“We’re going to give you two some privacy. Come on, Em,” Shannon says, pulling Emerson to the side.
“Carissa…” It comes out as barely a whisper. My eyes are ready to overflow with tears.
She puts up a hand before I can say anything further. “Before you apologize again, I want to thank you for all the beautiful flowers and candy you sent me. You didn’t have to, but it was very sweet.”
I shake my head to let her know it was nothing. Words don’t manage to come out. If this is how she’s going to let me know for sure she’s done with me, done with us, I don’t know how I’m going to take it.
But I’m sad. I’m so damn sad, my heart feels like it’s breaking before her.
She looks around, and her eyes land on an empty table to her right. “Let’s sit down so we can talk.”
I nod and we walk over and take a seat. She places both of her hands on the table, and I so badly want to take them in mine.
But I won’t.
Because then she’ll probably get up and walk away, and it’ll all be over before I have a chance to speak.
Carissa takes a deep breath and says, “I wasn’t going to talk to you. I was going to keep my distance and hope you’d forget all about me.”
How could I forget about her? Ever since I laid eyes on her, all I can think about is her. There’s no way her ignoring me would make me forget about her, not in the span of a couple of days anyway.
I search her eyes, trying to figure out why the hell she’d want me to forget her, but I still don’t understand any more than I did the first day. None of this makes any fucking sense.
“But why?” I ask. “I don’t understand. I thought things were going really well that day.”
The day I held you in my arms and made love to you over and over, and again the following morning… before you left.
The thought stings, and I wish I could push it away.
She closes her eyes, and when she opens them, it looks like she’s about to cry too. “They were. They were going really well. I was the happiest I had ever been in so long.”
“Me too.” I reach out and take her hands in mine without thinking twice. I need her to feel how much I mean this. She jerks but doesn’t pull away. Maybe it’s a good thing.
“You’re a great guy, Lorenzo. You saved me, and not just that night in the parking lot. You saved me from a life I thought I was destined to have. For that, I’m forever thankful.”
“So why did you leave?” I search her pretty eyes once more. Nothing. No sign, no giving anything away.
She looks at Shannon and Emerson, and I follow her gaze. The two of them are already downing their drinks. My brother and sister, sitting a few tables away from them, are doing the same.
“You know I work at the hospital, correct?” she asks, bringing my attention back to her.
I nod. “Of course I do. I remember that.” I remember everything she’s ever told me.
She licks her luscious lips, and even though this is not the time, I can’t help but want to kiss them. I miss tasting them so badly.
“I’m no doctor or nurse. I’m in the billing department. But even so, we see what goes on, and we become familiar with certain faces and what they’re going through. I remember Sylvia, so very clearly. As soon as I saw her picture, the memories flooded my mind. During one of my shifts, I happened to walk past her room when she called out to me. It was weak, but somehow, I heard it.” She pauses for a moment and then continues. “When I walked in, the devastating look on her face was enough to burn into the back of my mind. Typically, we don’t get involved or even remember patients. But Sylvia? Sylvia was something special. She reminded me of my mom and how she looked when she passed, so much so that I even told my sister and my best friend about her. Her big eyes and stringy blonde hair? It was just my mom so long ago, and unfortunately, we lost her too soon.”
“Oh, Carissa,” I say, but she stops me from continuing.
She takes a deep breath and then closes her eyes. “Lorenzo, I’m just going to out and say this because there is no easy way around it. I was there the day Sylvia passed. I was there when you cried your eyes out and lost her that day. I watched you tear yourself apart the moment she was gone, and it broke me. It tore at my heart. I was able to see how deeply you loved her and how much she meant to you.”
I narrow my brows, unsure of where she’s going with this. “You were there that day… How does this relate to us? I don’t understand.”
She takes another deep breath. “That morning when you left me… in your bed,” she whispers the last three words, and it brings shivers up my spine, thinking of her lying there with me. It was perfect. “I happened to turn over and see the picture of Sylvia on your nightstand. I realized I had seen her before, as I knew I had seen you before we met too. I couldn’t remember from where, but then, in an instant, it hit me, and the memories came crashing into the front of my mind, and I freaked out. The memories of my mom and the day Sylvia passed all came rushing back. I had to go.”
“But—”
“Lorenzo, I got scared. I can’t fall in love with you, and even though I’d already fallen, I needed to get up and pull myself away. I couldn’t do it.”
I swallow thickly. “Carissa, listen. I was so afraid to fall in love at first too, but I did. I did it anyway. You made me fall in love again, and it was beautiful. Albeit scary because I had been turned off to dating women for so long after my wife passed. But then I met you, and you changed my whole perspective on love and life.”
She rubs her thumb over my hand. “Lorenzo, don’t you get it? I’m afraid to be with you because I saw how much you loved your wife. How can I ever compete with that? How can you ever love me the same way? I’m afraid you’ll never be able to, and maybe that’s okay, but I’m also afraid of being hurt. I remember how devastated you were the day you lost her. I also remember how it felt when I got my heart broken by Steve. It hurts. It fucking hurts like hell, and I don’t want to go through it again. I can never compete with what you had with her.”
A frown forms on my face. I’m torn she feels this way. Could I ever love her like I loved Sylvia? I do, but at the same time, it’s different. Not in a bad way, just different. I’ll always love my wife, but I love Carissa too. “Oh, Carissa. I do love you… so much. And I will always love Sylvia as well. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t, and I don’t want to lie to you. She was my wife and the mother to my daughter. She was my first love, my everything. But just because I’ll always love her doesn’t mean I won’t love you or that I’ll love you less. You have to understand it’s not a competition.”
“It’s not. I know that, but I have to let this go. I’m sorry.” She pulls her hands away from mine and rises from her seat.
I don’t let her go. I grab her hand before she can get away, and it forces her to look back at me. “It’s not a competition, and if you say you have to go, then I’m going to fight for you, fight for us.”
She furrows her brows and sits back down. “What?”
“Carissa, I’m going to fight because I realize you’re worth it. If I need to spend every day for the rest of my life showing you you’re worth fighting for, then so be it, baby.”