Tim
I’m still reeling from seeing Holly.
When she walked through that curtain and my brain first recognized her, I felt every cell in my body respond to her beauty.
She looked exactly the same as she did ten years ago.
Long, blonde hair, more of a golden tone, that’s thick and wavy. Crystal-green eyes with mile-long lashes and lips that look perpetually swollen by hard kissing. She’s still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, a true fact that caused me to be tongue-tied around her.
Which was fine, because it’s not like this is the best place to re-open old wounds. Because that is what would happen if Holly and I actually had a moment to talk.
Instead, I was happy to see her concentrate on Sam. She was so gentle… so patient and kind with him, that I could tell he was immediately at ease. She was efficient in her expertise, and I’m grateful for her care of him.
And then?
Then she was saying good-bye and walking past me out of the small, curtained room.
My hand shoots out and grabs her around the wrist. She jerks in surprise and for a brief moment, I focus on my fingers clasping loosely onto her. My dark skin against her pale, and a haunting image of my body covering hers as I made love to her sizzles through my mind.
“Wait,” I say as I drag my gaze up to hers.
Holly tilts her head slightly… in curiosity, and I clear my throat. “Do you have a moment to talk?” I ask her.
“Sure,” she says with a smile. “I just got off the night shift. It’s going to take a few minutes to get Sam discharged.”
Turning back to Sam, I see him talking to the nurse as she takes his IV out. “Sam… buddy… I’m going to step just outside this curtain a moment to talk to Dr. Reynolds. Is that okay?”
“Yeah, Dad,” he says with a toothless but brave grin. “I’m good. Amy promised me some stickers.”
I give a wan smile to the nurse. Moving my hand from Holly’s wrist to her elbow, I steer her outside of the curtained room.
“We can step in here,” she says and actually leads me over to a small office across the bay.
I follow her inside and she shuts the door, turning back to me with her hands tucked into her lab coat. Her smile is warm, her eyes open and searching.
“It’s really good to see you, Tim,” she begins, her voice quavering slightly.
I scrub my hand over my head, feeling the prick from the short bristles of hair as I keep my head shaved almost to the point of baldness. It’s just easier to take care of. “Yeah… you too,” I say distractedly.
“I didn’t think you’d want to talk,” she murmurs, her gaze dropping to the floor.
A brief moment of anger surges through me as I remember the last time I talked to Holly. It was just before our high school graduation. All the students were congregated outside, waiting to get herded into our auditorium for the commencement ceremony.
Holly had grabbed my hand and pulled me off to the side, far enough away from the other students so we couldn’t be heard. It was the first time I had seen her since my disastrous meeting with her father four days earlier. Since then, I hadn’t heard from Holly and she wasn’t responding to my calls or emails.
“Are you okay?” I’d asked her quickly, searching her face for any signs that her father had done something extreme.
Her eyes wouldn’t meet mine and her bottom lip trembled. My fingers came up under her chin, and I raised her face and made her look at me. “Holly… baby… are you okay?”
She gave an almost urgent shake of her head, and tears welled in her eyes. “Tim… I can’t… um,” she started, and then a tiny sob came out of her mouth.
This had me pulling her hard into my arms, and I kissed the top of her head. “Tell me. Tell me so I can fix this for you,” I urged her.
Again, she shook her head and actually brought her arms up to break my hold, stepping away from me. She took in a deep breath and blinked her tears away. “I’m sorry, Tim. But I can’t see you anymore.”
Rage exploded within me. “What the fuck? Because of what your father said?”
That bigoted bastard forcibly threw me out of his house four days ago when Holly decided it was time for me to meet her parents. She was nervous, and apparently rightfully so, but was convinced the only way to go about doing it was to pull the Band-Aid off quickly so to speak. So she told her parents she wanted to invite her boyfriend over for dinner… and they happily agreed.
When Holly brought me inside the living room to meet the esteemed Dr. Philip Reynolds and his socialite wife, Marielle, I knew the moment her father’s eyes landed on me that the evening had just taken a terrible turn. He exploded with offended rage, snarling that his daughter was not going to date “someone like me”. A quick glance at Holly had told me that she was utterly and completely stunned by her father’s outburst, seemingly shocked into absolute stillness. Only when her father latched on to my arm and started hauling me toward the front door did Holly jump into action, screaming at her father to let me go.