OUR FIRST ATTEMPT at making a pizza actually turned out quite well despite several false starts and roadblocks. As I pulled the pizza out of the oven, noticing the perfectly baked crust and the browned cheese, I realized something startling. Lailah and I made a great team.
I’d never expected that from this little adventure. I’d planned this afternoon as a way of payment. I owed the woman standing in front of me a debt. She might not understand or realize that, but I did, and I was going to do everything in my power to make sure that her life was better from now on.
What I hadn’t planned on was enjoying the time I spent with her so much. Ever since I’d spied her licking chocolate off her fingers, laughing like no one was watching her, I’d been intrigued by this girl with pale blue eyes and hair the color of wheat. The more time I spent with her, the more my fascination turned into something genuine.
She wasn’t just a debt or an obligation. I genuinely enjoyed being around her.
It was as if I’d been underground for years, locked away in a dungeon of my own making and unable to break free. After meeting Lailah, I felt as if my chains had melted away, and I had finally crawled up to the surface to catch my first blinding glimpse of the sun.
Lailah was the sun, and I was dazzled by her soothing, pure presence.
I knew it was selfish of me to crave her companionship just to fill a void in the remnants of my heart, but for the first time in three years, I felt a flicker of hope in my life. After everything that had happened with Megan and her family, I was sure my life was over, and I’d be nothing but an empty shell wandering these halls for eternity. But if hope still lived inside of me, then perhaps a friendship with Lailah was exactly what I needed.
Always seeming to be one step ahead of me, Lailah rummaged through the drawers of the massive kitchen and found a pizza cutter. She held it up with the intent to do harm to our cheesy masterpiece.
“Whoa there, Chucky. Why don’t you give me the sharp object, and I’ll cut the pizza? I’d rather not return you to Dr. Marcus with a missing appendage.”
Her brow rose in defiance, but she handed over the spinning wheel of death easily. Her arms folded across her chest, pushing her breasts together under her dark blue sweater. Locked in a trance, my breath suddenly faltered. My fists tightened at my side, and I quickly looked away.
What the hell was that?
Choosing to ignore my body’s obvious confusion, I devoted my attention to cutting our pizza. Moments later, I plated each of us a slice. At the counter, she sat back down in the wheelchair, and I made a chair from a step stool.
“It’s perfect,” she said after taking the first bite. She looked casual and comfortable, leaned back in the wheelchair with her legs propped up against the edge of my step stool. It was the most relaxed I’d ever seen her—at least around me.
I took my first bite, and I was actually surprised. “Huh…how about that? It’s pretty damn good.”
“So, does this mean you’re going to make pizzas from scratch now?” she asked as she took a napkin to the corner of her mouth.
“Hell no. Gotta get my delivery boy through college. Besides, I wouldn’t have my sous chef.”
The second the sentence left my lips, I had a vision of Lailah standing in my kitchen, laughing with streaks of flour covering her nose and cheeks, as I stepped in behind her, wrapping my arms around her tiny waist, and kissed her shoulder.
No, not Lailah. Always Megan. Always.
I shook my head, trying to erase the image from my mind. Guilt swept through my gut, and I felt sick.
“Jude, are you okay?” she said, cutting through the fog in my mind.
“Yeah. Fine.” The words were barely more than a whisper. I didn’t even bother trying to cover up the despair seeping through every pore in my body.
Her hand touched my knee, and I jerked back instantly. I knew she was trying to be comforting, but after the crazy mind tricks my brain was doing, I couldn’t allow it.
I couldn’t allow any of this.
“Sorry,” I said, not even looking up to meet her gaze. “I’m not feeling well all of a sudden. Do you think we could cut this short?”
“Oh, um…sure. Just let me clean everything up,” she said, quickly jumping up to start gathering everything back into the bags.
I rose from my spot on the step stool. “Don’t worry about it, Lailah. I’ll come back in a few and take care of it all.”
“But you did so much, and look at all this food. I should at least help pack it, especially if you don’t feel well.” The words were tumbling out of her.
The obvious shift in my mood had made her nervous, and she was now reverting back to babbling.
I rested my hand on hers, desperately trying to ignore the feel of her soft skin beneath mine. “It’s fine. I can handle it.” I finally looked up at her.
Her eyes were wide and uncertain, and I watched as they searched mine for the hidden clue or missing piece that she couldn’t figure out. She knew I wasn’t sharing something, and she was right. But she didn’t know that it wasn’t just something. It was everything.
