Page 30 of The Broken Hearts Club

This wasn’t how I’d pictured my wedding day.

I was incredibly grateful that Miller was doing this for me, but it was just so… bureaucratic. For one thing, we’d just finished signing the quick, down and dirty prenuptial agreement his lawyer friend had emailed over. It was important, and it had actually been my idea, but it was kind of a buzzkill.

Now we were about to get married for a piece of paper, which would get presented to a human resources person, who’d then sign me up for health insurance. It was all about that paperwork.

But, whatever. At least I’d been allowed to leave the hospital. That was something to be happy about.

My surgery was scheduled for Thursday, and the only way to get the doctor to sign off on going home in the meantime was to agree to wear a heart monitor around my neck. A bunch of wires connected it to sticky pads all over my chest and back. If it started to detect an irregular heartbeat, I was under orders to return to the hospital ASAP.

I’d been told I couldn’t get it wet. I imagined electrocuting myself like a cartoon character, my skeleton flashing through my skin while lightning shot out of my body.

Okay, so it would probably only wreck the machine, but I didn’t want to do that either, because they’d probably make me pay for it. I removed the strap from around my neck and placed the monitor as far from me as the wires would allow while I washed my hair in the bathroom sink. Then I tried to clean myself with a wet washcloth. This might be a fake marriage, but I wasn’t going to show up to the ceremony stinky, oily, and dressed in sweatpants.

The washcloth routine wasn’t cutting it though, so I plugged the tub and started to fill it with water. After a minute, Miller knocked on the door and called, “You okay in there?”

“I promise I’m not going belly up today, Miller. You don’t need to keep such a close eye on me.”

“You’re not supposed to shower with that monitor, and I hear water running.”

“I’m putting three inches of water in the tub so I can clean my junk. The monitor and the connectors are going to stay perfectly dry.”

He asked, “Do you need help?”

“Do I want you to wash my balls? No, thank you.”

“You know, I’ll probably be washing them for you after you have surgery, so you might as well get over feeling shy about stuff like that.”

As the full meaning of that statement sunk in, I shut off the water and sat down on the edge of the tub. When I didn’t say anything for a minute, he asked again, “Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

“Can I come in?”

Since I was naked, I draped a towel over my lap. Then I draped a second one over my shoulders to cover some of the wires before saying, “Go ahead.”

When he opened the door, the cat darted into the bathroom and sat down in the middle of the floor. Miller leaned against the doorframe and asked, “What’s wrong? And don’t say nothing, because I can see the worry all over your face.”

“I hadn’t thought about it,” I muttered. “I was so freaked out about having surgery that I didn’t think about what would happen after that. I won’t be okay. Not for a long time. It’ll be weeks, maybe months. I don’t know how long it takes to heal from something like that, but it can’t be fast. Right?”

“I was reading up on it. It’ll probably be eight to twelve weeks before you’re back to where you started.”

“I can’t be out of commission for two or three months! There’s no way. I need to find a job, and a place to live, and⁠—”

“You don’t need to worry about any of that until you’ve had a chance to recover.”

“And in the meantime?”

“You’re going to live here, with me,” Miller said.

“I can’t impose on you like that.”

“How is it an imposition? I have plenty of room. I have so much space that I gave the cat her own bedroom.”

“It’s incredibly nice of you to offer, but I don’t think you realize what a burden I’ll be. You just said it yourself, I’ll have weeks of healing ahead of me. What are you supposed to do, feed me, and carry me to the toilet, and… fucking hell, Miller, I can’t do this! I can’t have that surgery and be helpless and totally dependent on you. It’s too much. It isn’t fair to you. And it’s humiliating! I don’t want you to see me like that, all weak and pathetic.”

He crossed the room and crouched down in front of me. “There’s nothing humiliating about needing help, Collie.”

“There is if I can’t even get myself to the toilet.”