Nick Page 14

  We’ve managed to control Kayla’s pain, but as with all matters to do with the bones, we have to wait. I hate waiting and I hate the anticipation. All our tests so far have come back negative, which is good, but the process is just so rigorous. A game of waiting and seeing what happens. Mac placed her on a treatment program two weeks ago to help strengthen the bones. We need to see if that works or doesn’t before doing anything else. That has seemed to lesson her pain, so we were able to ween her off the morphine and put her on something lower. It’s safe to say though that it’s definitely some sort of bone disease.

  The question we’re always left with is: which one?

  “I’m hoping she’s better today,” Celine states. “Her mom looks so worried.”

  “Yeah, her stepdad too,” I add.

  “I have a few ideas,” Abby chimes in, “based on what you guys have done. It was something you said about the bone mass and density.”

  “Really?” I ask.

  “Yeah it—”

  There’s a scream that cuts her off. We’re not far from Kayla’s room, and I’m pretty sure the scream came from inside there.

  We rush to her room and I see I’m right. It’s her mom. Kayla’s on the floor unconscious and the nurse that was tending to her is next to them.

  My hands fly up to my cheeks when I see teeth all over the floor, and Kayla’s face looks like a part of it is sunken in.

  “Gorham-Stout disease,” Mac says.

  We’re back in the meeting room and Kayla is stable.

  She’d simply stood up to go to the bathroom and her legs caved. That’s what she said. An X-ray on her leg showed that the bone was worse than the last X-ray.

  She fell over and hit her face on the ground. The impact wouldn’t have caused a normal person to lose nearly the whole top row of their teeth but someone with Gorham-Stout disease, yes.

  From the looks of things, she has it in her face and her legs, and maybe more areas of her body. It’s a severe case that’s suddenly come into full bloom.

  “I was hoping it wasn’t that disease,” Mac adds.

  Me too.

  Most people with Gorham-Stout disease tend to have it more localized to one area, or in the cases I’ve seen, it would have been very obvious from an earlier age. It doesn’t tend to start the way Kayla’s did. Now she looks like the usual patients I’ve seen with it.

  It’s a disease we often refer to as vanishing bone disease. In one of the tests and observations we’d done it showed an overgrowth of her lymphatic vessels. We are currently looking into the reason for that.

  Now Mac’s handed us the answer. I feel bad for her because it’s going to be a long road of treatment.

  “What now? What do we do now?” I ask.

  “We don’t have the setup here that she needs. She’ll have to be referred to St. Claire’s Children’s hospital. We can give more meds, but her, it needs a specialist to look a little further,” he answers, and I can tell he feels the same as us.

  I hate it when we can’t help.

  Sure, I know we found out the problem, and that’s cause for some form of acknowledgment, but it’s never enough when we can’t help. Mostly when patients have to be referred on for more testing it means a longer stay in the hospital. We tend to hope that we can give answers and fix the problem, so this is the last stage. It’s hard when it’s not.

  “That’s it, guys,” he says.

  “Really?” Celine asks, and Mac nods.

  “Yep, you know the ropes. We’re in too much demand to linger on anything for longer than we need to. We’ve already been allocated a new patient. I’ll have details tomorrow.” He and Chad leave us, and we all look at each other.

  Abby sighs. “I can never get used to all the different patients and cases we come across.”

  “Me neither.” I keep remembering her teeth on the ground. It was the whole top row. The poor girl was crying so much. I know she’s going to have a tough time for what’s to come. “We did our best.”

  We always do.

  It felt like another long day but when I get home the treat that awaits me makes up for it.

  Nick is waiting there for me.

  I open the door to rose petals leading to the bathroom, which is decked out with candles. There is also a bottle of wine. It looks like a scene from some type of fantasy, but what makes it is the man sprinkling rose petals in the bath.

  “Thought you might need this,” he says with a smirk.

  I walk over to him and melt in his arms, loving the feel of him.

  “Thank you. I love it,” I answer, kissing him. “Can I have you too?”

  “You most certainly can, Doctor.” His smile widens, and he comes back to my lips, giving me the kind of kiss you read about in books and watch in movies.

  The next six weeks seemed to fly by in a blink.

  Nick went to drafts.

  We had patients come and go, making things pretty hectic.

  Nick left for a conference yesterday, and he’ll be away for the next two days. I missed him like crazy when he was away for the drafts, and I’m missing him again.

  Celine and I are at the sports bar waiting for Abby to come. Celine is telling me about her date last night with a dentist.

  “I felt like I couldn’t even have dessert, his teeth were so perfect,” she scoffs with a little laugh. “I mean like perfect. White, straight, and you can tell he flosses more than you’re supposed to.”

  “Maybe they weren’t his,” I joke, and she starts giggling.

  “No, they were totally his, and he’s hot. I think I’m keeping him. It will keep me in check for the sugary stuff so I don’t get bad teeth.”

  “So, there’ll be a date number two?”

  “Yes,” she answers. “He messaged earlier about the theater.”

