The Beauty Within (36 page)

his fudge eyes hardening as they looked upon her. “I called the ambulance, and

he just walked out the shop as if in a daze. Wendy’s been trying to contact

him, but no answer.”

Tyler’s eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t understand.”

“Nobody does. Wendy looks ready to set fire to the joint, though. Want me

to go get her?”

“Please.”

Quincy nodded, kissing the back of her hand before doing the bidding.

Tyler stared at the ceiling. Gunnar…Gunnar, man with gray eyes? A man

who loved her? What was Quincy doing here? Hadn’t they broken up? Hadn’t

he ended things? Tyler closed her eyes tightly. Nothing made sense, least of all

why she was in the hospital because of lack of sleep and food. If anything, she

made sure she ate; she loved food too much to go without!

“Tyler!”

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193

Tyler turned to see her sister entering, her face panicked and so unlike the

cool, sassy expression she usually wore. Tyler twiddled her fingers and Wendy

grasped them readily, her smile shaky even as tears shimmered in her eyes.

“Sis?”

“Don’t you ever scare me like that again!”

“I’m sorry,” Tyler said immediately, but sincerely.

“Sorry! You should be!” Wendy’s eyes flashed. “I thought you were eating!

You
promised
me—no more meal replacement drinks! No more skipping—”

“Meal replacement?” Tyler said, a scowl immediately forming on her face.

“You mean those nasty-ass shakes they’re always hawking on daytime televi-

sion?”

Wendy’s eyes pierced her. “Yes, those same ‘nasty-ass’ shakes! You had

them for
every meal
! And then you’d take those pills—!”

“What pills?”

Wendy’s raving stopped and she gave her sister a concerned look. “You got

amnesia?”

“Amnesia?”

“You deaf too?”

Tyler rolled her eyes at that. “Clearly I’m not if I can hold this conversation

with you!”

Wendy arched an eyebrow and pursed her lips. “Hmm, haven’t lost com-

mand of that tongue, I see.”

“You’d love me less for it,” Tyler murmured with a genuine grin.

Wendy’s face fell and she sniffled. “Oh, God, Ty, don’t ever scare me like

that again!” she repeated, bending forward to kiss Tyler’s forehead. “I need

you…I need you…”

It was scaring Tyler to hear her older sister talk like she was, and she

squeezed Wendy’s hand. “What’s wrong?”

“I need you,” Wendy reiterated.

“What about Damon? Something happen between—?”

“You mean other than us getting married and having a baby? No, nothing

much,” Wendy said wryly.

“Married? A baby!”

Wendy pulled back with a half-smile on her face. “You don’t remember

that, either?”

Tyler’s eyes flit to her sister’s abdomen. She didn’t see anything that would

indicate pregnancy, but her sister wouldn’t lie about something like that. Tyler

closed her eyes, suddenly sad and wistful. To have someone love her like that…

“Gunnar?”

“Humph, don’t talk to me ’bout that man! I got Damon runnin’ ’round Ra-

leigh and Durham tryna find that Norwegian!”

“Norwegian? He white?”

Wendy just stared at her for a moment, then, “Go back to sleep, Tyler.”

Savannah J. Frierson

She pouted. “I’m not sleepy!”

“If you can’t remember the man you love, you are beyond exhausted. Go

back to sleep. I’ll check in on you later.”

Tyler frowned, watching Wendy leave the room. She huffed out a breath

and lay on her back, staring at the stark white ceiling in confusion. She was in

love with someone who loved her back. Why couldn’t she remember it? She

remembered Quincy and how good they had been before he broke her heart;

and yet he was here when the man she loved now, and the man everyone said

loved her back, wasn’t. Was this happening all over again? Was she not

enough for this man, either? And to learn he was white, too, didn’t help

matters. Maybe she’d just been a fling, but they had convinced just about

everyone she could become more. She heard the door open again, but she didn’t

turn to see who it was.

“I told her you wouldn’t be sleeping.”

Quincy again. Tyler moved her shoulders in an imitation of a shrug. “I said

I wasn’t sleepy.”

