Within These Walls (25 page)

“What happened?” I asked.

“Megan and I went to a party. We’d met some random college students at a bar and they’d invited us back to an end of the year party on campus. I begged her to drive us back to the hotel rather than stay the night. It’s all my fault,” he answered, his voice cracking.

“Oh, Jude,” I said, my heart breaking for him.

He wrapped his arms around me, like I was his anchor, as he held me in silence.

“You stayed here to punish yourself,” I whispered against his chest.

He took his time before answering, “I stayed because I had nowhere else to go.”

I pulled back, looking into his eyes that were so full of sadness.

“But you had a family, Jude. What about your friends? Didn’t they care that you were hurting, grieving?”

“Friends can only try for so long. After I switched my number and disappeared—so did they. And my family made it perfectly clear that they needed me for one purpose, and that was to make money,” he answered, his expression growing a bit harder at the mention of his family.

“Besides, my life was over, Lailah. I had no home to return to.”

“I cannot even begin to understand what you went through, but to hear you say you thought your life was over pains me in a way I can’t describe. You were twenty-two, Jude. You lost someone you loved, but your life was definitely not over. I really hope you don’t still think that.”

“I don’t know what I believe anymore.” He sat up and ran his hands through his hair in a frustrated manner. I followed, sitting with my legs crossed beside him.

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe your life had just started?” I asked.

His eyes flew up to mine in surprise. “How?” he asked.

“I don’t know, but you said you were scared to death of what might happen when you returned to New York. Did it ever occur to you that by staying here in California, you might have given yourself a chance to create something new, something different?”

He scooted forward, out of my grasp, until he moved off the bed completely. He stalked across the room. “Are you saying that Megan’s death happened for a reason?” His words were clipped as he paced from one corner to the next.

My face fell at his angry words. “God, no, Jude. That’s not what I’m saying at all.”

“Because you have no idea, no clue what she was like or what I went through. She was everything to me!” he shouted, causing me to jump.

Tears fell from my eyes as I struggled to find words to fix this. “I know. I’m sorry. Forget I said anything.” The words tumbled out as I tried to grasp on to anything to keep him from leaving this room, from leaving me.

“My break is over. I’ve got to go.” He turned, walked out, and didn’t bother looking back.

My palms came to my cheeks, and I let go of the flood I’d been holding back as I mourned a woman I never knew, a woman who still held the heart of the man I loved.

Will he ever be able to let go?

IT HAD BEEN two days since I stormed out of Lailah’s room. It had been forty-eight hours since I saw her face or heard her voice. Hell, even our flirty text conversations had ceased.

I’d spent two entire days of work avoiding her. I would make a wide berth around her doorway, and I would take my lunch breaks alone in the corner of the cafeteria while I’d sit and wonder what she was doing. Even as I’d done this—making every attempt to avoid confrontation, to avoid the conversation I knew we’d have to have—I continued with my plan. I’d been taking my meetings that I’d scheduled with various hospital officials to secure proper approvals. I’d gone over lists with Grace, Marcus, and even Lailah’s mom, who would eye me with the usual wary indifference.

I was continuing with my biggest plan of all because, deep down, I knew Lailah was right.

The other night, I had stood there, looking my future straight in the face, as I stared into the eyes of the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

And she wasn’t Megan.

Lailah hadn’t said those words to hurt or anger me. She’d said them to try to help me heal. Instead of recognizing that when I should have, I’d lashed out in anger, defending a ghost and a memory.

Megan would have been ashamed by my actions.

Megan would never have wanted me to continue mourning her like I had been.

Yet, here I was, three years later, still stuck in the same place I had been the day we arrived in that ambulance. Maybe I was supposed to do that though, so I could end up here.

I didn’t know. I couldn’t even begin to understand how the world worked.

I needed to let go. I needed to say good-bye to Megan, the woman I’d lost, and to the life I’d once had. And I needed to forgive myself for the mistakes I’d made that led me here.

She might have spent her years cooped up in a hospital room, but the wisdom Lailah possessed was more than most people gained in a lifetime.

I had been punishing myself, living in a purgatory for my sins, and it was finally time to break free.

“You want to what?” Margaret asked once again.

“I’d like to purchase a plaque for the bench on the second floor. Don’t play coy with me. I know you know what bench I’m talking about,” I said, leaning back into the tall wingback chair that seemed to be my home lately.

I’d dropped by her office early this morning after having had about three hours of sleep since I clocked out. But I couldn’t wait any longer. Each hour ticking by marked how long I hadn’t seen Lailah, and the passing time was starting to weigh on me.

Does she think I left for good? Is she okay? Does she hate me?

God, I’m an ass.

But I needed to do this before I could step foot in that room again.

I needed to return whole—or at least, on my way. Aside from flying to Chicago and visiting where Megan was buried, this was the only way I could work it out in my head. I wanted a way to say good-bye—a remembrance, something concrete and real that I could remember.

I’d skipped her funeral service. Too swallowed up by grief and regret, I couldn’t bring myself to face our families and friends. So, I never got the chance to say good-bye, to have that sacred moment to wish for more, a better afterlife, for the loved one who had left me.

I needed that now.

“I’m not really the person to talk to about that type of thing, Jude,” she started.

“Oh, come on, Margaret. Let’s cut the shit, shall we?”

Her mouth fell open.