  “You hate the theater.” She does. She’s the only person I know who’s expressed their dislike for anything theater-related, so I don’t know how she’ll cope.

  “I know, but the dating site guidance was to be openminded, so here I am. I told him I’d try a ballet, no opera or any kind of singing though. Hell to the no for a musical. It’s just creepy, people singing like that.” She winces and I shake my head.

  “How is that creepy Celine?” I really want to know. I’m trying to imagine something like Wicked, or Le Misérables being creepy and can’t. Those are my favorite two. I’ve seen Wicked ten times and plan to go back for my birthday with Nick.

  “It just is. People don’t just burst into song. If I saw that in real life I’d think that something was wrong with the person. So I’ll try a ballet.”

  “Okay, Celine. I’m glad the dating sight worked out for you.” I think it’s better to switch up the conversation since I won’t win on the musicals. She’s joined this dating site that is just for professionals. I’ve done dating sites but didn’t care much for them. I always found that even if a guy said he was looking for a relationship, he just wanted sex.

  “You know it has,” she agrees.

  Abby comes up to us and sets a copy of today’s newspaper before me. She’s a few pages in, but there’s a very sweet looking picture of me and Nick kissing at the table we dined at last night.

  “You’re my new celebrity couple,” she muses, sitting next to me.

  I shake my head. I can’t believe that Nick is still so popular that we even have this kind of attention. It’s been almost weekly. Of course, the first one really got me pissed, but the next spur of images were actually quite nice.

  “Some people have nothing better to do,” I state, acting like it’s nothing.

  Celine and Abby both look at each other.

  “Tania, don’t act like you don’t love it,” Abby points at me

  I roll my eyes at her. “Okay fine, I am. It’s nice now. The first one, not so much.”

  That was not how I wanted my family to find out I was seeing Nick.

  Since then, we’ve both spoken to our families. We’ve been seeing each other for two mo
nths, and it’s just been great exploring this different version of us. It’s been great being the way I imagined we could be if we were more than friends.

  “I’m just not used to it,” I add, bringing my hands together as heat creeps into my cheeks.

  “No, you aren’t,” comes a voice I haven’t heard in a long time.

  I look around to see Louise, and I can’t help the frown that takes up residence on my face.

  “You aren’t used to it, but I am, so I don’t know what he’s doing with you,” she continues.

  I recall her being mean, but I don’t remember her being such a bitch. It’s clear from her words that she’s not happy Nick and I are together.

  She’s tall like most supermodels but I don’t give a shit. Her height and that grin on her face doesn’t faze me.

  “What is it to do with you?” I ask.

  “Nothing, apparently, but it should. You’re out of your league, way out, and you should go back to your little hospital and be doctor whatever it is you are. He won’t love you the way he loved me,” she informs me.

  Now I’m convinced she must be high on something because nobody just talks shit like that outright.

  “You can’t speak to her like that,” Celine jumps in.

  “It’s okay, Celine I got this.” I love my friends but the worst thing I can look like is weak in front of Louise.

  Of Nick’s girlfriends, she hated me the most.

  “Do you now?” she argues. “You don’t have shit. You just act like the little best friend, but you wanted him the whole time. You had no respect for my relationship with him. It was your fault we broke up in the first place. If we hadn’t, I might have been more willing to give our second shot a chance.”

  I don’t know what she’s talking about. As far as I’m concerned, Nick hasn’t seen her in years.

  “Second shot?” I raise my brows.

  She smiles, realizing I don’t know what she’s referring to.

  “Last year,” she declares, and my heart stills. “All you need to know is this: I’m back. Last time he proposed, and that means something. It says a lot. It says he truly loved me enough to want me to be his wife. He would have waited for me and been there wherever I went in this world, so I’m fighting for him.”

  She walks away, and I’m left staring after her.

  I wonder what I’m supposed to do.

  Nick proposed to Louise.

  I didn’t even know he was seeing her.

  He loved her.

  I knew he did, and it looked like the second time they got together he kept me out of the picture so I wouldn’t ruin it.

  When we first got together I wanted to be with him so badly I cast the risk of him breaking me to the back of my mind.

  Now I’m not so sure that was a good idea.

  Of all the girlfriends Nick has ever had, he’s never proposed to any of them.

  Except her…

  It’s Abby’s warm hands on my shoulders that shake me from the daze.

  “It doesn’t mean anything, Tania. It doesn’t,” she says, and Celine comes closer to join us.

  I know it shouldn’t, but it does. I know Nick like no one else.

  Louise is right, him proposing means a lot.

  I just feel foolish for not knowing. There’s a reason for that too.

  Nick

  I spent the whole conference thinking about Tania.

  It was an important conference too that the team holds just after drafts so we can plan for the upcoming season. Brian is one of those down to earth guys, but when it comes to business, he’s serious as all hell about making sure everything’s in order.

  Two days in Florida, away from everybody where we can come together as one unit is supposed to do that. It did and now I’m back. I can’t wait to see my girl.

  Her place is the first stop I make even before I can put my bags down, especially since her text earlier sounded a little distant.