“Okay,” Quincy said. She saw him sit by her bed out the corner of her eye.

“Want to talk instead?”

“About what?”

“About how much of a jerk I am,” he said on a laugh far from humorous.

“About how wonderful you are.”

Tyler’s heart squeezed in her chest and she heard the ECG machine make

two rapid beeps. Quincy patted the back of her hand.

“Don’t go having a heart attack on me.”

“I’ll do my best.”

She locked eyes with him. He was still gorgeous to her, but none of the

other feelings came behind that thought. There was no longer a surge of love

for him, more like a steady drizzle of emotion. It was tamer, gentler, almost

similar to what she felt for Damon, yet not really.

“I don’t love you anymore,” she said absently, as if working out a puzzle.

Quincy couldn’t quite hide his wince and Tyler winced as well. “I’m sorry it

came out like that.”

“Don’t apologize,” he said, curling his fingers around her hand softly. “I un-

derstand.”

“Okay.”

“I still love you, though.”

“You broke up with me.”

“Because I knew I wasn’t the one for you.”

Tyler looked at him skeptically. “You did?”

“I didn’t deserve you, Tyler,” Quincy said on a sigh. “It was very clear to me

when you loved me so much and I still was willing to put the law firm above

you. You treated me well, loved me well…everything I could’ve ever wanted.”

The Beauty Within

“Just fat and nappy,” Tyler said, the bitterness in her voice surprising her

almost as much as the thought had. She tensed and would’ve pulled her hand

away had Quincy not tightened his fingers around it.

“That was the excuse I gave you, yes,” Quincy said, sounding none too

proud of himself. “And while it’s true the law firm did say something similar to

that, I doubt they meant to break us up.”

“Oh, really?” Tyler asked sarcastically.

“That comment gave me an out, a way to save face instead of waiting for

the day when someone better came along…Gunnar…”

“I wouldn’t cheat on you,” Tyler said, “Something you can’t say.”

Again, Quincy winced, but Tyler wouldn’t apologize for that comment or

the way she said it. “You’re right,” Quincy said finally. “You would’ve married

me, had babies for me, done everything for me and with me. I would’ve loved

you so much, but I wouldn’t have been the one for you.”

“How in the world did you determine that?”

“We never really fought.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

Quincy chuckled and Tyler’s mouth formed a tiny grin. She loved his smile,

his laugh. “We didn’t have that extra passion, Tyler.”

“So not only was I fat and nappy, I was bad in bed also?”

Quincy glared at her. “No, baby girl, never that,” he said, his voice dropping

low and sultry. “No…”

A thrill went through her body. Regardless if they were no longer a couple

or that she didn’t love him romantically, it still meant a lot to hear she didn’t

suck in the sack. “Okay.”

“Don’t you worry about that,” Quincy said, his smile wistful. “Among the

best I’ve ever had.”

“And that’s a large number?”

“No, Tyler,” Quincy said, his expression turning serious. “I haven’t met an-

yone better, actually.”

Tyler squirmed underneath his look. “I’m sorry?”

Quincy smiled again. “There really is no response to that, is there?”

“No…”

His smile softened. “Why did you do this to yourself, Tyler? The pills, the

not eating. Wendy told me a little.”

“She told you?”

Quincy nodded. “I was freaked out, Tyler. I never want to see you like that

again.”

“Did I pass out?”

“Yes, and all that stuff fell on top of you. You could’ve been hurt worse than

you are!”

“I’m sorry.”

196

Savannah J. Frierson

“All because of what I said,” Quincy said, bowing his head. “How I treated

you.”

“I have to take responsibility for whatever it is I did.”

“I broke your spirit—”

“No.”

“I did,” Quincy insisted. “Gunnar pointed it out to me. You tried to tell me,

but I wasn’t listening. That first meeting, when I thought I could just swoop

back in and reclaim you. I thought I’d be that man for you now, now that I was

about to be partner and I had my money right, but
we
aren’t right, not like this,

anyway.”

“You’re not the one laid up in the hospital.”