“I know you pulled strings and got the bench put there. No one else in this hospital, besides you and Dr. Marcus, gives two shits about me. And you’re the only one who knows about me and that hallway. It’s a little fishy to me that a bench would suddenly appear in that exact spot,” I pressed, staring her down.

“They call and check on you,” she blurted out.

Stunned silent for a moment, I gathered my thoughts, trying to figure out what she’d meant. “Who? Who calls to check on me?”

“Her parents.”

“Megan’s parents check on me?”

She nodded. “I don’t know all the details, but a few months after she passed, they called here, looking for you. I don’t know the relationship between your families, but when the call finally got to me, it sounded like her parents hadn’t gotten a lot of information from yours, so they were starting at square one.”

Considering my father was still keeping up the scheme that I was antisocial and too busy to do anything but work, I could see my family not running the risk of giving any information regarding my whereabouts out to anyone, even Megan’s parents. Besides a family scandal, the idea of our family business breaking apart could send the shareholders into turmoil. Making them believe I was just quirky and fearful of people after my personal tragedy was better than instigating any inkling of panic.

“I told them you worked here, which surprised them.”

“I bet,” I said.

“They asked how you were after…”

“Go on,” I urged.

“Well, I’ve been giving them updates ever since,” she said quietly, knowing she’d probably broken a dozen laws in giving out an employee’s personal information. “They don’t call often, just once or twice a year to check in. They love you, Jude.”

Even after everything I put them through?

I looked at her for a minute or two, putting it all together—the special care, the job offer, barely a second glance when I’d asked to leave my last name off my badge.

“You’ve known who I was this entire time,” I said, not bothering to phrase it as a question.

“Yes. I recognized you the second I saw your last name on that employment application.”

“Yet, you’ve never said anything?”

“We should all be able to grieve privately, Jude. I wanted that for you. I just didn’t realize it would take so long,” she confessed.

“I think I’m almost done.”

She gave a faint smile, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “I’m glad,” was all she said.

“And the bench?” I asked, wondering how it played into all of this.

“Megan’s father requested it. When I told him where you would go after your shifts, he wanted you to have a place to sit. He knew he couldn’t change what you were doing, but he wanted to at least make it better for you.”

“I’d like a plaque if you could swing it,” I finally said, my voice heavy with emotions.

“I’ll make some phone calls.”

“And, Margaret?” I rose from the chair. “When they call next time, could you tell them that I’m finally happy again? And that I love them, too?”

She smiled warmly. “I’d be happy to.”

Leaving Margaret to make her calls, I headed up to cardiology, passing the eyes of every nurse and staff member who had taken a particularly high interest in my social life over the last few weeks. Becoming involved with a patient was front-page gossip—or at least, that was what Grace had told me.

I really couldn’t give a fuck.

The hallway seemed endless, and my arms became restless as they waited to finally swing that door open, so I could see Lailah again.

God, I’ve been a fool.

Hasn’t my past shown me anything?

Life is precious. It’s there one minute and gone the next. It shouldn’t be wasted.

I’d lost two precious days being angry with Lailah for something I’d already known but been too frightened to admit.

Finally making it to her door, I grabbed the knob and knocked. I heard the soft, sweet sound of her voice ushering me in, and I entered before the quiet click of the door sounded behind me.

She was standing, and her back was turned. She was going through a pile of books her mother had probably brought over. Her hand smoothed over the cover of one of the paperbacks, tracing the raised letters of the title.

When she looked over her shoulder and made eye contact with me, she froze. “Jude,” she said, her eyes round and wide with surprise.

I took a step forward but stopped.

What do I say first? I’m sorry? I’m an ass? You were right?

I wanted to say them all at the same time, but I didn’t know where to begin.

Finally, I stalked forward, removing the air and space separating us. Weaving my fingers through her hair, I kissed her. She gasped, her hands gripping my shoulders before sliding around my neck.

“I’m sorry, Lailah. I’m so sorry,” I said between our frenzied kisses.

“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you.”

“You didn’t say anything I didn’t already know.”

Grabbing her around her waist, I lifted her, and she instantly responded, wrapping her legs around me. I leaned her against the wall. Sliding my hands down around her ass, I supported her weight to keep the strain off of her.

It also wasn’t a bad position for me. I might be choosing the good-guy route to wait until I could have her in a proper bed without wheels, but by no means was I a saint.

With her legs spread and her body pressed firmly against me, I wanted nothing more than to strip her down and forget every reason I had for waiting. Even with my raging hard-on and the heat of her core doing funny things to my brain, my conscience still remembered how much I wanted to love her for the first time in my own bed.

But that didn’t mean we couldn’t have a little fun until then.

“Lift up your shirt,” I whispered against her ear.

A small smirk tugged at the corner of her lips as she pulled the bottom of her shirt up halfway, exposing her smooth stomach.

“Higher.”

She did, lifting it up above her chest.

“No bra today,” I said as my eyes skimmed over her beautiful body.

“I wasn’t expecting company.”

“You should not expect company every day,” I replied with a wicked grin.

With my hands still firmly holding her up, I bent forward, moving my tongue over that perfectly shaped pink bud until it pebbled and hardened.

“Gorgeous,” I remarked before closing my mouth over her tight nipple.

Her head went back, and a long moan followed as her hands raked through my hair. I nipped, sucked, and kissed until she was writhing and moving against me so hard that I was about to blow.

“Jesus, Lailah, I’m going to lose it.”

A blush crept up her face as she looked at me. “You are?”