That Thing Between Eli & Gwen

“Bash,” I said softly, sitting up onto the edge of my chair.

“Gwen.” He smirked.

“I was so blind when I was with you that hearing you speak right now makes me want to slap myself. I remember Cirque du Soleil. I held on to you because I have a fear of heights, and I thought I was going to have a panic attack watching it. The reason I filled your fridge all the time was because before I moved in, you never did it yourself. And if you did, not once did you buy anything I liked eating. I had to rearrange the apartment because you bought big-ass furniture after I told you I didn’t want anything in there. You only care about yourself. You are not the only man in the world for me. So, please. PLEASE. Stop. The shades are off. I’m not blinded by the great Sebastian Evans any more. Don’t use stupid lawsuits to draw me here. Don’t call me in the middle of the night. Stop, because if you don’t, I will get a restraining order against you. I’m sure that would kill the last few months I have on contract, right, Katrina?”

“You should have told me he called you in the middle of the night. I would have filed a restraining order with Judge Banks that very night,” she replied.

I stood. “Anything you need me to do, please work it out with my agent. Tara will make sure I have it scheduled. Goodbye, Mr. Evans,” I said, closing the door.

Only once we were in the elevator did Katrina speak. “We will only do this once,” she said to me, raising her fist up for me to bump it.

Grinning, I knocked my fist against hers.

“Now we will never speak of it again.”

“Of course.” I tried to sound as cool as ice, just like her, but it was too funny. Walking out of the building, my phone rang. When I checked, I saw it was none other than Stevie’s mother. “Mrs. Spencer? Is everything okay?”

“Hi, Gwen. I’m so sorry to call you out of the blue like this. I was trying to call your mother, but it kept going to voicemail.”

I knew why. My mom hated talking on phones for long periods of time, and Mrs. Spencer could go on for days sometimes. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Spencer?”

“Well, quickly, do you know the name of your father’s doctor? The one he went to after the heart attack? I want to make sure to get Ryan to go. I swear, that man doesn’t believe me when I say all this food of his is killing him. Do you know what he had last n—”

“Wait. I’m sorry, did you say my dad had a heart attack?” What? Maybe she was confused.

“Yes. It was about three weeks ago, wasn’t it? Ryan, honey, when did Masoa have his heart attack?” she yelled, forgetting to move the phone away. “Yeah, it was about three and a half weeks ago—”

“Mrs. Spencer, I’m going to have to call you right back.”

Eli

“It’s a miracle she survived,” Bunhead said behind me as I stared at the charts up on the wall.

“What is our next step, Dr. Davenport?” Dr. Stretch came up beside me, and when I turned to him, he took a step back. “Dr. Davenport—”

“Stop talking!” I snapped, and they all jumped. “Stop talking. Stop saying the fact that she is alive is a miracle, because it isn’t. Close your mouths and look at her x-ray. Does that tumor look odd to any of you?”

Dr. Four Eyes adjusted his glasses and stepped forward. “Looks like it moved to the right some.”

“Isn’t that good? You couldn’t operate because of the location, but if it moved or shrunk—”

“It didn’t move,” Dr. Stretch whispered, looking between her old x-rays and her new ones. “She has two tumors. The chemo helped the bigger one shrink, but she has a second one right next to it. Her kind of medulloblastoma makes up less than 12 percent of all brain cancers,” I said, stepping forward and putting up more of her scans. “Chemotherapy and surgery were long shots for her from the beginning. Now, the cancer is spreading. Her body is dying, and we brought her back today, but we are working on borrowed time. She won’t make it to the end of the week.”

“Are you going to tell her father?” Bunhead whispered.

“I did.” I faced them. “Get them their discharge papers and fax all their information to Dr. Birell at the Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopki—”

“Dr. Davenport!” A nurse came in.

I already knew why, and I ran toward the room I had only just been in two hours before. This time I was watching Ian, who had given up on the defibrillator and now was just using his hands.

“How long has she been down?” I asked him.

“A little over three minutes.” He sighed, stopping himself because he knew what I knew.

“What are you doing?” Toby yelled at me. “Save her! Save her! What are you doing?!”

“Mr. Wesley, your daughter collapsed this morning, she had a seizure two hours ago, and her heart has given out now. Anything more is torturing her. Her body can’t take it any more. I’m so sorry. I truly am. I’m so sorry for your loss, but she’s gone.” Looking to Ian, he nodded, then glanced at his watch as I unplugged everything from her body.