Finding Infinity (30 page)

She’ll be able to eat out without interruptions, and go to the park on a sunny day. She’ll be able to play at the beach, and not have to see a picture of herself on a website while people critique her body.

What will become of me? Who fucking cares? As Charlie would say, “Brad and I’ll add it to your I Don’t Give A Fuck list.”

I got what I wanted most in the world, and I’ve destroyed it. I’ve destroyed her. She went from her own beautiful practice, with the best of everything, to working in a charity hospital, for God’s sake. That’s what I’ve done to her.

This is my last year of football. I’ll quietly retire at the end of the season. My leg is a perfect excuse. It’ll be the injury that I couldn’t recover from. That way, I won’t have the humiliation of losing my starting job to my back up. People will feel sorry for me, instead of watching the mighty Colin McKinney fall. Where will I go? Who the fuck knows? I’m not staying here, that’s for damn sure. There’s got to be somewhere on this planet I can go where no one knows my name.

I have a plan, but for some reason, it doesn’t lessen the weight on my chest one little bit. Can I live without Charlie? I know that I can’t. I decide not to make the phone call to Jack, just in case my girl decides that she still wants the broken parts of the man that she married.

My phone keeps vibrating across the room, but I don’t move to answer it. The world can go fuck itself. Colin McKinney is closed for business.

Chapter Twelve

Charlie

Has Colin McKinney used his downtime from his leg injury to become a dad? Sources are reporting that McKinney was spotted at a gynecologist’s office with Doctor Caroline Collins. A little CharCol in the oven? We’ll see in about nine months. Congratulations!

A car accident anytime is awful, but this close to Christmas is tragic. Brad and I finish filling out the last of the paperwork and stop by the patient’s room for one more check. She has a broken left arm and leg, and injured ribs, but she’s going to live. She’s very lucky.

I give Brad a hug, and tell him I’ll call him tomorrow. We’re both so exhausted from the surgery that he doesn’t even have a snarky comment for me.

My security detail follows me to my car and waits for me to climb in, start it, and drive off before they leave, as per Colin’s instructions.

I try calling Colin a couple of times on my way home, but he’s not answering. He frequently puts his phone on vibrate and leaves it sitting somewhere when he crutches to the next spot. No big deal.

We have leftover pork chops in the refrigerator that I can heat up for supper, and I think we have everything for a nice salad.

I start mentally making a checklist of what we’re going to have to do to make sure that Colin is completely gluten-free. I talked to the nutritionist at the hospital. She informed me on the cross contamination issues, but also warned me that my shampoo, soaps, lipstick and other toiletries might contain traces of gluten. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we can do it. A quote that I printed out and framed above my desk in medical school read, “A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.” Colin Powell said it, and I love it.

Having a baby has become our dream; not just Colin’s, but mine also. I’ve thought about it today, and we’ll give the natural method a go until our one-year anniversary. If we’re not pregnant by then, we’ll do IVF. I hope that Colin’s onboard, and doesn’t give me too much grief. I can see him wanting to do IVF now, just because he’s lacking in patience. Instantaneous gratification is what he wants.

I wave at both of our security guards as I drive into the gilded cage – the one that the neighborhood pays for and the one that’s on Colin’s payroll. They both wave back at me. I pull into the driveway and check the time. It’s after nine o’clock, and I hate getting home this late, but it just can’t be helped.

I try to open the back door, but something is blocking it. I push again a little harder, and get the door to open enough so I can squeeze by. There are black garbage bags piled up.
That’s odd. I wonder why Alice didn’t take them out.

I walk into the kitchen and call Colin’s name as I look through our mail. It’s typical junk. Most of it is tossed into the recycling bin. Next, I turn on the oven to three fifty and pull out the pork chops from the refrigerator. I’d really like for them to get to room temperature before I heat them, but that means we wouldn’t be eating dinner until midnight. Instead, I pour a little milk on them so they don’t get too dry in the oven.

Crap! I’m supposed to shower as soon as I get home. Even though I shower at the hospital, I still have to walk through the place to leave. I don’t want Colin to get sick again. That was a miserable twelve hours, because, dear God, he’s an awful patient.

