He Left Me Broken Now He Wants Me Back Chapter 02
Now, Rowan stood over my bed, his eyes fixed on me.
“If a med school classmate of mine hadn’t been doing a rotation here and seen you, how long were you going to hide this from me?”
He pressed the bridge of his nose.
“Olivia, can you be an adult for once? Stop making things so difficult for me.”
I didn’t move.
When nightmares kept me awake, I’d ask him to stay on the phone. He called it a hassle.
For my birthday, I asked him to bake me a cake. He didn’t understand why I had to “make simple things so complicated.”
When I had a fever, I just wanted him there. He reminded me he was an orthopedic surgeon, not a GP, and that sitting by my bed wouldn’t break my fever. That I shouldn’t make things harder for him.
So I learned. I took melatonin for the nightmares. I booked my own anniversary dinners. I took myself to the doctor when I was sick. This time, I’d even managed surgery and admission on my own. And somehow, I was still the one making things difficult.
Last month, Mia had called in the middle of the night, claiming she had a stomachache. Rowan had barely rubbed the sleep from his eyes before he was out of bed and pulling on his clothes.
I stood in the bedroom doorway.
“You’re an orthopedic surgeon. Why is she calling you for a stomachache?”
“She’s in too much pain to drive. She’s not like you. I’m taking her to the ER.”
“How is she not like me? Because when I call, I’m ‘making things difficult,’ but when she calls, it’s an emergency?”
Rowan looked at me as if the question was utterly meaningless.
“Her parents had her late in life. They coddled her. She isn’t equipped to handle things like this on her own. Do we really have to argue about this right now?”
For a moment, I was speechless.
His phone rang again. Mia’s plaintive voice came through the speaker.
“Ro, where are you? It really hurts.”
“I’m almost there.”
He squeezed past me. I stumbled against the shoe cabinet by the door, a sharp pain shooting through my ankle. I bent over, clutching it, but he never looked back.
I took a slow, steadying breath.
“Bad timing. I’m being discharged today. If I get a ride home with you, will that count as making things difficult, too?”
Rowan’s lips pressed into a thin line. He looked like he wanted to explain, but in the end, he said nothing.
When I got into the passenger seat, I felt something hard under my thigh. I reached down and pulled out a tube of lip gloss.
The second Rowan saw it, he started, “I gave Mia a ride to an interview the other day. She must have—”
I placed the lip gloss on the center console.
“Then you should give it back to her.”
Rowan stared at me for two long seconds.
I turned to face the window. We didn’t speak for the rest of the drive.
Back at our Lakeview apartment, he broke the silence. “Come to my hospital for your follow-up in a couple of days. I’ll review the imaging myself.”
I hobbled toward the living room on my crutch.
“No need. The hospital I’m at is perfectly fine.”
He grabbed my arm, his brow furrowed.
“I’ll take the time off and go with you. Is that what it will take?”
I looked at him.
“What exactly would you be there for?”
He fought to keep his impatience in check, but his voice hardened anyway.
“Isn’t this what you want? You haven’t said a civil word to me since I found you. You want me there, and you want an apology. Fine. I’ll take the day off. I’ll make it up to you. Is that enough?”
A heavy pressure settled in my chest. I shook off his hand, drawing a ragged breath.
“Rowan, maybe we should—”
My phone rang, cutting me off.
Rowan answered it, listened for a moment, then turned away. “It’s an emergency surgery. We’ll talk when I get back.”