  It’s about seven so I know she could be tired, but I didn’t get a vibe like that. It was more like something was off.

  It turns out I was right to stop here first because one look at her is clue enough to tell me that something’s not quite right.

  Although she looks happy to see me and kisses me back, something is missing.

  She backs out of my arms with a half-smile, but presses her lips together in that contemplative way she does when something’s on her mind.

  “Baby, are you okay?” I ask.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m glad you stopped here. I wanted to talk to you,” she replies, bringing her hands together.

  The minute she says that it’s a dead giveaway that there’s something going on or something’s happened.

  She takes my hand and leads me over to the sofa.

  I’m always going on at her about this apartment. It’s too small. Tonight it feels smaller, almost suffocating.

  “Okay, baby, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?” I ask, shuffling to face her.

  “I ran into Louise…or maybe it’s more the case that I had a run-in with her.”

  Holy fuck…

  There’s no way this conversation can end well.

  “What did she say?”

  “A lot.”

  “Tania, whatever it is doesn’t matter.”

  “It does. It does to me. How comes you didn’t tell me that you got back with her and you proposed?” She looks calm, but at the same time, I know she’s anything other than calm.

  She’s hurt.

  “It was weird at the time, Tania. We got back together and I didn’t know if we were just messing around. Then I realized…” This doesn’t feel like the conversation I should be having with her. Not when it feels like I’m on the verge of losing her.

  “You realized you weren’t?” she fills in.

  “Yes, but that was last year. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Why’d you break up the first time? If she was the kind of person you’d want to spend the rest of your life with, why did you end it?”

  “She wanted me to stop seeing you and I wouldn’t.”

  She looks away and keeps her focus on her hands.

  “Tania,” I say, and then she looks at me.

  “I knew that. No one told me, but I knew, and it feels like the second time you got together, you didn’t want anything to spoil it. Nick…she told me she’s going to fight for you and hell, I get it. I understand why she would. I don’t want you to be with me when you have someone like that, when you felt so deeply for someone like that who wants to be with you.”

  I’m already shaking my head before she can finish. “No, I won’t sit here and deny that I didn’t love her. I did, and I won’t be a prick to you and lie. Last year was weird. You were with Owen and I was…well, I just looked on and accepted that you found the guy you wanted to be with. I accepted it wasn’t going to be me. So no, I didn’t keep her a secret like that. Not like how you’re thinking. She came back and gave me almost another ultimatum, so I did what I thought I should do.”

  “Nick, you don’t just stop having those feelings for someone. It doesn’t happen like that, especially when you know the other person is going to fight for you. I know you; you must have really loved her to propose. What happens when you remember how you loved her? What happens when you realize you want to be with her?”

  I shake my head. “That won’t happen.”

  “I don’t know if I could put myself through that. Not with you.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that I think we should take a break. That way, we figure out what we want. It’s safe territory so you can work out your feelings, and I can too.”

  “No, Tania, that’s insane. This is crazy. You know how I feel about you.”

  She gives me a look of sadness and draws in a breath.

  “I love you,” she whispers, stunning me. “I love you. It would crush me if you broke me by being with her behind my back.”

  “You think I’m goin
g to cheat?” I stand up and then crouch down in front of her. Shit, this is the problem she’s worried about. It’s understandable why she would be worried about someone cheating on her, but me? “Baby, you think I’m going to cheat on you?”

  “I think that if we take a break, you can come to your own conclusions on what you feel for her. I’ll accept what you choose and always be your friend. If we’re together though and you come and tell me that you’ve realized you want to be with her and break me, I won’t be able to make it back from that, or worse if you did cheat.”

  “I love you too, and none of that is going to happen. Before her was you.”

  “Nick, you tell me that now…but when I look back, I can’t see that. Not when neither of us tried to tell the other how we felt. I wanted to. God knows I wanted to, but it’s hard when you are who you are, and it felt like I was always just trying to do something to stay in your life.”

  Now I know for sure she never saw the note.

  “I did, I wrote you a note,” I say, and it feels like a weight off my shoulders. I’ve waited for years to talk to her about the note. Talk about it, ask about it, do anything about it. I just wanted to know what she thought.

  She narrows her eyes at me. “What?”

  “I wrote you a note and left it your diary the day I left for college,” I explain.

  Her skin goes pale. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why wouldn’t you tell me that? Why wouldn’t you even ask me if I got it?” A tear runs down her cheek.

  “In my note, I said if you didn’t feel the same way about me and you didn’t want to be more than friends, then you didn’t have to say anything the next time we saw each other.”

  She looks at me, open-mouthed. “I never got it.”

  “It doesn’t matter. My point is, before anybody, there was you. But you have to believe me. You have to trust me that what I’m saying is exactly how I feel.”

  I stand because I know that’s the problem here, she doesn’t believe me. We can sit here going circles over the same thing, but she has to believe me and be on the same page as me for us to both to move forward.

  Her silence just confirms my thoughts.

  I stand up and plant a kiss on her forehead before I leave.