The Reunion (Fashionable Friends)

“I hope you rest well,” she said, and I waved my hands in the air.

“Hey, I forgot. I’ve got some feeling back in my legs. When you two were out there arguing, I started poking at my legs, and I got pins and needles back.”

“That’s great.” Hugh squeezed my shoulder with his strong hand. “Let’s hope you keep improving, and I’ll be meeting you in a bar tomorrow night to shoot the shit.”

I noticed that he’d pointedly left Muriel out of his imaginary scene, and she obviously noticed too, as her eyes grew wide with hurt.

“Right, get some rest. See you tomorrow,” Hugh said, and they both left.

I pressed the buzzer to call the nurse and let them know my dad could come in, and also so I could tell them about the sensation in my legs.

Aside from Hugh, my dad was the smartest person I knew. He’d have some good advice for me. Pessimism wasn’t going to defeat us, I decided. Everything was going to work out for the best.

Chapter Fifteen

Hugh Davis

I left Cameron’s room feeling no less dejected than I had before.

How could Muriel let things get out of hand, saying that she loved us and didn’t want to waste another second apart from us?

I started walking away with the intention of calling a cab, Muriel had driven me around enough for one day, and I thought we both needed space. But she gripped my forearm and dragged me into an empty treatment room, closing the door behind us.

“Why the hell did you tell him that I might be leaving?” Muriel demanded, looking like she was ready to kill me with her bare hands. “Don’t you think he’s got enough to deal with right now?”

“I had to. You were telling him you wanted to be with us, and I know Cameron. He would’ve sat in that hospital bed picking out a suit to wear for our wedding, and the next thing he’d know, you’d be gone forever.”

Muriel jumped up on the exam table and sat with her arms folded. “You were wrong to tell him tonight, right after his surgery. And you know it.”

Was I wrong?

Deep down, I knew I was.

Just as Muriel had said she wouldn’t promise Cameron the world, I said I wouldn’t crush his world. Perhaps a little bit of hope was exactly what Cameron needed to get him through the night, and because of my pride and obsession with being right, I’d destroyed that. We’d both let our friend down.

I looked at Muriel and uttered the words I always hated saying. “You’re right; I was wrong.”

“Okay, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” she replied, not knowing exactly how difficult it was for me to admit I was fallible. “Now, what are we going to do?”

“What Cameron said, I guess. Go home and sleep. And you have a certain list to finish writing—”

“Do you think, maybe, you could talk through my options with me in the morning?” Muriel nodded her head in the direction of Cameron’s room. “Despite getting things so spectacularly wrong in there, I have to admit you’re a smart guy. Perhaps there are details I’m not including in my deliberations or a solution I’m not seeing?”

I shook my head sadly. “What Cameron said is true. This is your choice, and yours alone. All I would ever do is ask you to stay.”

“Perhaps that’s the advice I want to hear,” she said quietly, and I turned away from her pleading eyes.

The harsh fluorescent light above our heads flickered, making it seem like we were in a horror film; the perfect atmosphere for my current mood.

Muriel seemed to be drowning in indecision, and I still couldn’t understand why it was such a difficult decision to make.

Cameron seemed to understand, which surprised me given that losing her would hit him even harder it would me, and—

I gasped as a solution came to me in an instant. It would get us ninety percent of what we wanted, but that was a whole lot better than zero, so it was worth a shot.

“I’ve got it. I think. I know how this can work.”

Muriel took hold of my jacket sleeves and pulled me to her. She looked up at me with hope in her beautiful eyes, and my heart twisted in pain.

“I knew you’d figure it out. Come on then, my big sexy genius.”

After a moment’s hesitation, I made an offer I never thought I’d have to make. “You should date Cameron. Just Cameron. I’ll step aside. It’ll hurt, but I’ll survive, and you two can go on TV and be all cute together.”

Silence.

Muriel’s face slowly changed from excited to confused and finally furious. She pushed me away from her. “How dare you, Hugh. How fucking dare you.”

“What?” I was genuinely confused by her reaction to my genius idea. “You can never get everything in life, but this is a compromise that gets you and Cameron almost everything.”