Chapter 2

Dana

The gold and crimson leaves all over the ground were usually one of my favorite parts of fall in Texas, but nothing seemed to matter as I walked toward the hospital. I'd been avoiding Kendal like the plague for a little over two weeks, though it almost killed me to do it.

But how in the hell could I do anything else but avoid him?

His Ana was my Ana.

Bile rose in my throat as I forced myself to jog up the stairs to the front door. How anyone who had been with my perfect, older sister could want me was a mystery. A sickening mystery.

Ana was tall and thin, her skin flawless, her boobs big and curves alluring. She was everything I wasn't.

Every nasty thing Cameron had said to me over the last few years rose up inside of me, his insults and degradation drowning me in sorrow.

No. Ignoring Kendal was the most responsible thing to do - for both of us. If he was the type of man that wanted a girl like my sister, then with me, he was settling. He deserved better than that.

We both did.

He might love me for a while, but when he realized that I wasn't Ana, he'd turn into Cameron, trying to change me to fit the mold.

Tears burned my eyes at the thought of Kendal ordering my food and warning me to put down a cookie or piece of candy that I wanted. Nothing would hurt worse than having him want me to be someone I would never be, someone I really didn't even like much.

My older sister was wild and flew by the seat of her pants. I had no question on how she hooked a man like Kendal, but why she ran from him was a different story. It was something I didn't want to dig into. I couldn't hear it. Didn't want to. I was too raw, too bare and broken from knowing whatever we almost had was over.

He'd broken the rules for her. She meant more than I ever would.

I pulled the heavy door open and walked in to the smell of cleanliness and the sound of soft elevator music and the occasional announcement over the loud speakers.

"But why didn't she stick with him? If he loved her... why would she-"

"You talking to yourself?" Jackie bounced up beside me, my only friend in all of Dallas is a whore and a half, but I loved her anyway. Her latest escapade with a young doctor from New York had her acting like a spaz, but I was grateful. It kept my mind off Kendal for a few moments during the day.

"Yep. I'm still mulling over all this stuff with Kendal." I shrugged. She knew exactly what I was talking about. I'd dumped all of it on her the weekend before when she finally forced me to spill. A couple of pitchers of margaritas and I was balling like a baby, vomiting information on our relationship and how he was the only man I'd ever loved.

Lies. I thought I was in love with everyone I'd ever dated. Love was something I coveted and wanted above anything else.

It just wasn't meant to be.

"Not him again. You can do so much better, Dana. He slept with your sister. He's a man-whore." She wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

"He thought he was in love with her and it was six years ago." I let out a soft sigh. "Well, he was in love with her. Fuck, maybe he still is. You should have seen-"

"How fast he left after she got there. I know. You told me." She squeezed me one more time and let me go. "I'm telling you, this is why you need a sexy resident or young doctor to ravish you from time to time and nothing else."

I snorted and walked into the elevator, turning and holding the door open for her. "Wait. I thought you told me that you were in love with Parks?"

"Love. Lust. Whatever. I don't know." She walked in and wagged her eyebrows at me. "I'm just going to be chill about it, you know?"

"No. I don't know. You were a total lune about it a week ago."

"Things change." She shrugged. "People change. Besides, I think he's addicted to me. He's called twice a week since we went on that trip to New York. I think I have him where I want him."

"Twice in a week? Wow. That is progress." I slipped my hands into my scrub's pockets. "Kendal called ten times in the last two weeks, but never left a message."

"Creep! How weird is that. You need to let me go over and tell him to back off, or maybe your brother, Brandon, could do it?" She reached over and tugged at my ponytail.

"No. I just wish he would have left a message. I want to hear his voice." My throat closed up, and I swallowed hard, trying to relieve the pressure in my chest. I still wanted a life with him, to be the woman he gave everything up for because I was worth it, but that wasn't me. It was Ana, and I wasn't anything like her.

I'd lived in her shadow my whole life.

"Dude. I don't like what this guy is doing to you. You're almost obsessing over him. You've been walking around like a zombie. If he's that important-"

"Wait. This coming from you, who ran to New York the first time this cocky playboy of a doctor didn't return your call?" The elevator opened, and I moved out into the hallway. "And you just called him a whore because he slept with my sister, who by the way, he didn't know was my sister. It was six years ago."

"You're taking up for him." She was far calmer than I expected. Anytime I brought up Parks and her obsession with him, she would divert and then turn into a bitch, defending herself for being crazy over a one-night stand.

"Dr. Lewis wants to see you this afternoon before you leave." Tinsely lifted her head, her expression almost kind. It was weird and threw me off. The number one bitch in the hospital was giving me a break from her usual abuse? Why?

Why today?

"Yeah, alright." I glanced over at Jackie as she followed me to the nurse's station on our floor. "I'm taking up for him because I'm still in love with him. Just because he was with Ana doesn't mean my heart isn't still completely his."

"So why are we having this conversation?" She reached out and yanked a chart from the wall. "You have Mrs. Delmaz. She hates the rest of us."

I let out a soft sigh and gave her a look. Crazy, old Mrs. Delmaz was always mine to deal with, but it was good. She kept life interesting, and her stories were always fascinating. I couldn't tell if they were real or not, but like a good novel, I enjoyed them as often as I could.

"Because I'm not my sister, Jackie." I reached up and took a few clipboards off the wall. "She's beautiful, successful, an accountant like Kendal, feminine, gorgeous. She's everything I'm not." The words were harder to speak out loud than I thought they would be.

"And yet Kendal is still calling you. He could have gone after her six years ago. It's not hard to find someone when you want to."

"Stalker." I forced a chuckle and walked to the medicine cabinet, slipping my key into the lock. "I really don't want to talk about this anymore. He's a good man and deserves a great woman. That's just not me. I can't live up to my older sister, and it would rot me from the inside out to try to."

"What did Ana say about it?"

I turned and gave her a stern look as she raised her hands in defense. "Drop it."

"I will. Just tell me what she said." She took a step back, but the smirk at the side of her mouth lifted higher.

"She said that she and Kendal were a thing of the past. She's not interested in him, and he's not interested in her. She gives me her blessing, as if I fucking asked for it."

"Well, then there you go."

I turned back to my tray. "It's not that easy and you know it. My father was still alive when all that shit between Kendal and Ana went down, and my mother is all up in arms about the pervert coming after her younger daughter now. She thinks it was all planned."

"That's absurd." Jackie moved up beside me, pressing her shoulder against mine.

"Tell me about it." I finished filling the patient prescriptions and backed my cart out of the room. "It's going to hurt for a long time, but I'll get over it. He'll find someone that lights him on fire like my sister probably did."

"Like you did?" She turned and glanced over her shoulder. "I know I'm not looking for love because I hate how bad it hurts when I lose it, but I haven’t had it in a long time. You have, and you were more alive because of it. Believe me. I'm your best friend-"

"My only friend here." I chuckled.

"Don't let it go so easily, Dana. It's not as common as everyone thinks." She shrugged and turned back around, her shoulders rolling in a little. She was in love with Parks. I knew she was, and she knew it too, but just like she was willing to let the conversation die over Kendal, I wasn't going to start one up over Parks.

She was in pain just like I was.

Crazy how love seemed to take more than it ever gave, or maybe I just hadn't given it the chance it deserved.