Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Stomach in knots, I said, “That’s… insane.”
“That’s my son.” Pops shrugged. “Not sure where his mother and I went wrong with him, but at some point, he wasn’t the son we raised anymore. He was this person who no one recognized.”
Gee butted my hand with his nose, and I reached down and started to sift my fingers through his silky fur.
“Felix told me that you were too sick to take care of him,” I said softly.
“I was,” he admitted. “I’ve fought off cancer three times in my life. I’m seventy-eight years old now, and the last thing I want to do is have this continue to affect what little life I have left.”
I could understand that.
We’d done a rotation through the cancer ward years ago when I was in college. I knew better than any regular person how much hardship cancer brought to peoples’ lives.
“There’s nothing wrong with making that decision,” I pointed out.
“No,” he shrugged. “But by me leaving, I’m just creating another situation that’ll put Felix at odds with Woody and Merrina.”
I couldn’t stand hearing Merrina’s name.
Out of the two people who’d practically ruined what was left of his childhood, it’d been Merrina who had relished in making Felix’s life hell.
I’d heard enough stories from Felix to know that Merrina had actually taken special pride in thinking up new and inventive ways to make his life hell.
At least Woody only ignored him.
Merrina not so much.
“Felix is older now,” I pointed out.
“Felix may be older, but he still has that same heart,” he said, his eyes going a bit flinty as he refocused on me. “You left him. Just left and didn’t call.”
My back immediately straightened. “I most certainly did not.”
“He told me that you never answered his texts. Changed your number so he couldn’t call. Wouldn’t answer his emails,” he replied bluntly. “And to be completely honest with you, dear, my grandson doesn’t lie. He’s blunt. He tells it like it is. And he doesn’t beat around the bush. People think he’s an asshole. But really, it’s just that he’s had to deal with so much backstabbing and bullshit that he finds it easier to be very upfront with his feelings, thoughts, and desires. He obviously thinks that you left him, or he wouldn’t have shared that information with me.”
I instantly deflated, my ire leaving me just as easily as it’d arrived.
“I called him every day for what felt like a lifetime.”
His brows went up. “He never got a single call.”
“But that doesn’t change the fact that I did,” I pointed out.
Then I told him exactly what I’d done, when I’d done it, and for how long.
“I gave up last year,” I replied quietly. “I got the hint.”
That’s when Pops leaned forward, displacing Cyclone who hissed at him and jumped off.
Neither one of us paid him any mind as Pops said, “You gave up. Which is what it seems like everyone in his life had done to him so far. Even I’m giving up, Val. Even I’m giving up.”
Well, when he put it like that…
“Shit.”
“I’m about to be leaving him a two-million-dollar life insurance policy, and a whole lot of headache,” Pops said. “It might be nice if Felix had someone to lean on when shit hits the fan.”
When he put it like that, how could I say no?
“Are you sure he wants that?” I asked.
Pops smirked. “My grandson has wanted two things in his entire life. One was his mother to not be so sad. And two, it’s you. It’s been years, and yet I know the reason we moved here was because of you. Even if he hates you, and you hate him, at least he still gets to see you.”
I felt an ache continue to build in my chest. “I’ll talk to him.”
He winked. “I know.”
But a day and a half later, when the sun decided to come out and the ice burned off of the road, he didn’t come.
In fact, I didn’t see him again for almost a week.
And in that week, a lot of things changed.
And none of them for the better.
CHAPTER 10
Okay, but consider this: Who the fuck asked you?
-Text from Val to Keene
FELIX
Avoidance was key.
That was my new tactic after picking Pops up from the circus.
After giving her pretty much free rein to do whatever she wanted and pawning her off on another doctor who could oversee her—I know, it was stupid of me seeing as I was her attending—I managed to avoid her almost the entire time I was on shift.
The one good thing I could say was that since the hospital we were at was so large, I had no problem pushing her into the minor ER—where all kinds of bullshit things like hangnails, broken toes, small stiches, and such went—and letting her start working her way through things on her own.