down the window and welcomed in a gush of tepid night air.

“I hope she dies,” he said. “I hope she really has cancer and dies.”

“Julian,” I said, reaching my hand over to calm him. “That’s your mother. You shouldn’t say things like that.”

“She doesn’t deserve the title,” he spewed. “You see what she’s doing, don’t you? She’s trying to pull me back into her life and get me right back under her control. She’s playing this cancer card because she’s testing me. She’s testing us. She’s up to something.”

“Maybe,” I said gently. “I’d like to think she wouldn’t stoop that low, but I guess you know her better than anyone else. Why does your dad act like that?”

“Great question,” he said. “Wish I knew. He’s always been like that. I guess he loves her. Can’t think of any other reason he’d let her get away with the things she’s done to our family.”

I desperately wanted him to elaborate, but it wasn’t the time nor the place. I squeezed his hand and rested it on his leg. After a few deep breaths on his part, he lifted my hand to his lips for a gentle kiss.

“Evie, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he said, turning toward me. “I never knew what love was until I met you, and I mean that.”

“I love you too,” I said without pause.

“I’ll do everything in my power to give you the best life possible,” he said, his words rife with intention. “You deserve it. You deserve everything. You breathed life into this sick, unlovable jerk and gave me a second chance.”

“You showed me that there are still good guys in this world,” I countered. “And that I didn’t deserve to be someone’s backup plan.”

The second we pulled into our driveway, Julian tore off his seatbelt and leaned across the car. Cupping my face in his strong hands, he leaned in and kissed my lips, lingering a bit before he slowly backed away.

Hot searing pain ripped through my gut. “Ow!”

My hand clutched my lower abdomen as I drew in long, deep breaths.

“What is it?” he asked, his eyes concerned as he stared down at my belly.

“I don’t know,” I said, fearing the worst. “It really hearts though. Like bad cramps.”

“Is that normal?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

Julian exited the car and ran around to my side, escorting me in the house. He wrapped his arm around me and led me back to our bedroom, getting me settled in and then bringing me some Tylenol and a glass of water.

“I think I just need a hot bath,” I said a half hour later when the pain had only worsened. I dragged myself to the bathroom and turned on the faucet, stripping off my clothes.

“Julian!” I yelled as I felt it. Small trickles of warm, red blood dripped down my inner thighs.

Julian barged into the bathroom. “Oh, my God. We have to get you to the hospital.”

With mascara-tinged tears gushing down my face, I changed my clothes and clutched onto Julian as he walked me out to the car. The physical pain was horrific, but the pain of the unknown was even worse.

“I’ll drive,” he said.

“You don’t have a license,” I objected, wincing through the searing hotness that ripped through my insides.

“Doesn’t matter right now.”

The ride to the hospital was one big blur, but he got me there safe and sound. He ran inside to grab a wheelchair and then rushed me inside the doors of the E.R.

“She’s bleeding,” he yelled to a nurse at the desk. And then he said those words: “I think she’s losing the baby.”

The last thing I remembered before I blacked out was a swarm of nurses gathering around me. And when I came to, I was lying in a hospital bed and it was morning.

“Hey,” I whispered the second I noticed Julian asleep in the chair next to the bed.

His eyes fluttered as he sat up and leaned my way. His bottom lip trembled, though his expression remained stoic. “I was so worried about you, Evie. I’ve never been on… this side of things…”

“I’m okay, right?” I asked. “What happened?”

He sucked in a deep breath and locked eyes with me. “We lost the baby. You lost a lot of blood. They had to do a transfusion. They said it was good we came in when we did.”

He sat on the side of my bed and scooted closer, eventually lying next to me with his arm scooped around my hips.

“The doctor said you might not be able to have kids after this,” he said gently as I buried my face into his shoulder. “They’re running tests on the… baby.”

I squeezed my eyes to try to stop the tears from falling, but it was no use. It seemed like all I did lately was cry, but I’d been blaming that on hormones—hormones that would soon dissipate from my body as if they were never there in the first place.

“Evie, even if we can never have kids,” Julian said, his voice low and tender, “we’ll still have an amazing life together. All I want is to be with you. You’re all I need in this world to be happy. I hope you feel the same.”

I nodded, unable to speak.

