Marriage For One

“Are you okay?” he asked again, looking straight into my eyes. I nodded and tilted my head back a little more to stop the flow a bit. Sometimes that helped. Now that I’d learned what it could be, the feeling of that warm trickle was freaking me out more than it had only hours earlier.

Jack massaged his temple, walked a few steps away, and then came back to stand in front of me. “Okay. Okay, tell me what the doctor said. I’m assuming it’s not allergies from the look on your face.”

“Nope. Turns out it’s probably not allergies or a cold. He wants to run some tests, wants to get a CT scan and an MRI, but he thinks I might have cerebrospinal fluid leak, especially because it’s only coming from one side of my nose.” I twisted my lips and tried my best to hold back my tears. His eyes studied my face, and the longer I looked into his gaze, the more his image started to blur.

“Don’t do that,” he ordered, his face unreadable.

I nodded. Given the kind of guy he was, I didn’t think dealing with a crying female would be his favorite thing to do, but even hearing his gravelly voice was breaking the tight hold I’d had on myself ever since I left the doctor’s office.

I’d put my bag on the chair as I was standing up, so I grabbed it and hitched it higher on my shoulder then nodded to myself. Tightening my fingers around the Kleenex in my grasp, I dropped my hand down. “I should leave, really. I should’ve gone straight back to work in the first place. I just thought I’d drop by and tell you I might not be able to join you—” When the first tear slowly slid down my cheek, I angrily swiped at it with the back of my hand. “I might not be able to join you at events for a while. I think they need to do surgery so I’m not sure if I’m gonna…”

He looked at me for a long time as the tears I had promised myself I wouldn’t shed started to come more rapidly after the word surgery. Then I felt the now familiar feeling that something was running down my nose, so I quickly tilted my head back. The last thing—the very last thing I wanted was for him to actually see something coming down my nose. I felt like I couldn’t come back from that.

“Okay.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, his cool demeanor cracking just slightly in front of my eyes. “Okay. Let’s just sit the fuck down for a second.” It was the first time I’d heard him curse. “And stop saying you need to leave. You’re not going anywhere.”

I nodded as much as I could with my head tilted back, because what else could I have done? I didn’t want to interrupt him at his office, but I didn’t have it in me to leave either. As I turned around to head back for the chairs, he stopped me with one hand on my arm and opened the office door again with the other one.

“Cynthia, call George and tell him I won’t make it. Send him the junior associate I worked with—she should have the details he needs. I’ll get back to him later.”

“Jack,” I broke in as he closed the door without even waiting to hear Cynthia’s answer. “I don’t want to keep you from your work.”

“What did I just tell you?” He pulled me toward the couch that was next to the floor-to-ceiling windows and sat right next to me. He was still holding the Kleenex box in his hand. I didn’t know why I focused on that so much, but him holding that box along with the intense and slightly scary expression on his face while wearing one of his many expensive suits would always be a good memory for me after this whole marriage business was over.

“I don’t think I know how to do this.”

“Do what?”

“Rely on someone. Lean on someone. I feel like I’m messing it up.”

“I want to be that person to you, Rose. I want to be the person you lean on. You and I, we’re the same. We have no one but each other. You’ll lean on me and I’ll do the same. We’ll learn how. We’re in this together.”

I was speechless.

“Now tell me what the hell a cerebro…”

“Cerebrospinal leak,” I finished for him.

“Whatever the hell it is. Tell me what needs to be done. How did it happen? When are you scheduled for the MRI and CT scan? Tell me everything, Rose.”

I managed to stop the tears, but my nose was still leaking. “Can you give me another tissue, please?”

He pulled another one out and handed it to me. I mumbled a thank you and quickly held it under my nose as I pushed the used one into my bag. There were more than a few like it in there already. He turned his body so he was sitting on the edge of the leather couch, his knee pushing at the side of my thigh, and then he finally placed the box on the glass square table in front of us. Sniffling, I wiped my nose and held it in place.