AN HOUR LATER, after the cops had come and gone and I called the salon to tell them I needed a personal day, I sat across from Sam at his kitchen table in a surreal bubble of disbelief.
“This is not your fault. He’s clearly a psycho. You heard him.”
Of course I heard him. And I saw him, too. But this break in Bryce’s consciousness was because of me. Because I chose Sam, acted recklessly, and dismissed Bryce’s feelings as if he weren’t a human being with a beating heart.
“I feel so awful.”
“Awful? Fuck that. He got what he had coming to him. I think my fucking hand is broken and he wrecked my goddamn car. If I hadn’t come outside when I did, he would’ve hurt you and . . . we’re forgetting the key ingredient to this whole crazy train.” Sam dragged his chair closer to me and turned the laptop in my direction. “I knew something was up, but definitely not this. He’s a fucking stalker, London. Certifiably obsessed. And not even with you, babe. With her.”
The screen showed the Facebook page of a woman named Lauren Stark. At first it didn’t register, but then I remembered Bryce saying her name.
“Who is she?” I asked, unable to tear my eyes from the screen. The more I scrolled, the more I realized a very disturbing truth. “This girl could be my twin, Sam. She looks exactly like me.”
“Yes, she does. But you’re a million times more beautiful.” He winked at me, and then winced. The gash over his eye had stopped bleeding and a giant knot was forming, but he was still gorgeous as ever. “Looks like the frozen peas turned into pea soup. Time for the carrots.”
He shot up and headed for the freezer as I continued to search Lauren’s profile. “How do you know this is the Lauren he was talking about? Bryce isn’t even on her friend’s list.”
“While you were on the phone with work, I did my own stalking. That girl was tagged in one of Bryce’s older pictures. Some hospital gala thing with a big group of nurses and doctors. Since there was no other Lauren linked to his page or listed under his friends, I clicked on her and nearly shit myself when I got a closer look.”
“It’s freaking crazy, Sam.” I studied Lauren’s most recent profile photo, a wedding portrait. I could only make out her husband’s side profile. He was adoring his new bride, his nose nuzzled into her radiant cheek, but she stared back at me, head on. Eye to eye with this woman, I felt as if I were gazing into a mirror. The resemblance was uncanny, from the style of our hair, to the color of our eyes, to the shape of our noses.
“Go to the other browser window. I Googled both of their names. There’s an article that makes for lovely light reading.” Sam broke me of my daze.
I waved my head from side to side in sheer astonishment, clicking on the browser screen and revealing the article.
Five minutes later, we were that much closer to solving a very strange puzzle.
Bryce hadn’t lied about breaking someone’s jaw back in Oregon. That’d be Lauren’s now-husband, Shane. The story made the paper because a well-known and highly respected doctor—Bryce—had his license suspended after harassing a nurse—Lauren—at their place of business—Providence Hood River Memorial Hospital.
Of course, there was no way to tell what exactly transpired behind the scenes between Bryce, Lauren, and Shane, but it was obvious that the driving force was love. Or in Bryce’s case, obsession.
Part of the article was quoted from an interview with my look-alike. There was a mention of Bryce’s possessive and hostile behavior during the course of their two-year relationship. She explained that they ended things on decent terms, but that he became obsessive shortly afterward.
“He told people we were engaged and that I cheated on him with Shane. We had no plans to marry and I didn’t meet Shane until two months after Bryce and I broke up. He wouldn’t leave me alone. And one day he just . . . cracked. He showed up at my house and almost killed Shane. He was hospitalized for a month.”
“What a nightmare.” I sighed, still in shock. Bryce had shown a few signs of possessiveness, but it never occurred to me that he could be crazy.
“You still feel awful?” Sam asked.
“No, but I do feel sick.” I clutched my stomach, hoping to tame my insides.
Holding the frozen bag of veggies to his temple, Sam came up behind me and placed his free hand on my shoulder.
I reached up to hold it and released another long sigh. “We have to go to the hospital, Sam. I have to make sure he doesn’t go anywhere near my mother. I’ll talk to Doctor Bronson and see who we can get to take over her case.”
“Okay. Definitely. We’ll do it together. And London?”
“Yeah?”
“I think we should forget about Memphis and go ahead with using my kidney. Not because of anything with Bryce or rejection rates, but because I know in my gut that it’s the right thing to do.”
“I think so, too.”
When we arrived at the hospital to see Mom, our intention was to keep as much of this from her as possible. I didn’t want to lie to her, but I didn’t want to stress her out, either.
Yesterday, we were in the home stretch and now it seemed we’d taken ten steps backward. Rearranging Mom’s healthcare plan and finding another doctor to lead the charge who was as qualified as Doctor Romanoff or Bryce meant more time wasted. But it was a necessary evil and there was no way around it.
Sam and I walked into Mom’s room with trepidation. Who knew what we’d find—maybe Bryce had already made his rounds and done something drastic. As a doctor, I imagined he’d keep to an oath of professionalism, but as a man with his disturbing background—all bets were off, weren’t they?
