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I grip Declan’s shoulder tighter as the doctor turns to leave us with Nora. Worry and guilt churn in my stomach after the doctor’s comments.
I swallow and say, “I wish I had brought her in sooner.”
Declan’s brows draw together. There’s a silent question as he turns to look at me, his face confused as he puts together the pieces of what happened tonight. “Wait. Were you with her when this all happened?”
“Yeah. She called me, and I went over there.”
To my surprise, Declan’s jaw goes tight. “And you didn’t think to bring her straight here?”
“I—” I blink, taken aback. “She said she was fine. She told me everything was okay, and that she didn’t need to go to the hospital.”
Declan pulls away. The muscles of his forearms are tight, the sleeves of his shirt pulled up past the elbows. “You should’ve brought her here,” he growls, his voice low.
I want to respond, but I’m too shocked by his anger. I know that he’s under a lot of stress, but how is this my fault? I bite my lip, looking for the right words to defuse the sudden tension between us.
“When someone has a head wound, you don’t just leave them,” he grits out through clenched teeth. “You don’t just shrug and say, ‘oh, they’re probably fine.’”
On any other day, I might be able to keep my own frustrations in check. Declan is in a terrible headspace; he’s responding to the situation, probably sleep deprived, and sitting at his grandmother’s bedside in the hospital. Any other day, I might be able to find that understanding.
But today, I’m under a lot of stress too. I haven’t seen him in days, and have barely heard from him all week. My nerves are frayed from the rollercoaster, and from the pressure of Nora’s emergency. Waiting with her for the ambulance severed my last line of patience. I don’t have it in me.
So instead, I snap. “What are you talking about?”
Declan whips his head around to glare at me. “Was I unclear?”
The ice in his tone stuns me more than the anger in his eyes. “No,” I say bitterly, “I just don’t see how this is my fault. I was the one who was there at all. Your grandmother only called me because she couldn’t get through to you.”
“I’m trying to defend my company,” he retorts. “We’re fighting for our lives out there. That’s my life’s work. What am I supposed to do, just—”
“Other things matter besides the company,” I say angrily. “It doesn’t have to own your life.”
Declan laughs, but there’s no humor in the sound. “That’s not how it works. I’m a fucking CEO. I don’t get to have ‘off’ weeks, and even if I did, it wouldn’t be now, of all times.”
All of my frustration at Declan’s absence rises to the surface. In the heat of my emotion, I can even feel tears pricking at my eyes, although I do my best to keep them from falling. “You don’t have to take an ‘off’ week to care about something other than your work!”
Declan rises from the chair abruptly, his fingers clenched. The muscles are stark in his neck, like they were when Johnathan showed up to Nora’s birthday party—the only other time I’ve seen him this angry.
He opens his mouth like he’s going to respond, fire in his eyes, but then he stops. His lips purse, and he sinks back into the chair. As he does so, I feel like something between us has severed, as though he has closed the door on this argument.
“You’re right,” he says quietly. I was expecting him to yell, so this soft voice throws me off my guard. “Other things do matter.”
My heart thuds in my chest. Even though he’s agreeing with me, Declan seems closed off, like he has completely shut down emotionally. Something is very, very wrong.
“I’ve been stretched too thin,” he says. “I should’ve been paying more attention to my grandmother. I should have made sure she had home care twenty-four-seven. But I wasn’t thinking.” He pauses, looking up at me with a serious expression that sends a jolt of fear through me. “I was trying to juggle too much.”
I stare at him, wide-eyed. “What are you saying?” My voice is barely above a whisper, cracking in my throat.
“I can’t do this,” he says. “I can’t be with you. It’s too much.”
“No.” I shake my head instinctively, unwilling to accept his words. “We can work this out. I can help you—if you just let me be part of your life, if you let me in—”
“I don’t need your help,” he interrupts curtly. The shortness of his response shuts me down too. He’s icing me out. He’s talking to me like I’m a stranger.
Like nothing has happened between us. Like everything that has happened between us was nothing to him, and he can toss me back out of his life easily. Impersonally.
The stinging in my eyes worsens, and I feel the tears start to fall. They stream down my face as I shake my head again, my anger tempered by hurt. “You’re a coward,” I spit out, managing to stop my voice from shaking. “You can’t open up. You can’t let anyone in. You won’t let me in—you never have, not all the way. You just keep shutting down.”
Declan doesn’t say anything, which makes the anger in my stomach flicker hotter. He leans on the chair’s armrest, staring at the floor beneath Nora’s bed.