“We’re going to build our future together. Remember?” he said, a glimmer of hope in his words. “Anything we want, we’re going to make it happen. We’re creating our own destiny.”

I nodded again, my lip trembling as Julian held me and brushed the hair off my face. We lay together, swallowed by deafening silence, until a nurse came in.

“You have a visitor,” she said.

“Me?” I asked.

“No, him,” she replied, turning on her heel and leaving. She seemed annoyed, though I wasn’t convinced her annoyance was directed toward us.

“Be right back,” he said with a suspicious look as he left the room.

I could vaguely make out a conversation in the hallway outside my door. It sounded like Caroline.

“What are you doing here?” Julian demanded to know. “How’d you know we were here?”

“I have connections,” she said without missing a beat. “Someone said they saw you here last night. I thought something happened to you. I was worried.”

“Right,” he said. “Because you care so much. This is none of your business and you need to go.”

“Is she okay?” Caroline asked, ignoring his command. “Did something happen to the baby?”

“Just leave,” he told her.

“Fine,” she said, her voice curt and hushed. “But before I go, I just wanted to say that I still think she’s just after your money. Just watch. She’ll try to get pregnant again. She’s trying to secure her future.”

“How can you look at me and say those horrible things about her when you were hugging and congratulating her late night at her parents’ house?” Julian’s voice was strained as he tried to contain his anger. “I don’t want to ever look at you or see you again. Stay out of our lives.”

He returned to my room seething, his face scarlet and his fists clenched.

“You okay?” I asked, sitting up in the bed. “I’ve never seen you so angry before.”

Julian paced the room before taking a seat in the chair next to the bed, staring down at the ground.

“I don’t think we’ve seen the last of her,” he said, covering his mouth with his hands and anxiously running his fingers through his thick, dark hair.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s something missing behind her eyes,” he said. “She’s lacking a compassion chip. I’m not sure she’s even human, honestly.”

“You’re just overreacting because you’re upset,” I said, not that I didn’t completely agree with him. “She’s not used to having you out of her control. She’s trying to adjust to this new arrangement and the fact that you’re a grown, married man now. I’m just a scapegoat for her real issues.”

“IT’s wrong,” he said, reaching over and taking my hand, eyes still averted. “You don’t deserve that, Evie. I won’t stand for it.”

I shrugged. “We just have to ignore her. That’s all we can do.”

The nurse entered the room, pausing our conversation. “Doctor will be in shortly and we’ll get your discharged, Miss—Mrs. Garner-Willoughby.” She studied her clipboard, rereading my name. “Sorry. It’s just weird calling someone else that. I’m so used to…”

“I know,” I agreed. “It is weird.”

“Maybe I should take your last name,” Julian huffed, still full of resentment. “I’m actually considering it, at this point.”

“Don’t be silly,” I said, offering a kind smile. “It’s not that bit of a deal. We’ll get used to it. I’ll just have to be the best Mrs. Garner-Willoughby there is.”

“You already are,” he said, turning his gaze toward me and forcing a half smile. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to go home and sleep in our bed.”

JULIAN

I woke in coughing fit, something I hadn’t had in a long time. This one was different. It was deeper. I could feel it in my lungs. My chest was tight. I sprung up in bed and flipped my feet over the edge, reaching for my nebulizer.

“You okay?” Evie asked as she shot up and placed her hand on my back. Deep, honking coughs prevented me from responding. “You coughed a lot last night.”

I nodded. I was well aware. I’d barely slept a wink. Her warm cheek resting against my back offered a bit of comfort as I tried to get myself under control.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

As soon as the coughing fit died down, Evie slinked out of bed and slipped her pajamas bottoms off, tossing them into the hamper. “I’m going to take a shower. You going to be okay?”

I nodded, scrunching my face. She worried too much.

“Want to go on a walk this morning?” she asked as she slipped off her camisole. “The cool air might feel good on your lungs.”

I offered a smile and nodded. I felt like complete shit, but I didn’t want her to worry. She worried enough as it was.

“Don’t forget your pills,” she called from the doorway, lingering for a bit to stare at me. “You’re not invincible, you know. You’ve got to stay on top of this.”

