Christy McKellen - Mills & Boon Showcase

“He’s okay. It was a spleen trauma, but it’s out and he’s stable in the intensive care unit,” Kate reported, knowing Chloe’s desire to follow all of her patients.

“Thanks for coming back and letting me know.”

Chloe stood from her chair and wavered before reaching down to the desk for support.

“Are you okay, Chloe?” Kate asked.

“Yeah, just tired, stressed, busy, the usual. I think I might have some low-grade virus or something that has pushed me over the edge.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Kate asked, concerned that for the first time her perfectly put-together friend was actually admitting to struggling. Chloe had always made everything seem effortless, which made Kate worry that she was feeling a lot worse than she was admitting.

“Don’t you think you have enough on your plate?” Chloe asked, one eyebrow arching upwards, in a friendly, teasing tone.

“More than I ever wanted, but I’m sorting through it the best I can.” She stared at Chloe, knowing what she should say but fighting a lifelong instinct to keep things inside. “I know that you’re tired, but I was wondering if I could drive you home and maybe we could talk a bit.”

Chloe stopped all the other tasks she was trying to finish and looked Kate in the eye. “That would be more than okay. Give me ten minutes to hand over my patients and I’ll meet you by the parkade elevators.”

True to her word, Chloe met her and they managed their escape without further interruption. “Are you hungry?” Kate asked, realizing she had missed lunch and supper while dealing with the trauma.

“A little bit. Do you have anything at your house?”

“No. Do you?”

“No. Eating out, it is.”

Creatures of habit, Kate and Chloe tucked themselves into the back of the small Italian restaurant where the staff knew them by name. Kate waited to order and for their drinks to arrive before she drew in a breath and took the plunge. “Matt wants me.”

Chloe didn’t appear surprised. “What does that mean exactly?”

“I have no idea. At first it seemed purely physical and I thought you were right about it stemming from jealousy over Tate, and I told him that I wanted nothing more than a lawyer-client relationship. Then he told Tate about our past and we had a huge fight, which didn’t seem to deter him at all because he showed up again today.”

“And?”

“He said I was his and that I always have been and I always would be.” She shivered, saying his words aloud having no less impact than hearing them from him hours earlier.

“Is he right?”

“I don’t know. I don’t understand what happened between us all those years ago and I don’t understand what’s happening now.”

“So stop trying to think through and understand everything. How do you feel , Kate?”

“Terrified.”

“What are you terrified of?”

“Of trusting him. Of making the same mistakes, getting hurt and losing myself all over again.”

“Okay, that’s a start. If you could trust him and weren’t going to get hurt, would you want to be with him?”

“Yes.”

“Are you still in love with him?”

“Yes.” She was surprised at how quickly the words left her, but knew in the instant she heard her own answer that it was the truth.

“Can you talk me through what happened last time?”

“He was my everything. We met in my third year of undergraduate studies at Brown and became friends. He still had a long-distance girlfriend back in New York. During our friendship I fell in love with him, but never told him or acted on my feelings. After graduation he was going to law school in New York and I had a full scholarship to medical school in Boston.”

“So what changed things?”

“Our last night together was unbearable. It was the end: he was going to go on with his life and me with mine. I spent the evening torn between telling him I loved him and just saying goodbye. Then before I said anything he kissed me.”

“And?”

“And I thought we made love.”

“I’m confused.”

“We had sex. I told him I loved him and fell asleep in his arms happier than I had ever been in my entire life. The next morning I knew I couldn’t say goodbye and I told him I wasn’t going to.”

“And?”

“He said he didn’t love me and it had been a mistake. Then he went back to New York to be with his girlfriend and I never heard from him again.”

“Oh, my God, Kate, I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine how devastating that must have been.”

“What’s worse is that I didn’t believe him at first. After he left I waited for him to come back to apologize, to tell me the truth, that he loved me and things were going to be okay. But he never came back. I sat in his apartment for hours, waiting, hoping, and he never came back. Even after I left his apartment, I still thought he just needed time, that there was no way he could touch and hold me the way he had and not be in love with me too.”

“So what did you do?”

“I held on as long as I could. I gave up my scholarship to Boston and managed to secure a place at Columbia in New York. I begged my father to take a second mortgage on our house to cover the lost scholarship and I left messages for Matt to tell him I was in New York when he was ready to talk.”

“He never tried to contact you?”

“No, he never looked back. I believed in him so much that I lost all faith in myself.”

The waitress arrived with their order and Kate was grateful for the interruption. As cathartic as it felt to finally talk about what had happened, it also brought to the surface how she had felt.

Both women were silent as they began to eat. Kate’s mind kept telling herself the story. Matt’s abandonment had left her with a small seed of self-doubt that had germinated over months of loneliness. She hadn’t been able to resist following the coverage of his life in the society pages, and seeing him with other women had intensified her loneliness.

It had been a cold, windy day in November when she’d seen him again, walking across campus. She hadn’t seen him in five months but had recognized him instantly in the crowd. She’d called his name and he’d turned to look and then kept walking. She’d convinced herself that he hadn’t seen her. The second time she’d seen him she’d called his name more loudly and he’d moved his head slightly in her direction but hadn’t turned around.

The final rejection had come in March. She had been sitting in a local coffee shop, studying, determined to make the dean’s honor list so she would qualify for a scholarship the following year. She had been deep in thought when she’d had a sense that she hadn’t felt in almost a year. She’d looked up and seen Matt, the same old Matt, in jeans and a cream sweater, with his brown leather tote bag slung across one shoulder. She’d seen him as he’d been looking at her and turning away.

That time she hadn’t been able to say anything, she hadn’t called out his name or even moved from her seat. She’d watched in horror as he’d walked away from her and out of the shop. In an instant all her fears had been confirmed. She had no longer been able to deny that he knew she was in New York and he’d wanted nothing to do with her.

She looked up to see that Chloe wasn’t eating. She glanced at her own plate, which was almost full with her favorite pesto linguine that she had no appetite for. “Do you want to get this to go?”

“Yes, please. I’m exhausted,” Chloe replied. As they waited for the check it was Chloe who broke the comfortable silence.

“Kate, can you think of any reason why Matt walked away from you?”

“I’ve thought of every reason. The only one that justifies his actions is that he really didn’t love me.”