Chapter Three

Ava

Three days.

Sometimes three days can pass you right by, quick as a bullet. And sometimes that much time feels like an eternity. You’d think that when time is flying, you’d remember less. After all, everything’s going so fast, and surely your senses can’t absorb it all, your brain can’t process the whole skein.

But it’s the opposite. I remember every second of the happy days I had with Lucas… The three sweet, heartbreaking days at the bed and breakfast that ended far too soon.

The way he made my body sing.

The way he held me in his arms.

The way he made me feel like I was something special, precious to him.

Time’s been crawling since Lucas’s final visit. The last three days might as well have been a decade. But I remember very little of what happened after he came back with the barren terra-cotta pot.

I’m in love with you.

My heartbeat stutters at the memory. The five words I would’ve given anything to hear from his lips. He said them when he came by that last time. But I didn’t want to hear them that way—a gambit to get me to capitulate, to look away from all the things he’s done. A lot like how my dad used to bring gifts to make my mother forget all the ways he treated her badly. If she’d been thinking more clearly, maybe she would’ve seen the signs faster.

Still, my heart is foolish and impetuous, easily impressed.

I’m in love with you.

How I wanted to give in, wrap my arms around him and tell him I loved him too. I’m so much like my mother it’s scary. So I tossed out the only response I could—“You’re toxic”—and shut the door in his face. I couldn’t trust myself not to be impulsive.

Was I too harsh? I only wanted to make a point, make him go away so I could move on—again. But the utter devastation in his gaze still haunts me. It’s as though I’m the villain, not him.

And I despise myself for feeling this way.

Forget him. He only wanted to use you to get that ridiculous painting.

Why didn’t he just tell me honestly from the beginning? Then things could’ve been different. Instead he fed me lines about how he wanted to keep me a secret, hidden away from everyone because he was afraid to lose me, that others might covet what he had. What he meant was people might covet the multimillion-dollar painting he would get if we were together.

What humiliates me the most about our reunion is that I opened up to him. I told him things I would’ve never said because I believed he was making himself vulnerable to me. How stupid. Men don’t work that way.

I won’t let the past hold me down. What I’ve learned from the bitter disappointments in my life is that the only way to heal is to move on.

I’ll be damned if I end up like my mother.

Which is why I find myself in LAX waiting to board a late-night flight back home. Maybe I’ll get an offer from the medical center. The final round of interviews with Robbie Choi, my would-be boss, is done. The third son of Korean immigrants from Busan, the man’s super nice. Although he’s only in his forties, he’s gone prematurely gray and his ash-white mane is quite shocking on a face that looks so young.

You have to tell me everything! Bennie messages me on Facebook.

They liked me, I think.

Well, duh. Why else would they bring you all the way out to L.A.? What did you think about the hospital?

It’s really nice. It doesn’t look like the crappy public clinics we used to go to. They were usually understaffed and overcrowded, housed in buildings that looked as sad and worn out as the patients who waited inside.

Apparently the Sterling Medical Center isn’t just a safety-net clinic, but a fundraising organization. Every penny raised goes toward treating anybody who walks through the door, I write, regurgitating information from the first interview.

That’s so noble it’s positively obscene. They’re probably trying to hide something.

I snort a laugh. Only Bennie would be this cynical. But then, we didn’t have the kind of childhood most people have. When your parents fail you over and over again, it’s hard to trust anything—or anyone.

And Bennie hasn’t seen the facility. The brand-new six-story building gleams—big windows letting sunlight pour in, spotless floors and pristine walls covered with glossy posters promoting various ways to stay healthy on a budget. The air has a hint of disinfectant—like every other hospital in the world—and the sound system delivers soothing classical music at a low volume.

Robbie gave me a tour of the center. Doctors in white coats moved briskly, nurses and staff entering information onto slim tablets as they readied for the official opening. Everything at the medical center said money and top-class and our patients deserve the best.

“We take what we do very seriously,” Robbie said during the tour. “It’s a shame that in a country as wealthy as ours, we still have people who can’t afford basic medical care.”

“I know,” I said. “My family really struggled when I was growing up. Not much of a safety net.”

Well, Mom and I struggled. Dad lived fine—he was a rich man who pretended to be poor so he could have my mom as a cheaply kept mistress to fuck whenever he was in the mood. He had a family he provided for in style—his real wife and his real daughter.

If we’d had better medical care, would Mom have let herself go? Died of an overdose? If she’d received help for depression, anger issues and substance abuse…would she have survived the heartbreak? She couldn’t handle it once she realized Dad would never marry her—that she was nice enough to fuck, but not good enough to wed.

Don’t be a cynic, B, I type and hit send. I want to work there.

You are so gonna work there. I can feel it in the soles of my feet.

I smile at his confidence, although I secretly think he’s probably right. During the initial phone interview, I asked, “Why are you recruiting someone who lives so far away? There must be people in L.A. who can start immediately. Not that I’m ungrateful—I love your mission and what you do, but I’m genuinely curious.”

It isn’t something I would’ve asked normally, but after the whole fiasco with Lucas, knowing that he was using me to acquire art, I really had to know. The hospital didn’t have to take Erin’s referral.

“We liked your résumé,” Robbie answered without missing a beat. “I especially liked your international experience, and the fact that you’ve overcome a lot to be where you are now, as you mentioned earlier. We want someone who’s seen and experienced what the people we’re serving have seen and experienced. We want someone with drive, but who’s also capable of empathy. Does that satisfy you?”

It did.

If they offer, you should take it, Bennie says. Unless you have something better in Charlottesville?

Nope, I respond. Actually, that isn’t entirely true. I have my foster parents Ray and Darcy McIntire…and Mia…but they aren’t enough to help me move on. And Lucas lives in the same closed community they do. Behind the same gates, within the same walls. Being that close to him…

I clench my jaw as pain blossoms again, starting from the center of my heart. It’s been weeks since I discovered his lies, but I hurt as though it just happened moments ago.

The worst thing is that I miss him. Every idle moment I think about throwing away my pride and self-esteem and running to him with open arms for another slice of sweet, poison-laced heaven.

What does that make me other than a contemptible, weak-willed creature? I swore I’d never let a man reduce me to that, but as long as Lucas is within easy reach, I’ll give in. I just know it.

I have to leave.