With the hospital incident and everything else going on, I’d missed a couple of doses of my meds, which had never happened before. I sure as hell didn’t think it would kill me to miss a dose, but I was certainly paying for it now.

I coughed, a hint of phlegm rasping with each breath. “This is so not sexy. I’m sorry, Evie.”

“I don’t care,” she said, watching me. “I signed up for this.” She traipsed back over to where I sat on the edge of the bed and kissed my forehead, smiled, then headed to the bathroom.

***

“You smell that?” Evie asked as we walked hand in hand down our tree-lined street. “Summer.”

“It’s not summer for at least a few more weeks,” I said, attempting to hide the fact that I was gasping for air with each step.

She nudged her elbow into me. “Just because it’s not summer doesn’t mean it can’t smell like summer.”

“True,” I said, keeping my part of the conversation to a minimum.

“Everything is so green,” she said. “That’s why it smells like summer.”

“And I think the Bogards are filling their pool down the street,” I replied. “Chlorine. That’s what you smell.”

I gasped for air that time. There was no denying it. Evie’s head whipped toward me.

“Why are you breathing like that?” She stopped us right there on the sidewalk and looked me straight in the eyes. “Let’s go back.” I didn’t have it in me to argue with her.

Back at the house, Evie grabbed her stethoscope and placed the cool metal against the bare skin of my back.

“Breathe in,” she said. “Deep breath. Okay, now exhale.”

She pulled the stethoscope from her ears and bit her lip nervously.

“We’re taking you in,” she said, her eyes growing worried. “You don’t sound too good, Julian. You don’t look too good, either. You sure you’re feeling all right?”

No. I felt like shit. I wanted to throw up. I could barely breathe. I was exhausted. “I feel all right,” I lied. I lied right to her pretty little face. “Just a little tired.”

Evie grabbed her keys and purse and led me by the arm to her car. Somewhere between the house and the hospital, I’d passed out, too tired to stay awake for even five minutes.

“Weren’t you just here last night?” an older woman at the front desk said as we entered the E.R.

“I’m not here for me,” Evie said. “Julian’s not breathing well. He needs to be seen immediately.”

A nurse, who appeared to be annoyed at having to get up from behind the desk, grabbed a wheelchair and took us back to an exam room. She listened to my chest, took my pulse and blood pressure, and typed a few quick notes into her computer before jetting out to get the doctor. Same old, same old. I’d done this a million times before. I knew the drill. After a trip to radiography for some X-Rays, I was admitted and hooked up to an IV filled with antibiotics.

“Thirty-percent lung capacity, Julian,” the doctor said, his lips pursed and his face pinched. “That’s not good.”

I’d been in bad shape before, but never like this. “So what’s the plan?”

“We’ll keep you here,” he said. “I’m thinking a chest infection may have led to this. You know you’re more susceptible to those kinds of things, right?”

I nodded. Of course I knew.

“We’re going to run a full panel, check your CBC, liver and kidney function,” he said. “We’ll get a good look at what your body’s doing.”

Evie nipped at her fingernails in the corner, glued to every word that fell out of the doctor’s mouth. “Is he going to be here a while?”

“Oh, yeah,” the doctor said, as if it went without saying. “He won’t be going home anytime soon. Not unless he wakes up tomorrow with full lung function, and I’ve never seen that happen in my thirty years practicing medicine.”

“Thanks,” I said to the doctor, though I wasn’t feeling particularly thankful. I rested my eyes for just a moment and finally allowed myself to succumb to a sweet slumber, praying I’d wake up when it was all over. Sometimes I didn’t have the strength to fight. This was one of those times.

The pitch black sky outside my window when I woke told me I’d slept the entire day away.

“You’re up,” Evie said, relief washing over her face. “You slept for, like, ten hours. You must’ve needed that.”

She walked over to my bed and took a seat on the edge, interlacing her fingers through mine.

“The nurse said you do have an infection,” she said gently. “This shouldn’t have happened. It’s all my fault.” Her eyes misted.

“Don’t say that,” I said softly, still feeling the rasp in my lungs with each breath.

“I wasn’t giving you your treatments and doing your therapy like I should’ve,” she said, wiping away a tear and shaking her head. “I was too caught up in everything else.”

