Cynda and the City Doctor - Theodora Taylor Page 0,45

September.

So that’s left me with a lot of time on my hands. Most of which I spend with Rhys.

Rhys’s eyes darken. “Is No One another man?”

I smile a little at that question.

And he glares. “You think my question is funny?”

“Yes,” I answer, voice frank as I take the laundry over to the bed to fold. “But I’m not making fun of you. My dad called you Mr. I Don’t Know.”

Rhys follows me. “You told your father about me?”

The hard accusatory tone from before is gone, replaced with something softer. And he starts folding laundry too.

“Told is a strong word. It was more like he guessed,” I answer. “He was a good doctor like that. He could always tell when something was going on with me, even when I didn’t volunteer the information. He just knew me, I guess.”

But did I know him? My eyes blur with tears. Not as well as I thought.

“Cynda?”

I look up to find Rhys regarding me with a somber expression from the other side of the bed. “Yes?”

“What’s going on with you?”

The question, simple as it is, nearly caves me. For a few moments, all I can do is wipe away tears and breathe. I feel like I’ve got a dam inside of me, trying not to burst.

But Rhys waits patiently until I get ahold of myself. Then he says, “You don’t have to tell me what this is all about if you don’t want to.”

I don’t want to. I don’t want to talk about this to anyone. But the dam suddenly breaks and the words come rushing out. “I guess…I guess my parents weren’t really my parents. I guess this R. Smith is. She’s my mom’s baby sister, and she basically abandoned me. But now she’s writing me to tell me the truth. She says it’s so that I don’t feel all alone. But now I feel more alone. A month ago I had parents. They were both dead, but I had them. Now all I have is this…this soap opera twist.”

I thought I was done, but I guess not yet. The world blurs again, and then my head is being pressed into Rhys’s chest.

And I can’t keep myself from basking in his comfort. “I’m sorry. It’s the coronavirus. Finding this out on top of being quarantined. It’s too much.”

“I think it would be too much under any circumstance,” he says, kissing the top of my head. “Do you want to open the letter?”

“No,” I answer. “I opened the first one and I want to be strong and brave, but this is…”

“Too much,” he finishes for me.

“Yeah,” I whisper against his chest.

“How about if I hold it for you, and when you’re ready, we’ll read it together.”

His offer makes me feel warm and grateful inside. But… “I think we’ve already established we shouldn’t mistake this mini-quarantine for more than it is. I don’t need any more hand holding. In fact, I’m not going to open this one.”

I remove the letter from my back pocket and toss it in the suitcase I left open beside the bed. As soon as I get back to the big house I’ll put it in the box with the other letter and all of the things I’d rather forget.

That decision made, I return to folding laundry.

But Rhys doesn’t join me this time. Instead, he asks, “Why did your father refer to me as Mr. I Don’t Know.”

Considering what we were talking about, the question feels so out of left field. But I answer this question honestly, too. “Because I told him I didn’t know what we were when he asked about you.”

“You didn’t know.” He puts his thumb under my chin and tips my head up. His eyes are blazing with anger. “Are you serious?”

I glance to the side, then back at him, not understanding. “Why are you so mad? We never had any discussions. And it was only six months—”

The laundry basket goes flying, and he flips me over on the bed before I can finish that sentence. The next thing I hear is the slide of the nightstand drawer with the condoms coming open and the next thing I feel is his hand on my back, pressing down.

“So you’re saying that six months meant nothing to you? You were a star in my universe and I was merely a shrug in yours?”

My heart jolts painfully. A star in his universe? Why would he say that? I told him…I told him from the start that things would end badly