How Much I Love by Marie Force
Chapter 4
WYATT
Hearing her say that she checked me out online makes me happier than I’ve been in… well… ever. Not only did she think of me after our night together, but she went so far as to search for me. I just hope she didn’t stumble upon my whole story. “What else did you find out about me?”
“I only read your bio on the hospital’s website and found out you’ve published a lot of articles about cardiothoracic surgery and have become a nationally recognized expert and speaker in the area of supporting patients through life-threatening illnesses.”
I’ve put my personal experiences to work in my career, constantly emphasizing the need to treat the whole patient, not just the part of them that’s malfunctioning. “That’s a big interest of mine.” I’m incredibly thankful she didn’t dig any deeper than the hospital website.
“It’s something that’s badly needed. My mother’s oncologist is considered one of the best there is, but he’s got no personality whatsoever. He doesn’t seem to appreciate how terrifying this is for her and us. He’s very matter-of-fact about life-threatening things.”
I wince hearing that. I’ve known far too many doctors who are like the one she describes. “It’s a challenge to train doctors to be experts in medicine and how to manage the wide variety of needs that each patient has. Not to mention the family’s needs.”
“He always makes me feel like a jerk for bothering him when I have to call about something. Usually, I let Maria deal with him because she’s a nurse—and it’s better if I don’t talk to him. I’m afraid I’m going to tell him what I really think of him.”
That makes me laugh as I imagine her ripping the oncologist a new one. “Maybe you ought to tell him what you think. He might need to hear it.”
“I can’t. I’d be too afraid of my mother not getting the care she needs and deserves. But I really want to.”
“You can tell me anything you need to say to him. Standing offer. Call me when you want to scream at him. I’ll always listen.”
“You’re busy enough with your patients. You don’t need some random woman in Miami screaming at you about someone who isn’t even your patient.”
“If that random woman is you, I need that.”
“All this flattery is going straight to my head.”
“I couldn’t wait to see you again.” Way to play it cool, man. Remember how it wouldn’t be fair to let her or any woman get too involved with you? Remember that talk we had before we saw Dee? Yeah, I remember, so fuck off. I held firm to my resolve until she walked into the room at her sister’s house, looking sexier than any woman has a right to look, and just that quickly, I forgot why this isn’t a good idea.
Maybe we could have this bonus weekend before I go back to reality. Who could be hurt by one more weekend?
If the ache in my chest at the thought of not seeing her again is any indication, I could be hurt. And so could she. This weekend has to be it. It just has to be. To encourage anything more would be grossly unfair to her—and myself. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Do you feel like going out, or would you be up for going somewhere that we can be alone?”
She’s quiet long enough that I begin to worry I’ve misjudged her.
“Let’s go to my place.”
MARCUS
I screwed up so bad. My parents and sister have been hysterical since I woke up. I feel awful that I upset them. I can’t believe Bianca told Dee they suspect I tried to kill myself. I didn’t. Not consciously, anyway. I took a few Xanax to calm my nerves, forgetting about the vodka I’d had earlier, and apparently, the combination nearly killed me.
That wasn’t intentional. I don’t want to die before I can make things right with Dee. She’s the only thing that matters to me.
I’ve been hiding my alcoholism from her for years now. That got easier when I moved home from New York. But my drinking is the reason I ended up married to someone else. It’s the reason I broke the heart of the only woman I’ve ever loved. I barely remember that night in Vegas or how I ended up married to one of the women who hung out with me and my boys.
I came to the next day with a blonde in my bed, a ring on my finger and the worst feeling I’ve ever had in my life when I began to fill in the blanks from the night before.
Dee.
She was my first thought then and is my first thought now. She’s been my first thought every day since I brought this disaster down on both of us. I need to talk to her, to tell her I don’t blame her for any of this. That’s my fear, that Bianca will have laid a guilt trip on Dee that she doesn’t deserve. She hasn’t done anything wrong. No, this is all my fault.
I should’ve listened to the family and friends who pleaded with me to get help before something awful happened. They were worried about me killing someone by drinking and driving, which I’ve never done. So that didn’t happen, but something else did—I broke the heart of my one true love, and now I’m desperate to fix that.
Bianca left my phone charging on the rolling table next to my hospital bed. I reach for it, find Dee’s name in my contacts and compose a text.
I didn’t try to kill myself. No matter what Bianca said, that’s not true, and if she tried to make you feel guilty in any way, I’m sorry. None of this is your fault. I fucked up, and there’s stuff I need to tell you, things you have a right to know. Could we please talk?
The text shows up as delivered but not read.
I’m staring at my phone, trying to will her to read the message, when yet another doctor comes into the room. What now? I’ve already been poked and prodded every which way. What’s left?