“But I put you here.”

“No.”

She didn’t like him talking like this, even if there had been a point when

she would’ve loved to hear these words out of his mouth. They were hollow,

and she wouldn’t put this apparent downward spiral on anyone but herself.

“I know better than this,” Tyler said.

“Love makes us stupid.”

“Love?”

“You did this for Gunnar, who ain’t even here,” Quincy said, his voice

growing so cold that Tyler actually shivered.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. No one still knows, but you’d think after he chewed me out

his ass would be white on rice with you!”

Tyler shrugged, going for a nonchalance she didn’t feel. “Maybe he didn’t

love me as much as he said he did.”

Quincy pursed his lips and flared his nostrils. “He’s not me, Tyler.”

“I never said he was.”

“But you think every man is me, don’t you?”

Tyler said nothing.

“Don’t…don’t be like me, Tyler,” Quincy said quietly, bringing both hands

to grasp hers. “Don’t push him away.”

“I’m not.”

“Let that man love you,” Quincy continued, as if she hadn’t even spoken.

“You deserve someone to love you with everything, and you deserve to love a

man with everything who will appreciate it.”

“Don’t you love me?”

“I don’t deserve you.”

“And he does? This Gunnar who isn’t even here?” Funny how everyone

claimed he loved her so much, yet the man who shattered her heart was the one

who was right here with her.

The Beauty Within

197

“I’m not even gonna pretend to know what’s going on in Gunnar’s head,

but if I saw my woman lying that still and looking like she wasn’t breathing, I’d

need a few moments to myself too.”

Nineteen

Almost three weeks had passed without any Gunnar sightings. Damon was

running the gym in his absence, and the only contact anyone had had from him

was via voicemail from an unlisted phone number. Tyler forced herself not to

think about it, though. He’d left her; that was the only explanation. The other

shoe had finally dropped.

Tyler instead focused on getting well. Wendy had moved in with Tyler,

much to Tyler’s consternation, but Wendy wouldn’t listen to her sister’s

protests. Damon would come over for a few hours every night to spend time

with them, but no one would talk about Gunnar—at least not with her.

It had taken her a few days after her accident for her memory to fully re-

turn, and with it, heartache. She hadn’t stayed in the hospital long, but Gunnar

hadn’t visited—she’d asked the nurses and Wendy if he’d come when she’d

been sleeping, but all of them had said no. That hadn’t stopped her from

peeking out of the window of Soul Cuts every Wednesday hoping to see his

light-brown head and piercing gray eyes on the other side. Even Quincy had

shown his face multiple times, and he was actually becoming someone Tyler

could call a friend. It would’ve been easy to bad-mouth Gunnar, too, but he

never did. Tyler had asked why.

“Because he loves you,” Quincy had replied simply. He was in her chair—

his newly designated cut days were Fridays.

“He should be here if he did.”

Quincy had shaken his head. “People react to adversity differently. You

soldier on. Some of us need time to deal.”

It wasn’t an explicit reference to him breaking up with her during her fa-

ther’s funeral, but Tyler knew that was what Quincy meant.

“Gunnar never seemed the type to tuck tail and run,” Tyler had said

mournfully.

The Beauty Within

199

“Adversity brings out all sides, some commendable, some not.”

Tyler had grinned slightly. “And when did you become so wise, Mr. Lu-

cas?”

“I observe people for a living,” Quincy said, and he gave her a pointed look,

“even before I got paid to do it.”

Returning to the present from that memory, Tyler shook her head and

rolled her eyes as she tightened up Quincy’s conservative cut. He was here on a

Thursday since tomorrow was Independence Day and the shop was closed. His

hair was close to his head, sharp, so different from the small afro he’d worn

during college. She dragged a towel over his head to dislodge the loose hairs

from his head, and Quincy moaned.

Tyler quirked an eyebrow. “None of that.”

“Feels good, Ty. You know I like your massages.”

Tyler snorted. She’d given Quincy many while he studied for his LSATs.

And many times, those massages led to him studying something else, like