When I walk into the living room, I stop dead in my tracks. My breath catches in my throat. We look like we’ve been robbed. From about five feet down, everything has been removed from our Christmas tree. Our stockings are gone. Our Christmas decorations are gone. Our pictures are gone.

“Colin,” I yell in a panic. “Colin, where are you?” He couldn’t have left. He can’t drive anywhere.

I rush into the bedroom, and see him sitting in the formerly red chair that’s been moved to the bay window of our bedroom. The blinds are open, and the moonlight is streaming in, bathing him in bluish-grey light. He’s staring outside so I can’t see his handsome face.

“What happened to our house?” I stand there, with my jaw dropped. It’s the first question that comes tumbling out of my mouth. But what I mean is, “Why did you destroy my project of love that I worked so hard on to make you happy?”

“I want you to call your dad and ask him if you can work with him again.” His voice is void of emotion. He’s still staring out the window.

“What the fuck, Colin? Is this about you not wanting me to work in the hospital and be exposed to germs? Because that’s ridiculous. Studies have shown that mother’s pass on their immune systems to their babies…”

He cuts me off before I can continue explaining. “No. That’s not what this is about. I’m fucked up, Caroline.”

My heart starts trying to beat its way out of my chest. “How are you fucked up? You’re scaring me. Tell me what’s going on.”

I walk over to him, taking a seat on the couch in the sitting room. He still doesn’t look at me. He laughs, but not in a good way. There’s no humor in it.

“Where do I begin? Do I start with letting you break up with me for Harvard? Because that’s really where I fucked up first. If I hadn’t been so selfish and prideful, I would have supported you while you went to Boston, and we could have done the long-distance thing. But no, I had to have it all right then. I wanted a ring on your finger, and a baby soon after. What a fucking joke. I probably couldn’t have gotten you pregnant back then anyway.”

His words anger me. “Colin, we promised the night before we got married that we’d quit rehashing our past. Remember? In the vows that we said to just each other that we didn’t want to share with our wedding guests. Why are you saying all of this now?”

He ignores me and continues. “At least then, you would have known at twenty-two that I was broken. You could have moved on and be happily living with Adam.”

I stand up, because this is nonsense. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but I need a shower and to put the pork chops in the oven. Spend the time that I’m gone getting over your pity party. Let me remind you that the doctor didn’t say that we couldn’t get pregnant. She said to keep trying. There’s always IVF. I’m not upset, and I’m not sure why you are.”

I storm into the kitchen and open the oven, shoving the pork chops in. I slam the oven door. Then, I stomp back to our bedroom, without looking at Colin, and slam the bathroom doors. I turn on the shower water and pull my scrubs off without my usual care.
How dare he? How dare Colin behave this way?
I swear to God, I’m going to make him put every decoration back up. He’s too old to be throwing temper tantrums.

I wash my hair and rinse my body in record time. I pull a brush through my wet hair and wash the makeup off of my face. I slip on a jogging suit that is not in the least bit cute, but it’s very comfy.

When I walk back into the bedroom, he’s still in the same spot. “I’ve called a town car. I’m going to go stay at a hotel for a little while. I need to sort some shit in my head out.” He drops his head in his hands staring at the floor.

“The fuck you are!” I storm at him. I walk over and bend down to get in his face. “You aren’t leaving me, Colin. You’ve got a problem. We work it out here. In case you don’t remember, we’re married. You swore you’d never leave me, and you aren’t.”

“I believe the vows of ‘for better or worse’ were omitted from our marriage ceremony,” he says bitterly picking his head up to look at me.

I slap him across the face. Hard. I’ve never hit another human being besides my sisters, and they don’t count, but I just hit my husband. And the only thing that I feel bad about is how much my hand stings. The look on his face is shock, complete with his mouth hanging open, which is much better than blank. He touches his cheek where I slapped him, and gives me a slight smile.