“Hi, Marcus,” the dark-haired woman says. “I’m Dr. Stern, the psychiatrist on call. You can call me Justine if you’d like.”
The word psychiatrist makes me groan. “I didn’t try to kill myself. That’s not what happened.”
She takes a seat next to my bed. “What did happen?”
“I mixed Xanax and booze by accident. I didn’t think about what the combination might do. It was a mistake, not a suicide attempt.”
“Your family was pretty upset, from what I’m told.”
“My sister pushed the panic button when she came to check on me and couldn’t get me to wake up. I feel bad I upset them.”
“Why would they assume you tried to take your own life?”
“Things have been messy lately. Really, really messy.”
“How so?”
“Do we need to go through all this?”
“If you want to be discharged. I need to be confident you’re not going to harm yourself if I sign off on your release. So how about you tell me what’s been so messy lately?”
“My wife left me.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“No, it was a good thing.”
“Is that right?”
I nod. “We were never meant to be married. That was a mistake.”
“You married someone by mistake? How’d that happen?”
“I was drunk. We were in Vegas. She was there. One thing led to another, and I woke up married to the wrong woman.”
“Who was the right woman?”
“My girlfriend, Dee. She’s the one I love, the one I’ve always loved. We were together for years before we broke up, but we were putting it back together when this happened. She was in New York, and I was in Miami, but things between us were good. Until I fucked up, anyway, and since then, she doesn’t take my calls or respond to my texts.”
“How did she react when you told her you married someone else?”
“I’m not really sure.”
“She didn’t hear it from you?”
“No, and I regret that. She absolutely should’ve heard it from me, but what was I supposed to say to her? Oh, by the way, I got lit last night and woke up married to my friend’s sister Ana, which wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“Okay, so you got married by accident. What happened then?”
“We came home to Miami. Ana moved in and wanted it to be a real marriage.”
“And in the meantime, you’re thinking about Dee, who’s not taking your calls or answering your texts. Is that right?”
“I thought of her every minute of every day that I was married to Ana.”
“Did you sleep with Ana?”
That question makes me uncomfortable. “I guess.”
“You guess? Did you or didn’t you?”
“We were married.”
“So while you were pining for Dee after having broken her heart by marrying someone else, you were having sex with your new wife. Do I have that right?”
I squirm under the intensity of her gaze. She wants to stab me on behalf of women everywhere, and I don’t blame her. “You have it right. I’m not proud of how I behaved, but you should know I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“Marry someone who isn’t your long-term girlfriend?”
“Yes,” I say through gritted teeth. The doctor is starting to annoy me. “I’ve come to realize I have a problem with drinking.”
“What’re you doing about that?”
“I haven’t done anything yet.”
“What’re you waiting for?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think a near-fatal incident that resulted from mixing Xanax and alcohol might be the impetus you need?”
“Maybe.”
“This is no joke, Marcus. If your sister hadn’t become concerned when she couldn’t reach you, you might’ve died.”
“Yes, I know.”
“And that wasn’t your intention? To end this suffering you’ve been going through by overdosing?”
“It wasn’t my intention. I don’t want to die. I just want to fix things with Dee.”
“I think you need to accept that isn’t going to happen.”
“How can you know that? She and I haven’t even talked about what happened. She won’t talk to me.”
Dr. Stern leans forward, placing her hand on my arm. “Marcus, you married someone else without breaking up with her first. She’s not going to talk to you. It’s over for her.”
“How can it be over for her when we’ve never even talked about it?”
“It was over for her the minute you married someone else and let her hear that from other people.”
“I didn’t mean for any of that to happen.”
“I understand that, but it did happen, and now you have to find a way to live with the consequences.”
“I’ll never be able to live with it if I don’t get the chance to talk to her.”
“Do you understand that by continuing to reach out to her, you’re probably hurting her all over again?”
That didn’t occur to me, not in those terms, anyway.
“How long ago did you marry Ana?”
“A year.”
“Did Dee think she was probably going to be the one you married?”
“We’d talked about that happening after she moved back to Miami.”
“So Dee has had a year to pick up the pieces, to put her life back together and move on, and every time she hears from you, it has to be a reminder of what she’s overcome. You hurt her, Marcus. You maybe even devastated her, considering she expected to be your wife. By continuing to reach out to her, you’re compounding that pain for her.”
“I don’t want to hurt her. I only want the chance to explain and apologize.”
“Then write her a letter, but stop calling and texting her. That’s simply not fair to her.”
I don’t want to hear what she’s saying, even if I can see the truth in it.
