Page 24 of Manhattan Heart

Friday.

I hear the words he’s telling me calmly.

I listen but nothing registers other than the part when he informs me something bad is wrong with his heart.

His fuckingheart.

My heart.

I can’t.

I can’t.

My head spins and I go on listening to Gray explaining thesimplesurgery.

Simple. No surgery done on the heart is simple.

One big hand roams in a soothing manner down my whole back. “Baby, I don’t want you to worry, okay? This is nothing and it’s over in no time.”

This isn’t happening.

It’s a goddamn nightmare.

Gray isn’t sick.

He doesn’t look sick.

He doesn’t act like a sick person.

He works out religiously.

His body is a temple, for Christ’s sake.

Pre-op.

Medication.

ICU.

He continues to lay it all out. Giving me the information ordinarily he knows I’ll want. I like to be prepared.

He’s doing this for me.

Talking slow and calm in his Gray voice, so as not to concern me.

He doesn’t understand that I’ve gone way past worry and I’m in frantic mode up on my knees, naked in our bed.

I barely blink. I’m too much in my own trauma.

Trying desperately to process and not freak the fuck out.

“Baby, you okay? Do you want to know anything else?”

“How…how long have you known this?” It’s then he winces and I know it’s longer than a few minutes.

“A few weeks. I went for my routine physical, remember.”

That was three fucking weeks ago.

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