“Don’t you dare mock our marriage. Have we had a rough go of it? Yes. Do we have it harder than most couples? Probably. They don’t have their every move chronicled in the tabloids. Have I regretted any of this?” I say, sweeping my hands around our bedroom. “Only the fact that we began our relationship while you were still seeing Sasha, but even then, I don’t regret her nasty interview. You need to tell me what’s going on, Colin.” Rage is washing over me in waves. My heart is beating fast. I want to hurt him. To pull him out of whatever depressed spiral he’s in.

The timer goes off on the oven. “Your pork chops are ready,” Colin says, evenly.

“Fuck my pork chops.” I glare at him.

“You need to leave me, and go back to Houston.” He yells at me like he’s never done before. The vein that runs across his temple is throbbing and his face is bright red. He’s been mad at me. Colin’s raised his voice, but he’s never raged at me before. “Go back to your old life, before I came into the picture and stole it from you. Go back to your practice, and your town home. Go back to your mom and sisters. I’m a selfish bastard who has destroyed your life, Caroline. What have I given you?” He pauses, and yells louder, and I didn’t think that was possible. “Nothing. Not a damn thing. You live in a house that you hate. You work at a charity hospital. You’ve done nothing but play bedside nurse to me. I made you a household name. Had the media invade your privacy, and exposed you to my fans, who’ve been cruel to you. You almost relapsed because of me. You tell me, in the nine months that we’ve been back together, what I’ve given you, because I can’t come up with a damn thing.” The muscles in his neck are straining—he looks murderous.

He swallows, and says a little more quietly, “I hate myself. I’ve destroyed you because I want what I want so much. Now, I’m completely fucking useless. My future in football is cloudy, at best. I can’t give you a child. I will not be giving you a championship season this year. I can give us nothing but a bank account, and you don’t need that. I’d give every fucking cent away if it meant we could be pregnant with a healthy baby.”

I listen to his words, but they just make me angrier. I stand up, because for once in our relationship, I can be taller than him. “Do you think that it was easy for Prince Edward to abdicate the throne? Do you think that he sat in his royal palace, surrounded by his birthright riches staring at his bank account and went, ‘I know! Today, instead of being a king, I’m going to give up everything that has been promised to me from birth for this chick that I kinda think is cute.’ No. He didn’t. He did it because he loved her enough, what he had didn’t mean anything if she wasn’t by his side.”

I pause and catch my breath, because I’m so furious that I feel I could explode. “That was my life before you. It was great. It was awesome. I was living my dream, but I always felt like I was missing something. That something is you. I don’t want to go back to Houston. I don’t want to be a part of my dad’s practice again. I want to be with you. I gave it up for you.” I plead with my eyes for him to understand just how much I want this life that we’re making for ourselves. He looks stoic which makes me feel like hitting him again. “If you come back from this injury, and there’s no reason that you won’t, I’ll be in the stands, cheering you on. If you’ve played your last down, then we’ll make a new life for ourselves. If we’re parents one day, awesome. If it’s just you and me, for the rest of our days together, that’s okay too.”

I start sobbing, the kind of tears that wrack through my whole body. “I fucking love you, Colin. You can’t leave me. You can’t give up on us. We both know what it feels like to be without each other, and we can’t do that again.”

I stand there and watch a variety of emotions pass over his face. I want him to understand what he means to me, and how upset I am that he would even consider walking out on us.

Then the smoke alarm goes off. I take off in a sprint to the kitchen. I throw open the oven and have to cover my face, because the black smoke comes billowing out, trying to choke me. I grab oven mitts and pull our charred dinner out, dumping it in the sink. I run around, opening the windows in the house, hoping to let the smoke out so the damn alarm will stop screaming at me, then I wait by the phone for the alarm company to call. When they do, I tell them it’s a false alarm, and to cancel the fire department.

The momentary distraction has done nothing to lessen my anger at Colin. I use tongs to pick up each pork chop, and toss them in the garbage can. Then I begin taking out my frustration on the blackened casserole dish, as I think about what Colin has said and done.

This is a side to him that I’ve never seen before. I don’t know this version of Colin. I know he has quiet periods after games and other big events in his life, but I’ve never seen the self-destructive side of his personality.