“This latest incident is the second time alcohol has caused a disaster in your life. The first one resulted in broken hearts. This one nearly caused your death. You say that wasn’t intentional—”
“It wasn’t. I swear to God. I’m not suicidal. Even as bad as this last year has gotten, I’ve never once thought about ending my own life. What good would that do? It wouldn’t fix anything with Dee, which is my only goal.”
“I think it’s time for a new goal, one that focuses on you regaining your health. Would you consider in-patient rehab for thirty days or possibly longer if needed?”
“I, uh, I have to work.”
“What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a branch manager at a bank.”
“I can help you complete the paperwork to take a medical leave of absence.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. The chaos in my personal life has spilled over to my work, and I’m sort of on thin ice there.” Those were the words my regional manager used the last time we met after I was late on reporting some vital weekly information for the third week in a row. It’s hard to concentrate on anything when all you can think about is making things right with the one you love.
“You’re protected by federal law in this situation. If you have documentation of a medical condition, then your employer is required to protect your job.”
I didn’t know that. “Would I have to tell them what my condition is?”
“Let me ask you this… You said you’re on thin ice there. Do you think you’ve been hiding your reliance on alcohol from your colleagues? Would they be surprised to hear you were in rehab?”
“Probably not. They might even be relieved.”
“So what does it matter? If you had cancer, they’d hold fundraisers for you. Addiction is an illness, just like cancer or diabetes.”
I recoil from that term. “I’m not an addict.”
“No? Did you or did you not get married to a woman you didn’t love, breaking the heart of the woman you do love because of alcohol? Did you or did you not mix Xanax and alcohol and nearly end your life prematurely?”
“I did those things, but I’m not an addict.”
“The behaviors you’ve described are the hallmarks of someone in the grips of alcoholism, which is a form of addiction. Did your doctor talk to you about your liver numbers?”
“He said they were high.”
“They’re sky-high. Are you familiar with what liver failure is like?”
“Not really,” I say, forcing myself to sit still when I want out of there.
“I wouldn’t wish that death on my worst enemy.”
Her stark words strike a note of fear in me. It’s the first thing I’ve felt other than agony over Dee in more than a year.
“You’re twenty-eight years old, Marcus, with the liver of a seventy-five-year-old alcoholic. You’re headed for an agonizing early death if you don’t make some changes soon.” She puts her business card on my table. “Please consider getting some help. I can work with the hospital’s team to get you into treatment and would be happy to continue to work with you while you’re in rehab and after.”
I eye the card with trepidation. Nothing says I have to do anything with it.
“In the meantime, I’ll pray for you to find some peace. If I can help, don’t hesitate to reach out. My cell number is on my card. Call me anytime.”
“Thank you. Are you going to allow me to be released?”
“Not until after you complete withdrawal.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re about to find out what happens when the body suffers from alcohol withdrawal. It’s not pleasant, and you’re going to be quite ill for a few days. The doctors will want to keep a close eye on your vital signs during that time.”
I can’t believe it’s possible to feel worse than I already do.
“Thanks for coming by.”
“No problem. Be well.”
Long after she’s gone, I think about the things she said, mostly about how I’ve been hurting Dee every time I reach out to her. I didn’t think of what it would be like for her to hear from me after what I did to her. I’ve been so focused on trying to make things right with her. That’s been the only thought in my head since things with Ana blew up and she left. I was glad she was gone so I could turn my attention to trying to get back the life I lost on that fateful night in Vegas.
Dr. Stern has made me realize that in the year since then, Dee has moved on without me. Maybe she’s even seeing someone else. I’m filled with panic at the thought of her with another guy, even if I understand I have only myself to blame for this disaster.
I eye the card Dr. Stern left for a long time, thinking about what she said about my liver and the agony of liver failure. I don’t want to put another thirty days between me and making good with Dee. I feel an urgent need to take care of that before I do anything else, but I don’t want to hurt her any more than I already have.
The idea of writing her a letter is a good one. I’ll give that some thought.
I reach for the business card the shrink left on the table and study the list of initials after her name. She’s probably seen hundreds of patients just like me, which means she knows what she’s talking about.
Before I can talk myself out of doing what I know I have to do, I dial her number on my cell.
“Dr. Stern.”
“This is Marcus.”
“Hi, Marcus. What can I do for you?”
“What you said about my job, how they’re required to hold it for me. That’s legit?”
“It is.”
My eyes flood with tears when I think about Dee, what I’ve done to her, to us. If I hadn’t gotten hammered in Vegas, there’s no way I would’ve ended up married to a woman I have no feelings for beyond friendship. I love Dee. I’ll always love Dee.
“Marcus?”
I wipe away tears. “I think I need help.”