There wasn’t much conversation during our elevator ride back up to cardiology. I stood behind her as she studied her nails and then watched the different floors light up.
We said a quick good-bye. I made yet another excuse about not feeling well and needing to rest before my shift, and then I bailed. I didn’t think I took a breath until the elevators closed behind me, and I was moving downward, away from the cardiology department and Lailah.
I went back to the cafeteria, which was a great deal slower now that the rush had cleared out. I walked into the kitchen and proceeded to bag up all the unused produce, leaving it there with a note that said it was up for grabs. It would find a much better home among the kitchen staff. I wouldn’t know what to do with anything that had an expiration date.
I sadly looked down at the unopened cake I’d bought. We didn’t even make it to dessert.
Another note went on the cake.
I finished up cleaning, wiping down the counters and washing the few dishes we’d used. Once I was done, I thanked Betty and started to make my way out of the cafeteria.
“Hey, Puddin’. You forgetting something?” Betty asked, holding up two small cups of chocolate pudding.
I gave a weak smile and shoved my hands in my pockets. “No, not tonight. Thanks.”
I spent the next hour doing what I did whenever I would start to feel like the waves were pulling me under. I wandered the halls and found myself back at the place where I’d held her hand for the last time, where I’d bent down and kissed her bruised cheekbone before telling her I loved her even though I knew she couldn’t hear me, where I’d listened to her heart beat for the last time.
During the first year or so, I’d just walk the halls. Sometimes, I’d rest against a wall or even sit on the floor if it were a really bad day. After I’d started taking classes to become a nurses’ assistant, I’d come back after a particularly bad class about trauma patients and found a bench where I usually sat. I didn’t know who had decided to put it there, but I had my theories, and they all revolved around a certain woman in HR.
For the longest time, the bench had made me angry.
I remembered thinking, How dare someone meddle in my pain and invade the sanctity of my personal hell.
But the longer the bench had stood there, the less and less, I’d felt anything. As the days had passed, I’d let the numbness of my life take over until nothing was left but my grief and memories.
In the hallway where I’d screamed and begged for Megan’s heart, I sat down on the cool wooden bench situated across from the room where I’d lost my soul mate, and my thoughts began to drift back to Lailah.
I’d laughed today, felt emotions beyond despair and loss today.
With Lailah, I’d felt human for the first time in years.
Is friendship bringing these emotions to the surface again? Or is it more?
Leaning forward, I rested my head on my hands. I looked across the way at the closed door to the room that had once been Megan’s.
It was so long ago, but if I closed my eyes, I could still see her. I remembered the way her hair had smelled in the morning after she just showered and the sound of her laugh when I told a joke. She was supposed to be my forever, but I’d lost her.
That was the end. My story was done.
Months after she’d died and I’d taken my position at the hospital, I’d come home late one night. I’d felt so tired that I had basically been sleepwalking to my doorstep where I’d found someone sitting.
“Who the hell are you?” My voice sounded hoarse and strained from the lack of sleep.
I’d pulled two shifts in a row, trying to make more cash to build up my savings account so that I could purchase a car.
“Nice to see you, too, brother,” Roman said, rising from his spot at the foot of my dusty door. He brushed the dirt off his tailored suit pants, no doubt cursing under his breath about the damage it had done.
Only my brother would travel in Armani.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, rubbing my eyes and blinking several times. Maybe if I squeezed them tight enough, he’d disappear.
“Attempting to bring you to your senses,” he answered, looking down at my dark uniform in disgust.
“Ah…well, let’s do that inside, shall we?”
I pushed past him to unlock the door. He followed me in. I set my keys on the kitchen counter and turned in time to watch him assess my pocket-sized apartment.
His eyes wandered over the empty white walls and lack of furniture. The card table and folding chairs basically said it all. I was poor and barely making it.
He probably figured he could swoop in and write an extra-large check, and then we’d both be back in New York by morning.
Too bad that wasn’t happening.
“So, are you done with this ridiculousness yet?” He took a seat on one of the plastic folding chairs.
“You think I’m ridiculous? After everything I’ve been through in the last few months, you think I’m ridiculous, Roman?”
“I think you were handed a bad hand, Jude—the worst fucking one imaginable, but the way you’re handling it is shit. She’s gone and you’ve giving up, man. You’re twenty-two years old, and you’ve just rolled over and cashed out.”
