AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“ .. Juliet wait. I don’t want you to go.”
I stop still and I wait. I do the opposite of what I want to do, which is dive in, wrap her up, and never let go. Instead, I paus, taking my own deep breath and letting her speak.
“I have been sitting here for however long and all I can think about is how there are two women in the world that I love. My mother, for all she did, all she didn’t do, I can’t help it … I still love her. And that is why it hurts so much, why she hurt me so much by not caring, by not coming back for me or being there for me. I was so scared of feeling that rejection again. It has hung over my entire life. It has bathed my life in this dark cloud where I am just too scared to love anyone because if my own mother couldn’t love me back … how could anyone else.”
Her silvery blue eyes seek mine and her hands reach for me, pulling mine to hers, cupping them, holding them tight. “But I do love you. It doesn’t matter if I run away or if I leave. It is too late. I already love you and the only person who is feeling rejection, the only person who I am punishing is you. And it isn’t fair, it isn’t fair for me to punish you for the fact my mother is or was a drug addict. I don’t know what we could have, I don’t know if we will fizzle out if it is just a phase if we are better as friends. But what I do know is that I want to try. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to run away and escape. I want to be in this. With you and make this an ‘us’. If you will have me?” She started to laugh through her tears, “Please say you will have me because I can’t take the rejec …”
I silence her words with a kiss. My lips crash hard against hers, it’s rough and needy, a deep intense kiss that is filled with all the words I have wanted to say for weeks, months, maybe my whole life.
“I could never reject you. I love you. I love you more than I knew it was possible to love someone.” I whisper against her lips, peppering her softness with my love.
“I love you too, Juliet.”
16
Arya decided to wait until the next day to see her mother. We spent the night together wrapped up in each other’s arms not really talking but just being, living, existing together. My head tells me to be cautious, that she is in shock and she might change her mind. But my heart knows the truth. In seeing her mother as a real human being and not the image she had of her in her head from childhood, the walls broke down and Arya finally allowed herself to feel the feelings she had held back for all these years.
We walk to the hospital together, and it takes all of my willpower not to hold her hand.
We had talked until the early hours of the morning. There seemed suddenly so much to discuss about us and our future. Arya agreed she wanted to stay at the hospital, it was me that had been having thoughts otherwise.
I love my job, with all my heart, but unwittingly Dr. Cook had pulled at my subconscious. I have been working on Coronary stents research for years now and it is something that I feel so passionate about but I rarely have any time to dedicate to it. Every year I am offered a research position at the local University and I always knew the position would come with teaching hours that would allow me to give something back and help shape the doctors of the next generation.
If I thought I would never perform surgery again I would be more hesitant but I knew that through my research I would be in the hospital and available should the time ever come. I, myself had called upon research staff to assist in emergencies so I knew it would happen.
Arya thought I might be being hasty and just telling her I wanted to do that to keep her happy but I wasn’t, it felt like the right time but until I had had the conversation with Jim, I didn’t want to flaunt our relationship and cause him an HR headache in the process.
Entering the hospital as a member of the public feels strange. Even though both of us could take the staff entrance and go the back way in, Arya wanted to do it properly and see her mother as her daughter, not as a doctor and I respect that.
I wasn’t going to go in with her but she insisted. “Please Juliet, I can’t do this without you. I can’t do it alone. Please.” I don’t answer, just thread my arm through hers and we enter the room together.
It always takes me a second to see a patient awake and well to make the connection between them and the person I was doing surgery on the previous day. I have seen Camila Harris’s heart, but yet I still didn’t know her eye color.
Of course, they were silvery blue, just like Arya’s.
Camila is in bed but sat up a little with the TV on in the background. But the moment she sees Arya all that is forgotten.
“Arya.” Her voice is husky and sore, her throat scratchy. I don’t know what Arya was expecting. Probably not the frail old woman with tangled blondish grey hair who was now recovering from serious heart surgery.
“Hi, Mama.” She said softly, moving away from my touch to step closer to her mother.
“Was it you? The surgeon? They didn’t want to tell me a name.”
Arya stepped closer, her eyes studying the woman in front of her. Was she looking for a trace of herself? Of her past?
“No, it was Juliet. Dr. Sansus.” She gestures to me and I give a short nod and a smile. Camila smiles thanks at me for a second but almost immediately her gaze goes back to Arya.
“I am sober. Have been a couple of years. I tried to find you, I found out you were a surgeon. I am so proud of you, Arya. I am so sorry. I am so sorry for what I did… for how I… I am so …” Camila starts to cry. Not light tears, but sobs that rack through her weak body. Arya moves to her in seconds and wraps her up.
“It’s okay mama. We have a long way to go, but we have time.”
And she looks straight at me as she says it and she is right. We have time.
Epilogue
Five years later
I glance at the clock and curse. It is already 5.25 pm, even if I dash out of here now, I will still hit the rush-hour traffic, and no way would I be back any earlier than 7 pm. I will have to meet them on this side of town. I pull out my phone and fire off a message letting her know the plan and I catch the reply of agreement before I get back to it.
