Page 45 of Nice Guys Don't Kiss Like That At Christmas
“I remember.”
“I wish I had told you.I wish I could have been all of me.The scary parts too.”She exhales, slower this time.“My oncologist pointed out that there was a new measles outbreak.Did you learn measles can reset your immune system, making you more at risk for infections?In addition of, you know… maybe killing you.I couldn’t get a live vaccine yet.I could have ended up back at the hospital.”She shifts against me, her fingertips trailing along my collarbone.“I’m good now.Six years in remission since my transplant.More than five since my last immunotherapy treatment post-transplant.Annual check-ups instead of three-months or six-months scans.But last year I had a scare.And another biopsy.And… I spiraled.My ex wasn’t there.He told me that’s not what he had signed up for.Maybe he was scared.Or he didn’t know how to help.But this was the real first scare I had with him.And he wasn’t there.Well, he hadn’t been fully there for a while.”
And that fucking kills me.That she had to face so much alone, when someone promised to stand with her.Being lonely in a relationship is its own special kind of hell— you’re surrounded but isolated, reaching for someone who’s right there but completely absent.I’ve seen it with enough of my patients’ owners over the years—the way they talk about their partners with the same distance they describe a stranger, how they lean more on their animals than the person they married.
Eve deserved someone who showed up.Someone who knew what commitment actually meant, not that guy who barely could fathom the dictionary definition.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her.
And she exhales slowly, her fingers trailing over my ribs like muscle memory.“Thanks.Even before we started dating, Chuck showed up everywhere I was.I met him not long before Pittsburgh.”
My body tenses.When she didn’t show in Pittsburgh, I didn’t show up for her after that email, not right away at least.I didn’t push past my hurt to really see what she was offering in that explanation.And in that vacuum, Chuck appeared—someone who recognized her vulnerability as she continued navigating remission and all its uncertainties, eventually manipulating the strength she’d fought so hard to maintain.The knowledge sits heavy in my gut, that while she was still living scan-to-scan, still carrying the weight of her medical history, I let my bruised feelings prevent me from being what she might have needed then.
She continues, “He talked at a lecture I attended.Told me he heard about me.Very professional.And then after Pittsburgh, I was… sad.It was hard for me, too.And he became my friend.Coffee after class.Compliments about my articles in the university’s journal.My last month of my BSN I had to drop my part-time work and he let me stay at his place when I couldn’t afford rent during practicum while he moved to his parents’ to give me space.We were still just friends.”She lifts a shoulder.“But then, after my graduation, he would invite me to conferences.Tell me how impressed he was by me.And then, he’d tell me how beautiful I was.He’d send me songs that made him think of me.Pictures.Places he wanted to visit with me.Even love notes and flowers.So.Many.Flowers.”
A small, sharp laugh.“I thought it was romantic.That I’d finally found someone who saw me.But then… it turned.”
My breath stills.“What happened?”
She doesn’t look at me when she says, “He started pulling me away from everyone else.Quietly.Strategically.Said he respected that I didn’t want to move back to Barnstable because I felt… erased there in a way.Every time I thought about visiting my parents, or Poppy, or Julie, or Harper, he’d make a comment.Just a tone.Just enough to twist it.”She clears her throat.“It’s another reason I have to go back to Chicago.I already lost a place once.I won’t lose another one.Cape Cod used to feel like home and now?It’s a place where my chest tightens and memories pull me under and all the what-ifs come back like a roar while people still look at me like I didn’t live up to my potential.My mom used to send me job postings on the Cape.But I can never live there again.I can’t.Visiting is already hard enough.”
Cape Cod.
My pulse jumps to my throat.
Fuck.
My jaw tightens so hard my molars might crack.The contracts in my bag feel like they’re radiating heat across the room, a ticking bomb wrapped in innocuous legal language.Cape Cod.Where she felt erased.Where I’m planning to build my future.The timing of this revelation makes my stomach drop like I’m hitting an unexpected patch of black ice.
She goes on, softer now.“He didn’t ban people.He didn’t say don’t go.But every time I tried?It felt like disloyalty.Like maybe I was being ungrateful.”
The words dig claws into my chest.
And I know this isn’t about me.Not right now.But I can’t stop hearing what it might sound like if I tell her now.If I say surprise, I’ll be in Cape Cod.Not because of her, but for me.
I want to say, I’m not him.
But I’ve seen too many scared animals to know when to stay still.When pushing forward only makes them retreat further.Sometimes the best thing you can do is just be present, let them come to you when they’re ready.
There’s a scratch at the door and then another bark, as if on cue.Then a louder one.I’m pretty sure that’s Blanche this time, throwing her full weight at the door like she knows we need the interruption before this conversation veers into territory neither of us is ready for.
Eve groans into her hands.“You have got to be kidding me.”
“Separation anxiety,” I murmur, still tracing slow, soothing lines down her spine, calming myself as much as her.“Textbook case.”
“Apparently she takes after her mom,” she mutters, then freezes.“I mean—not that I… I didn’t mean with you—that I—ugh.”
I can’t help it, I grin.“Foster, you literally named your vibrator after me.”
She throws a pillow at my face.“That was therapeutic shopping.”
“Is that what we’re calling it now?”
But her laugh is steadier this time.Real.And that sound?That sound means everything.
She’s already sitting up, tugging on her candy-cane “lick me” top, the curve of her smile still lingering as she walks barefoot to the door.
The second she unlocks it, Blanche barrels in like a wrecking ball, followed by Dorothy and LoverBoy.The chihuahua shoots me a look that clearly says, “You’ve been replaced, buddy” before burrowing into Eve’s arms.I’ve seen that exact same stare from a hundred tiny dogs who think they run the show.Blanche does a quick sweep of the room, her massive body practically vibrating with that familiarwhere-the-hell-were-youenergy that big dogs somehow pack into every movement.
