Knock, knock.
I freeze up, immediately panicking for some reason. I almost don’t want to answer the door… but then I recall a shop that I ordered online from, as I didn’t want to go out, and this might be that.
“Coming,” I call out while grabbing my robe. “Hold on, just wait a minute.”
I race to the door and pull it open, expecting to see the face of a stranger, but I’m stunned to the core when I see a face that I know. One that’s been in my dreams, but I’ve ignored that as much as I can in reality.
“I… Isaac?” I stammer. “How are you…? What are you…? How did you end up here?”
I never brought him here, he doesn’t know my address, what the hell is going on? Some warning would have been nice… although maybe he did warn me, and I just ignored the messages like always.
“I went to see Jane and she told me where to find you,” he replies a little guilty.
My face glowers, everything sinks. She must really hate me if she’ll see others.
“Jane let you in to see her? But she won’t see me? Why the hell won’t she see me?”
“She thought that I was you, that’s why she let me in.” He holds up his hands up in a surrendering gesture. “She wants to see you. She feels terrible that she hasn’t seen you in all this time. She thought that she was protecting you, I know it doesn’t seem like she’s done the right thing, but she wanted to be nice.”
Hearing those words from Isaac rather than Jane is a bit of a shitter, but the idea that she’s letting go of the stubbornness and she wants us to spend some time together is everything. I’m just so relieved.
“So, can I go there? The nurses won’t send me away? Can I see my sister again?”
Tears flow from my eyes, I can’t stop them, the emotion just gets the better of me. I have missed Jane so much and this has all been such a sad waste of time. I need Jane, I need her opinions so bad.
“Yeah, she wants to see you too. She’s missed you so much. All she really did was talk about how she was trying to stop you from being at the hospital all the time, but now she regrets it.”
I automatically step back and invite him inside without thinking too much about it. I’m supposed to be keeping Isaac at arm’s length, to wedge distance between us because there’s no way that we can be in each other’s lives, but my head is all over the place. I’m already planning what to tell Jane when I see her. Much as I want to go there right now, I know it’s too late and she will be tired. It will be better if I go there during daytime when she’s more awake. There are so many things that we need to talk about, and I want her to be fully aware when we chat at last.
“So, Lexi.” Once he’s inside my home, he turns around to give me a look. “What’s going on with you? I have been trying to contact you for a while now, to see what’s going on, why you haven’t been at work…”
I can’t tell him about my baby, our baby, because I‘ve already decided not to, but I’ll have to say something.
“I haven’t been well,” I blurt out. “Sorry, I didn’t realize that you’ve been contacting me.”
He gives me a doubtful look. He knows that I’m lying which does make me feel terrible. I have to avert my eyes and not look at him, so I don’t reveal too much of my soul.
“I see… because I assumed that you were at the hospital, that’s why I kept the job open.”
Fuck, this is going to be the moment that I lose all of my benefits. That will really put the pressure on. “I… I understand if you don’t want to keep the job open for me. I know that I haven’t exactly been employee of the month. It’s just not been great for me lately, being sick and all…”
“How sick are you?” he demands. “You aren’t about to end up in the hospital, are you?”
He’s seen Jane and he’s worried again that it’s about to be me. Just like I was a little while ago.
“No,” I reassure him. “I am okay. I will be okay, you don’t need to worry about me.”
“Well, whenever you’re ready, the job will always be there for you.”
I gulp back guiltily. This makes me feel utterly terrible. “I don’t expect you to do that. I know how important having a personal assistant is, how much they do for you, so I don’t expect you to wait…”
“I don’t mind, Lexi.” He smiles, just making it worse for me. “You are the best PA I have ever had. I don’t want to have someone else in your place. You just let me know when you can come back…”
“But I don’t know when that will be,” I insist. “It could be ages.”
He narrows his eyes curiously at me. “Is there something that you aren’t telling me? Because you don’t look bad to me. Whatever it is, I would much rather prefer that you just let me know. If it’s depression or something…”
Oh shit, this is it. This is the moment that I should just tell him the truth. Get it over and done with. When Isaac is looking at me with such intense love in his eyes, it’s hard to keep it all inside…