Dumbly, I look at his hand for a few minutes before shaking it limply and dropping my hand back to my side.
“Right, can you tell me what happened?” he asks when I stare at him silently.
“It was an anxiety attack. I have them from time to time,” I murmur.
His brows flap over his eyes. “I see. How long have you had them?”
“Since I was a kid.”
“That’s too bad,” he mutters, shaking his head.
I mean, I know it’s not great, but I’m not going to die, so his reaction seems a little dour for the situation.
After a moment, he glances down at me and sighs before patting me on the shoulder and leaving the room. Bewildered, I stare after him before shrugging it off. The only solution to my issue is medication, and I won’t take it anyway because it makes me feel like a zombie. Ha!
Whatever. I’m exhausted and lie back, closing my eyes. I’m just drifting off when another staff member says my name. “Lola.”
With a sting of annoyance, I force my eyes open once more. Didn’t the fucking doctor ask all his questions the first time around? But to my surprise and everlasting dismay, I see Cole standing over me, and for a brief moment, I’m transported back in time.
My heart fills with the familiar warmth that Cole always brings and I open my mouth to tell him I’m sad, to seek comfort in his arms, but reality hits me like a freight train of hurt. And that quickly fades to a simmering burn below my skin that fights for precedence over the defeat circling my spine.
I’d like to tell him to go fuck himself, but I have some pride, and instead, I close my eyes in defense of his beautiful form and ask, tiredly, “What do you want, Cole?”
I have nothing left to give. I’m broken. My heart is empty and fucking dead, and all I feel is an overwhelming desire to sleep and never wake up. I idly wonder just how much your heart can take before it literally explodes in your chest.
“Are you okay?” he asks, touching my hand.
I pull away, refusing to open my eyes. Why torture myself? Whether he cares enough to worry or not is irrelevant because he made his choice, and it’s not me.
“Just peachy,” I say.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Lo,” he says in his warning tone, the one that used to infuriate and turn me on simultaneously but curiously, all I feel is a sad pull in my heart.
“Cole,” I mimic, shifting in the bed.
I hear his heartfelt sigh, a sign that I’m somehow disappointing him once again.
Well, fuck you very much, Cole. I guess you don’t have to worry about that anymore, do you?
When I don’t speak a damn thing because, what’s left to say, I hear him turn to go, the quiet whoosh of the door as it opens filling the dead air.
And because I can’t resist, I say quietly, “Congratulations.”
“For what?” The low rumble of his voice creates a cacophony of pain in my system because I heard that same tone not too long ago, telling me how beautiful I was before he made the sweetest love to me.
“The baby,” I mumble. Is he sad? Happy? Fucking ashamed?
He’s quiet in the doorway, so much so I think he might have left before I hear him sigh again and say, in a low rumble, “Lo . . .”
But I squeeze my eyes tight and refuse to respond, and eventually, the sound of the door whooshes slowly closed behind him.
Once he’s gone, I lay for a while and stare off into space before I drop off into sleep with a burning pain roiling in my chest.
???