One
“He’s due to be in surgery for hours, and, being his fiance, I’m more than happy to pass along any message you might have for him.”
Fiance. Fiance. FIANCE!
Becca’s throat felt too tight for more formality than a stuttered, “I s-see…That’s fine. I’ll check back later.” It was impossible to meet the icy blond’s eyes.
“Take care.” Her angelic voice was at Becca’s back, along with the waiting room and its sickly yellow lighting. Becca didn’t think she was wrong to detect an undertone of sneer in the farewell. There was no point in taking anything at face value anymore No, Becca knew better living the duality that she had the past couple of days.
Peter was her moral undoing only because she had always had it in her to be bad. That’s what you got when you forced your every hope and desire into the thin case of a lie. Becca was a walking, talking lie before she’d ever laid eyes on Peter and, now, she knew he had never belonged to her. Peter had preached on living out her inner exibitionist and truest self when he’d been wearing a second face all along.
The hate Becca had buried for herself, her friends,Austin, her family had to go somewhere or else be transferred. Peter’s penetrating eyes and cock, his inciting mind games had stirred up a heat that burnt up all that loathing; melted it down to its undeclared atoms and, with a smile and kiss, reformed the negative space into a paradoxical hungry and satisfied one. Becca hadn’t had a moment to spare for dread and self reflection when she was too busy wanting more, more, more!
Knowing all this, she craved him. With her heart pounding out of rhythm and the tiles at her feet blurring with an influx of tears, Becca’s hunger was there, waiting.
Becca’s only hope was to outrun it. She had to move faster than her mistakes and the memory of their ugly aftermath could catch up with her. Surely her feet could maneuver her escape where her brain went sluggish.
Tiles moved faster, shoulders bumped hers, white lab coated torsos flapped in the shuffle to get out of her bee-line for the elevator. Gasps, muttered curses, peripheral raised brows. It didn’t matter. They weren’t real.
Becca pressed the button for the first floor and stared at the tin elevator walls, grateful for the lack of clear reflection on their surface.
In the front lobby, there was no one to push out of her way. The night was less of a draw. Just a smattering of visitors and worriers for those being held somewhere between promising and dire.
The second to last set of automated exit doors moved slowly and that was why the hospital receptionist had time to recognize her.
“Excuse me! Miss?”
It was the same woman who had directed Becca to the correct floor with great patience earlier.
Becca turned back.
“Yes?”
“Before you leave, I’ll need to take your contact information in case Peter’s status changes.”
Becca wavered. She wasn’t sure that she wanted her name and number in conjunction with Peter or his family. Not with the way his parents had turned their nose up at the sight of her. Not with what they all knew what Becca was to Peter, or suspected. Not when Peter had stabbed her in the back.
Her heart’s good breeding stalled her though. Deceit and scorn aside, Becca had to know that Peter was okay.
“Of course.”
At the desk, she gave her name, number, and email. She was told that Peter’s condition was stable thus far and she could expect an automated status update texted as soon as possible.
The several hour drive back to Grand Ridge campus was a long one. Quiet even with the radio on and highway speeding, the static of her emotions and clamoring anxieties tuned everything out.
Cheese gave Becca a cheery hello and she hadn’t so much as waved back. Vera was nowhere to be found. She had likely turned in early for beauty sleep, thank god.
In her dorm bed, stripped down to her underwear, Becca cried off the last of her wrecked makeup and fell into a fitful, dreamless sleep.
