Page 52 of The Burdens We Share
Even his voice sounds worried as he asks, “Ivory? How do youfeel? Do you want me to get the doctor?”
I shake my head frantically, my breathing rapid, “Doctor? No! No doctors!”
“Breathe, you’re okay,” he tries to calm me down, his voice soothing.
I shake my head, “I hate hospitals, Dallas. Please can we leave?”
I feel tears threatening to fall and he must see it in my eyes as he looks at me with defeat in his eyes, “We can’t go anywhere right now. I need you to breathe.”
“Why can’t we leave?”
He frowns, “Because you’re in no condition to leave. You need to be here where the doctors and nurses can help you.”
I furrow my brows, “But didn’t I just faint?” That has to be all it is. The room was spinning and I fell. Textbook definition of fainting, right?
Dallas looks at me with pity in his eyes, “No, Little Devil. You didn’t just faint.”
I give him a confused look and he frowns as he explains, sadness in his eyes, “The doctors wanted to keep you overnight because yes, you fainted, but it’s the reason you fainted that was concerning them. Your body is malnourished and you aren’t healthy. You’re lacking a ton of vitamins and the doctor said it’s a miracle you made it so long without fainting before. He also said you were fortunate to have gotten help when you did because if you went on like this, you could’ve died.” He says the last word and has to look away from me as if the thought sends him into a darker place.
Malnourished? Not healthy? Lacking vitamins? How could this be? I know I’ve been dieting, but Nara was a supermodel. She wouldn’t have set me up for a failure like this, would she? A tear rolls down my cheek, “But how?” My voice cracks.
Dallas takes a step away from my hospital bed and runs hisfingers through his already mussed-up hair. He looks the way I feel which is very not good. His face splits and I see a side of him I didn’t know existed as he explains, “I saw all the signs and I didn’t put it together. I feel so fucking stupid,” he berates himself as he walks to the foot of my bed and leans on the foot, supporting his weight with his arms in front of him.
“Signs of what?” I ask, tears openly falling down my cheeks.
He looks up and gives me the most tortured expression ever, “You have an eating disorder, Ivory.”
I shake my head, defensive, “No I do not.”
He just frowns at me, disappointment in his eyes, “Yes, you do. And I should’ve put the pieces together a lot sooner. You rarely eat and when you do, it isn’t enough to sustain you. And then you work out and overdo it. Your moods are imbalanced, your skin is all bruised because you’re lacking the proper nutrients, you’re fatigued, and you feel light-headed constantly. The signs are all there and I can’t believe I didn’t see it. I think I just didn’t want to believe it.”
I realize he’s completely right. All of those things are true. I just don’t want to admit it because admitting it makes it real, makes it true. I start to panic, “Do the others know?” The thought of my friends, Harvey, Slater, everyone, having seen me collapse and finding out what’s really wrong with me makes sheer terror slice through me. The thought embarrasses me and worries me that the people I care the most about are disappointed in me.
Dallas’ brows pull together, “That’s what you care about right now? Not that you have a problem?”
I don’t say anything and he pushes off the bed and sighs, rubbing his face with his hands before he drops them at his side and schools me with a stern expression. “Yes, everyone knows.”
My eyes squeeze shut and I cover my mouth as I start to sob. “Are they angry with me?”
“Nobody is angry at you because they acknowledge that you have a problem. If anything, they’re angry that you’re going through it. They aren’t angry atyou,” he explains.
I open my eyes and ask quietly, “Are you angry at me?”
He stares at me in silence for a second before he walks over to the chair beside my bed and sits down. “Do you remember when you asked me about my mother and I froze up?”
I nod.
Dallas explains a faraway look in his eyes, “My mother died six months ago. I was supposed to meet her for dinner, but I was late to meet her. She stood on the street and waited for me and she didn’t suspect that there could even be a little bit of evil in this world. She saw the best in everyone.” His eyes glaze over. “Someone drove by her on the street and shot her. She bled out and I finally made it there from my business meeting to find my mother dead on the pavement.”
My chest cracks as immense pain bursts inside me. Is this why Dallas is the way that he is? Why he’s so closed off? I never suspected he experienced such trauma, such pain. “I’m so sorry, Dallas.”
He continues, “The ambulance came and they tried to save her, but they couldn’t do anything because by the time they made it there, she was already dead.” His brows pull together and one single tear rolls down his cheek. “My father hates me to this day. He’ll never speak to me again because it was my fault she died. If I had put my mother above that stupid fucking business meeting I had that day, she would still be here.”
I shake my head and reach for him, but he’s too far away. He doesn’t even look at me as I argue, “No, Dallas. That isn’t your fault. That is way too much of a burden to put on yourself.” I’m crying for him because I didn’t know he carried this around with him for this long. While I smiled and laughed, Dallas was experiencing this pain. It feels so wrong.
“I made it my life’s mission after that to find the man who killed her. And I did,” he explains as he finally looks up at me. “The man who killed her is named Calvin Worshire. I knew him in the military and we were friends at one point. He, Harvey, and I were very close and he met and fell for a woman named Lita who was also serving with us. Lita got killed trying to help me in the field and he never forgave me for it. He blamed me for her death and when I left the military because of it, I never thought I would see him again, but he never forgot. He killed my mother years later as penance for Lita’s death. He went absolutely batshit crazy when she died and he targeted my mother to get to me and now she’s gone. She’s gone because of me, Ivory.”
I want to comfort him, but the story is so dark I know I can’t offer him anything that will make this better. I would once give anything to learn so much about Dallas, but this story is so heartbreaking, that I almost wish he never told me. “I’m not telling you this so that you pity me. I never talk about any of this and I hope now you can understand why I am the way that I am. I told you all of this because I have never felt pain in my life like I felt when my mother died. She was everything to me and when I heard those sirens coming, the police and the ambulance, the sound was ingrained in my mind along with my pain. I never felt anything even remotely close to that again until the ambulance came for you yesterday.”
