Page 87 of Hearts on the Table
True to his slimy word, Sturmond had directed the PR people to book me for any media event they wanted. Apparently, I’d graciously agreed to continue on the media tour, acting as the spokesperson for the new program Cedar and my mother’s foundation were collaborating on. The initial campaign had been such a rousing success, both organizations had apparently decided that a long-term partnership was in everyone’s best interests.
I took every interview from my apartment, avoiding the hospital as much as possible. I didn’t have the strength to run into Sam, or Sturmond, or anyone else that might know about our relationship.
I was on the fence about telling Rija, too. I wasn’t sure how much she knew, or if telling her would alter her perception of me, just like it did with Sturmond. Lainey, a spoiled little brat who just used others to get where she needed to go. I couldn’t handle the disappointment or disgust on her face.
I’d been right before all this started up: mixing my personal and professional life was too messy.
After leaving Sam, my days took on a dull, repetitive haze. Wake up. Do my hair and makeup. Read through background documents for today’s interviews. Get through all that. Eat something…maybe. Then fall back into bed.
I didn’t even want to watch my trashy TV shows, not when they reminded me of sitting on Sam’s couch with a glass of wine, filling him in on the back story of each character while he chopped vegetables. I couldn’t bring myself to work on my LVADresearch, which made me remember how Sam had gotten my patient in at Mercy and why she’d had to be referred there in the first place. I was bored and sad and alone.
It had been too easy, in hindsight, to get sucked back into friendships with other people. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed that over the last few years. But now, living in limbo, waiting for my third and final interview at Cedar and avoiding the outside world as much as possible, the need for someone else was like an ache. It followed me constantly, and there wasn’t much I could do about it.
Tess was wrapped up in a huge, time-sensitive project at her company, and I’d been too much of a coward to text Jas. She was Sam’s sister-in-law and loyal to a fault. I couldn’t put her in the middle of all this, not when I knew she’d probably pick his side. I missed them both.
Most of all, though, I missed Sam. My white-hot rage had cooled with time. Now, whenever I thought of him, I was just sad. Bitter, too.
I hated how I questioned everything now. Had he always had his own agenda? Moved on his own timeline, all the while telling me I was the one in charge? Had he planned to expose us—me—all along, regardless of my reservations about us being together?
Late at night, I convinced myself that these worst-case scenarios might be true. Maybe I hadn’t known him as well as I thought. In the light of day, though, it was harder to convince myself he was a villain.
I missed the way he could make me laugh when I least expected it. How he listened to me. How he took me into account when he made plans. I missed the way he held me, like I was precious, but wouldn’t break. The endearments. All of it.
The more I thought about it, the more I regretted how I’d handled our argument.
I’d been upset—rightfully so—to find out that Sam had disclosed our relationship to my employer without my knowledge or permission. But now that I’d had some distance from the whole thing, I kind of understood why.
Sam was nothing if not considerate. Of course, he would do what he thought was best to create a fair environment for all the candidates. The paperwork was supposed to be confidential, if the notes on the forms HR had copied were anything to go off of. The only reason Gina had handed them over to me was because my name was on there, too.
Plus, I’d been so livid, I might have overstepped in our argument.
Sam was quiet, yes, but he was honest with me and everyone else around him. I’d accused him of not giving me enough, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that he’d given me everything I asked for and more.
He’d taken it slow with me when I asked him to. Not only accepted me into his world, but softly introduced avenues to get to know his family and friends, as well: tacos with Jas and Conner, taking me to Molido, Conner’s birthday. I realized it was his way of showing me how little I had to fear. He was putting all of himself on the table for me to see—his life, his family, his past. He offered it all up freely.
Was he right? Was I the one who had held too much back from him? The last few weeks had felt like a whirlwind to me, one compromise or surrender after another. But maybe it had felt like that because I was so woefully unused to sharing more than a single piece of myself with someone.
My parents got the award-winning, dutiful daughter. My colleagues got the dependable Doctor Carmichael. Before Sam, it had been a long time since I’d shared more than just scraps of who I was. Revealing the full picture felt raw and vulnerable.
But he’d been so wonderful about it all, taking everything I’d been willing to give him, even the ugly, selfish bits. Where that left me, I didn’t know. Sad, mad, guilty, unsure.
Existing in a vacuum wasn’t helping, either. Nearly a week after my fight with Sam, the most social interaction I’d had was with the DoorDash people and the perfectly coiffed reporters who conducted the Zoom interviews that filled my days once more.
Tess’s only free time was when she could escape her office for a class at R3. I wasn’t sure if I’d even be welcome there (just one more piece of my life shattered in the wake of my breakup with Sam).
She’d told me several times that Will kept asking about me, but I couldn’t risk it. On top of everything else, I couldn’t handle it if I walked into that place and felt their judgment weighing on me. Still, I was going insane sitting inside my apartment ruminating all alone.
So, on Sunday night, I crouched behind the wheel of my car, waiting for her class to get out while I obsessively tracked Sam’s location on my phone. He hadn’t rescinded his sharing permission. I knew he probably had just forgotten about it, and it was possibly creepy for me to continue to spend so much time stalking him now that I’d left. Tonight, at least, I had a good excuse. I had to make sure he stayed put at the hospital. If his dot so much as blinked in the gym’s direction, I’d hightail it outta here.
I was so focused on his pulsing blue circle, I missed the flash of copper outside my window. I jumped so high when June knocked on the glass, I nearly dropped the phone to the floorboard.
“You mind?”
“…Huh?” I rolled the window down, unsure if my leaping heart rate was because of the adrenaline from her sneak attack, or if it was because she was Sam’s mom.
“You mind giving me a hand? Fucking gravel weighs about fifty pounds. I’m no spring chicken anymore.” June nodded at the bags of pea gravel piled in the back of her Jeep.
“Ah. Um…” Was I so petty and antisocial that I was going to force this woman to carry twelve bags of gravel around by herself? Ugh. Manners were the worst. “Of course.”
