“I think you’re exaggerating,” James said, although worry niggled the back of his mind. “She couldn’t think that.”
“Well, she does,” Ally said. “She thinks you’re just waiting to break up with her.”
James pushed his chair back from his desk, getting to his feet slowly. Something about Ally’s words struck a chord with him, causing things to shift into place. “She wanted to … you know … this morning.”
“Yeah, she told me that, too. She says you don’t find her attractive anymore and that’s why you didn’t want to have sex.”
“Hey, I always want to have sex,” James argued. “What I don’t want is to hurt her.”
“Well, in your efforts not to hurt her physically, you’ve managed to crush her heart,” Ally replied.
James shoveled a hand through his hair. “I don’t know how to fix this.”
“Just be honest.”
“I’m scared to be honest,” James said. “Dr. Fitzgerald said that she should be kept still and quiet. I don’t think he had a big emotional blowout in mind when he gave me those instructions.”
“She’s healing, James,” Ally said. “Her body is recovering. Her mind is a different matter. You need to ask yourself one simple question: Is following the doctor’s orders more important than making that woman up there feel safe?”
“There is nothing in the world I wouldn’t do to make her feel safe, Ally,” James said. “I’m caught between a rock and a hard place. I can’t hurt her. I won’t hurt her.”
“She’s already hurt, James,” Ally said. “You can’t fix the physical stuff. Her body is doing that on its own. You can fix the emotional stuff – and I recommend you do it quickly. She’s … unraveling.”
James sighed, moving around his desk and pausing next to Ally long enough to give her a brief hug. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Of course I told you.”
“You could have done the girl-pact thing and kept it to yourself until it was too late to fix,” James said. “You didn’t do that.”
He moved toward the stairs.
“Um, I told her that I was talking to you about answering the office phones this week,” Ally said.
James paused. “And?”
“Well, now I’m invoking the sibling-pact thing,” Ally said. “Don’t you dare rat me out.”
“She’s going to know when I go up there to talk to her,” James pointed out.
“Not if you’re smart about it.”
James chuckled, the sound foreign to his own ears. How long had it been since he laughed?
“Your secret is safe with me.”
“Good,” Ally said. “Now, go and fix her. Oh, and if she wants to have sex, just a tip, have sex. Rejecting her is just … mean.”
James shook his head as he tried to dislodge Ally’s words from his brain. “I’ll see you Monday. Make sure the front door is locked on your way out.”
James jogged up the stairs, pausing in front of the apartment door to collect himself before pushing inside. He had no idea how he was going to handle this. He just knew he needed to do it – and he needed to do it now.
The living room was empty, so James headed toward the bedroom. She wasn’t there – but something about the stillness of the room bothered him. The only room he hadn’t checked was the bathroom. He knocked on the door and waited a moment. When there was no sound from the other side, he opened the door and found the room empty.
Where was she?
James sucked in a breath as he took a closer look at the apartment. Her things were … gone. The shark slippers that had been by the edge of the couch, the hoodie that had been draped over the armchair, and the black Converse that had been situated on the rug by the front door were all missing.
James’ heart flopped painfully.
He strode back to the bedroom, really looking at it this time. The nightstand on his side of the bed was clear. Her antibiotics, the numbing agent, and the white gauze – they all were gone. When he glanced at the nightstand on her side of the bed, he found that her cellphone was also absent.
She’d left. She’d left the apartment. She’d left their home. She’d left him. But how? She didn’t have a car. She could’ve called a cab, but that didn’t seem like something she would do. Who would she have called?
The answer hit him square in the chest. Heidi. She was the only person who would have dropped everything to help a despondent Mandy when she didn’t feel like she could trust anyone else.
James fought to keep his breathing even, to not let the panic take him over. He’d screwed up again. He’d missed the signs. He was going to put one of those little chalkboards around her neck and make her write everything down on it from now on so he knew what was going on in that busy little mind of hers.