“What the hell happened to you?” my mother asked, gawking at Sam.
“I tried to kiss your daughter and she clocked me.”
Mom broke out in laughter and I merely shook my head. Leave it to Sam to find a way to make this day anything but the nightmare it started out as.
“Mom, we need to talk to you about something.” I moved closer to her bed. Sam followed behind, reaching out to hold my hand in his. He was a one-man support team. With him at my side I felt invincible.
My mother immediately noticed that our hands were joined. Her face brightened, the joy radiating off of her in droves. “Oh my God, you two! Finally!”
Her excitement was contagious, warming me from the inside out. I turned to look at Sam and we shared a knowing glance of gratitude. I hated that our happiness had to be overshadowed by everything else—Bryce’s breakdown, Mom’s health, my guilt. But I knew with every fiber of my being that this patient man beside me would see me through it all. And one day, one day very soon, we’d be together in every sense of the word.
“I got you,” he whispered so only I could hear.
I glanced over at him and my heart clenched. You are my forever, I thought as a soul-searing smile and eyes that held a promise of protection fed me the encouragement I needed.
“Mom, Bryce is no longer on your case,” I blurted out.
At the mention of his name, Sam squeezed my hand tighter.
Her curious glare darted back and forth between us, finally landing on me. “I take it he’s not as happy about the two of you getting together as we all are?”
“Yeah, you can kind of say that,” Sam spoke for me.
Mom shifted in the bed, pulling herself up higher and straighter. “Why do I get the feeling there’s a lot more to this story than you’re telling me.”
I blinked and released a breathy sigh. Sam would grant me any wish I asked of him. He would lie to my mother to keep her safe, and he would tell her the truth to take the burden of doing so off of me. But that wasn’t fair. I’d relied on him as a crutch for far too long. I didn’t want to start a relationship off that way. He could rely on me, too. We could protect each other.
Inching closer to Mom’s side, I admitted, “There is, but now’s not the time. Do you trust me?”
“Do you trust us?” Sam included, coming up behind me.
Mom chuckled under her breath before turning more serious. “Of course I do, but . . . should I be worried?”
“No, Mom. We’ve got this covered. We’re going to find Doctor Bronson and see what the next step is. And I’ve also decided . . .” I peered over my shoulder to connect with Sam. I hoped my eyes expressed how grateful I was to him for everything he’d done in the past and was about to do in the future. “We should go ahead with using Sam’s kidney. I don’t want to wait for Memphis anymore.”
A glimmer of uncertainty flashed across Mom’s face, but it was fleeting. It must’ve been painful to accept Memphis’s shortcomings, but she understood this was an easy choice to make. Funny how Sam had become everyone’s first choice. I would have to start calling him the chosen one. His ego would grow ten times bigger than it already was, but he deserved it. I had a lot to make up for.
After a few more minutes with my mother, Sam and I tracked down Doctor Bronson. We asked her to join us in the cafeteria once we were sure Bryce was nowhere to be found.
I was surprised he hadn’t turned up already in an effort to get to my mother first, but then I remembered the breakdown, the fight with Sam. He was in no shape to come to work after that scene but I didn’t see him as the type to run away and lick his wounds, either.
I had no choice but to trust that his absence over the last few hours was a good sign. Maybe he would back away graciously and accept defeat like a man. Maybe he would show up here at any minute and turn into a savage like he had this morning. Who the hell knew? For now, I would do what I had to and worry about the repercussions later.
Once we sat down with Doctor Bronson and explained our concerns, she was more than happy to point us in the right direction and guide us through an easy transition. My goal was not to ruin Bryce’s reputation or his career, but I trusted Doctor Bronson—woman to woman—to empathize. And she did. Turned out, her relationship with Bryce wasn’t as seamless as it appeared to be.
In a very professional, non-slanderous way, she mentioned her issues and we danced around mine without getting into too much personal detail. It didn’t surprise her that Bryce was not the man he portrayed himself as, or that we’d made the decision to go ahead with using Sam’s kidney. We were lucky to find she was on board and would do everything she could to help.
“I’ll inform the head of the department, Human Resources, and all the necessary players, but they’ll want to talk to you, too. In the meantime, I’ll reach out to Doctor Owen to scope out his next move. He’s due in surgery this afternoon and has rounds in a few hours. It’s not like him to flake on his patients, but based on what you’ve told me, I imagine there’ll be some modification to his schedule today. We should all head over to the transplant center immediately. We’ll let them know about your decision and see what’s left to do before Sam’s evaluation is complete. It’s not an overnight process, Ms. Monroe. I know you’re both eager to help Ella, but I urge you to be patient and trust that everything will fall into place.”
We left the meeting with Doctor Bronson confident that we were on the right track, but the moment all of us sat down with the transplant coordinator, we came face to face with the power of Bryce’s revenge.
“What do you mean I’m not listed as a match?”