“I disagree, Evie,” I said, offering a smile. “You’re not my keeper anymore. I’m the one who slacked.”

“I’ll always be your keeper.” She forced a bittersweet smile, which I returned. There were some things didn’t need to be said to be felt. “You going to be okay if I run home and grab a few things for you? I’m sure you’ll want your laptop and books, and whatnot.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said with a half-smirk. “I’ll be here when you get back. Won’t move. Promise.”

She leaned in, kissing me and breathing me in for a second before grabbing her things and walking out. She wasn’t gone but two minutes when in walked the Ice Queen herself.

“What are you doing here?” I hissed. The beeping of the heart rate monitor shot up and my blood pressure rose at the mere sight of her.

“Shh,” she said. “Keep your voice down. I heard you were sick. Believe it or not, I care about you. I wanted to come check on you.”

“No,” I snapped back. “You wanted to talk to me and you knew if I was confined to a hospital bed I wouldn’t be able to walk away from you. I’m not stupid.”

“Don’t you see what’s happening?” she asked. “First she tries to get pregnant and then loses the baby, and now she’s neglecting your health. What if you die, Julian? Don’t you see what she’s trying to do? She doesn’t care about you at all. She cares about what you represent to her, and that’s money.”

“You disgust me,” I said, turning my gaze away as she stood there, so self-righteous and stone cold. “All you care about is yourself, and you can’t stand that for once someone genuinely loves me and I love her, and you have absolutely no control over any of it. Get out of here before I call security and have you escorted to your car.”

Her face pinched as she turned to leave, her pointy heels clicking on the hard hospital floor. The second her chilly presence was gone, it was promptly replaced with another.

“Julian,” a nurse said, her voice full of dread. “We got your lab results.”

“And?”

“The doctor will be in to go over them with you,” she said, her eyes full of pity as if she knew something I didn’t.

“No,” I said. “Tell me now.”

She looked over her shoulder to make sure no one was around. “I’m not supposed to do this. The doctor is supposed to tell you.”

“Understood.”

“Your blood work indicates…” She stopped, pausing before delivering a punch to my gut. “…that your liver and pancreas numbers are way off. It’s a good thing you came in when you did, because your organs are starting to shut down.”

I stared at the wall at the foot of my bed. A white board with the day’s date and a smiley face next to my nurse’s name stared back.

“How did this happen?” I asked, though my question was probably more rhetorical. How did I find love and happiness, only to have it all swept away? I was the sand and my disease was the ocean tide, slowly pulling me out into the undertow. The sand never stood a chance against the tide.

“It could be due to the infection your body’s trying to fight off,” she said. “Or it could just be a complication of your CF. It’s important that we not focus on why right now. We just need to focus on reversing what’s happening and getting you stabilized.”

“Well, this day’s gone to shit.” I raked my fingers through my hair, wondering how on earth I was going to tell Evie. The nurse rattled off the list of medications I’d be on and their schedules, but I didn’t hear any of it.

***

Evie returned to the hospital that evening, just a shade before nine. A giant bag hoisted over her shoulder held all of my favorite things: my laptop, several books, some magazines, and a slew of DVDs.

“If there’s anything else you want from home, just let me know,” she said as she pulled things out and began arranging them all within arm’s reach for me.

“Thanks,” I said. “Sounds like I’m going to be here a while.”

She stopped what she was doing and shot me a look. She drew in a breath. “What’d they say?”

“Infection,” I said. “Some organ failure. Stuff like that.”

“Organ failure.” She repeated the words slowly, her body frozen as every last ounce of hope fled her spirit. Her lip trembled but she forced it away, likely more for my benefit than anything else.

“Look,” I said. “I’m going to be here for a while. Why don’t you go home and sleep in our bed tonight? Come back in the morning. We’ll have all day to hang out, okay?”

She nodded reluctantly, not taking her glassy blue eyes off me for a second. “I’ll be back first thing tomorrow morning.” She walked over to me and kissed me, leaving her taste on my lips.

I was dying. There was no way around it. It didn’t matter how happy I was, and it sure as hell didn’t matter how loved I was. There was no amount of love in the world great enough to keep me alive. It was time to stop denying the inevitable.

The second Evie left my room, I cracked open my laptop, pulled up my email, and began composing an email to my brother.