I lunged forward, grabbing the collar of his crisp white shirt. “She was my fucking fiancée, and she died!” I roared.
I pulled tight on the fabric, and it bunched together in my fists. His hands went up, the universal white flag of surrender, and I pushed him back into the chair.
“I don’t expect you to understand that since you seem to have a new flavor every other week, but she was it for me. You don’t get more than one of those in a lifetime.”
He studied me for a moment and then adjusted his shirt and jacket. Looking at Roman was like looking into a mirror. We had the same pale green eyes and dark blond hair, but that was where our similarities ended. Roman was like our father, cold and calculating. He never let anyone in unless the person was useful for his own personal gain. I was my mother’s child, meaning I actually loved someone other than myself.
There could only be one reason for him flying all the way out here. He needed me.
“Why are you really here, Roman?” I took a step back to lean against the counter.
He looked up at me with an emotionless gleam in his eyes. “We need you, Jude. No more playing around, no more games. The family needs you.”
I pushed off the counter and paced around the room. “Unbelievable. I should have known that this wasn’t about me. It’s always about you, isn’t it, Roman? Not performing well enough for Daddy? Need a little help? Well, fuck off. Handle it yourself.”
“Listen, you little twit, your family needs you. Mother needs you,” he said, knowing he’d just hit a nerve. “Doesn’t she mean anything to you?”
“Of course she does!” I yelled. “But this isn’t about her. It’s about you and Dad. You need me to come pull you out of whatever mess you’ve gotten yourself into. Well, forget it. You wanted complete control of the company? You have it.” I took several long strides and pulled the door wide open. “I think you and my front door are well acquainted. Have a nice flight home.”
His hard gaze met mine as he walked a few steps forward and paused. “If you do this—if you walk away, you understand that there’s no going back? Father won’t forgive you. You’ll be cut off, forgotten, and disowned forever.”
“Sounds perfect,” I answered, not turning away from his harsh stare.
I knew my stubbornness meant I’d never see my mother again. I could never go home and hold her, and I’d forever be a failure in her eyes. But I also knew that I’d never be anything but what I was now. I was already a failure. It was best if she never saw it.
Roman took the remaining steps and walked over the threshold. He turned, his gaze downcast and his brows furrowed, like he was choosing his last words carefully. “How did you know she was the one?” he asked, catching me off guard.
“What do you mean?” I stepped forward in anger.
He took a step back and held out his hands again in silent surrender. “I’m not trying to cause another fight. I just want to offer a bit of parting wisdom, little brother. If she was the one, why are you alone at twenty-two? Surely, life wouldn’t be so cruel.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, holding back the wave of emotions threatening to take over. Keeping my voice even and my anger checked, I replied, “When you’ve lost the one person who makes life worth living, give me a call and let me know what you think about the cruelty of it all.”
My brother had made good on his threats that day.
I hadn’t heard from my family since, not even my mother.
The only information I had were the brief financial updates I would hear on the news, but I tried to avoid anything related to the family business.
I was nothing more than a help line for Roman when things got rough. He’d always wanted all the glory, but he had never been willing to put forth the effort to achieve it.
When he’d shown up on my doorstep that night so long ago, I’d had a glimmer of hope that he’d come because he cared, but I should have known better. All my brother cared about was the bottom line at Cavanaugh Investments and whom he would be taking home that night.
As I sat on that familiar bench, looking down the hallway where I’d spent countless hours over the last three years, his parting words came back to the forefront of my mind.
If she was the one, why are you alone at twenty-two? Surely, life wouldn’t be so cruel.
No, life really was that cruel because as I withered away the afternoon, silently sitting on my bench, I thought about Lailah and the life she’d had and all the opportunities she’d never gotten to experience. Making a meal together today was only the tip of the iceberg for her. Dozens of things she’d missed out on were written in that book because she’d spent her life in a hospital.
What if she never gets the chance to do any of them?
That was the definition of cruelty—keeping a special person like Lailah locked inside where no one could see the fire in her spirit and the beauty in her soul. The ironic part, the real twist of the story that made the fates laugh and cackle high up in the clouds, was the realization that I hadn’t even seen the extent of life’s cruelty yet because in that moment, I realized two things.
One, I was falling for Lailah Buchanan.
And two, she was dying.