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“Rain, are you listening to me?” Shaun’s voice broke through my thoughts.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at the clinic,” I said, standing up and walking out.
12
Rain
“Are you fucking kidding me, Rain? I’m not doing that Boston terrier’s anal glands again for you,” Shaun practically shouted at me through the open door of my office.
I looked up at him, not sure what he was talking about at first. Then, I remembered the Bensons’ dog, Molly. She was a regular at the clinic, and she wasn’t very nice. Shaun had always taken her for this particular procedure, but that was when we were still on good terms, apparently.
“Fine. I’ll take care of it. Just have them move her over to my schedule.”
“You need all the patients you can get. Half of yours quit when you disappeared.”
“You mean when I went home for my grandmother’s funeral, Shaun?”
“Going home for a funeral is usually a week or so. You were gone for nearly two months, and I had to drag you back here.”
“Don’t be a drama queen.” I looked back down at the test results for a young cat named Ginger I’d seen a few days ago. They weren’t good, and I’d already called her owners to bring her back in and sit down for a discussion. They would be facing thousands of dollars of surgery to remove several tumors that appeared malignant, and I dreaded telling them.
“Whatever,” he mumbled, turning and storming back down the hall toward his own office.
Nothing about the day improved. Molly was in rare form and ended up having to be sedated to excise her glands. I thought I might have to sedate her rather high-strung owner while I was at it. Ginger’s owners decided to have her put down and made an appointment to come back after they’d had a few days to say goodbye. Though I could have the vet techs do that, I never did. I always felt it was my place to see them through to the other side. Finally, a poodle snapped at me and bit my thumb while I was trying to examine her.
Just another day in paradise.
I was more than happy to lock up my office and call it a day after I saw my last patient and finished some paperwork. What I wasn’t prepared for was seeing Shaun sitting in the waiting room when I went to exit and lock the front doors. He just sat there, his somber face dimly lit by a single row of lights from the window display of the clinic.
“Shaun, is something wrong? Are you OK?”
“I fucked up.”
“With what? A patient?”
“No. With you. I fucked it all up.”
I looked at the front doors again and considered walking out of them without comment, but I seemed stuck in this conversation. I might as well get it over with.
“Yeah, but it’s done now. No putting the genie back in the bottle,” I quipped, moving toward the front doors.
“I want to fix things, Rain.”
Then you shouldn’t have fucked them up.
“There’s nothing to fix. I’m OK. You don’t need to worry about what’s done anymore.”
“I need to try. At least have dinner with me.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
I couldn’t imagine a worse idea, really. Shaun had shown me who he really was and it wasn’t a pretty look for him. There was not a shred of the man I had fallen in love with left behind. Even after he had hurt me, I’d tried so hard to keep things amicable and he’d done nothing but try to tear me down to make himself feel better.
“Come on, Rain. It’s just dinner. We can talk about what went wrong and see if there’s something for us to salvage.”
“There isn’t.”
“How can you be so cold? We used to love each other. Have you forgotten all the great times we had?”
“No, but I also haven’t forgotten the nights I sat at home and cried because I didn’t know where you were. Or the times you came home smelling like someone else’s perfume. And you know what I really haven’t forgotten? I haven’t forgotten how it felt to walk into your office and find you with our receptionist riding you reverse cowgirl. There’s a wonderful memory for you.”
“Look, I know what I did to you was wrong. I don’t know why I did those things, but I do know that I was devastated when you broke off our engagement. I’ve missed you so much. I still love you, Rain.”
“You don’t love me. You don’t break people you love down like that. You wanted me, and then you got me, and then you lost interest without the thrill of the chase. You needed someone new to chase, several someones, and you didn’t think twice about how that would make me feel.”
“You’re right. You’re right. I didn’t think about it, but I’m thinking about it now. I’ve thought about it a lot since you’ve been gone. Just give me one chance. Have dinner with me, and let’s try to talk a bit. I promise I’ll accept whatever answer you give me and not bring it up again.”
