My jaw flexed. “Why not? You have no right to make this decision for me. I want to be with you. If I say it doesn’t change anything for me, then it doesn’t.”
She laughed. “It changes everything.” She blinked at me. “Josh, I meant what I said. I do love you. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. And I love you too much to let you settle.” Her eyes softened slightly. “I know you think this is what you want right now. But in a few years, when you have a pregnant wife and kids running around, you’ll see that I was right. I can’t give you your baseball team. And I won’t take it from you.”
I reached for her and she pushed my hand away. “No.”
“You are not Celeste. You’re not even in the same league. And I’m sorry if things I said before I knew about this made you feel badly. I didn’t know—”
“I know you didn’t know. That’s how I know you were being honest.”
“I love you,” I said, looking her in the eye.
She shook her head. “And what does love have to do with it? Love is completely impractical, Josh. It’s stupid. And you should never use it to make decisions.” Her eyes were determined and level. She pulled her hair from its ponytail and grabbed a towel. “We need to take showers and go back to the hospital. And I don’t want to talk about this. Ever again.”
THIRTY-FOUR
Kristen
It was twenty-one days after Brandon’s accident and almost as long since I’d last spoken to Josh. The date of the wedding came and went, and Brandon hadn’t woken up for it.
I spent my time between the hospital and Sloan’s house where I watered her plants and brought in packages. I washed whatever laundry she left when she did her momentary stops at home to shower and change before heading back to the ICU. I checked her mail. I’d made all the calls to her wedding vendors to cancel the wedding until further notice.
At the hospital I brought books, magazines, coffee, and food for Sloan so she never had to leave her bedside vigil for anything trivial.
Then I went home to my empty house.
I cleaned for hours on end. I pulled out the contents of every cabinet in my kitchen and washed it all. I wiped out the drawers in the bathroom. I took apart my bed to vacuum underneath, and all the vacuum lines on the carpet had to be in just the right direction. I detailed the grout in my laundry room. I took a toothpick to the cracks in the stove, and I thirsted for relief from my own mind.
My perfectionism was something I harnessed and cultivated for my own purposes. Something useful that made me focused so I could get things done.
But now it was spiraling. None of the rituals made it better. Nothing shut off the urges or satisfied the feelings of incompleteness. Nothing gave me control again.
I missed Josh. I missed him like I missed my sanity.
It had become clear, almost immediately, that the burden of saving him from himself was going to fall on me.
After I’d told him it was over between us, he refused to drop it. So I’d stopped answering his calls. Avoided him at the hospital and refused to speak to him when I did see him. Since I gave Miguel his old job back, my garage was empty and lifeless. The smell of Josh’s cologne on the throw pillows on my sofa was so faint it never puffed around me anymore when I sat down.
It was for his own good.
And the beast inside me roared.
Every day it got louder. Nobody could tame it. Josh could calm me, but I wouldn’t let him close enough to try.
Nurse Valerie buzzed me into the ICU. I slid the container of cupcakes across the counter of the nurses’ station. “Nadia Cakes.”
She beamed at me. “You’re too good to us, girl.” She pulled the cupcakes down in front of her, looking over the assortment.
Sloan had assigned me the job of bringing thank-yous to the nursing staff. Donuts, cookies, flowers. I tried to bring something every couple of days. The nurses had made all the difference in this situation.
Valerie tapped her pen absently on top of the clear container and eyed me. “Can I ask you something?”
I leaned over the counter, sorting her pens by color. “What?”
I liked Valerie. She was my favorite nurse. She was