“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
“Why?”
Dr. Sarah doesn’t look so friendly anymore. “Because I’m his girlfriend.”
NINETEEN
The floor doesn’t shatter beneath my feet. The world doesn’t explode into miniscule pieces. And still, something breaks inside me. It is so fundamental, I know I will never, ever be the same person I was two minutes ago.
Dom has a girlfriend.
Dom is two-timing me.
The clues start ding-ding-dinging in my head. Oh, how small they looked, separated from one another, seemingly unrelated and innocent.
How Dom never, ever took me out on a date in Salem.
How he worked way too many hours—even for a nurse—and didn’t come home for three and four nights in a row sometimes.
How Joe said he didn’t feel guilty for kissing me. The way he would always allude to Dom not being the saint I’d pegged him to be.
The disgust he felt about my and Dom’s relationship—does he know Dom is cheating on me? Of course he does. If Sarah knows Gemma and Brad, she knows Joe too. And then it hits me . . .
The necklace.
The necklace.
The necklace.
The letter S. Sarah.
She and I occupied the same bed, rolled in the same sheets, kissed the same skin of the same man all these weeks and months. Now that I think about it, she is everywhere in his apartment. On magnets on his fridge. In the way the mugs are always coordinated by color neatly in the cupboard. The women’s deodorant he’d let me use once and said belonged to his mother . . .
“I’m not sure how you expect me to respond to what you’re saying.” Sarah speaks, and although her voice is curt, I can see her chin is wobbling. “Dom and I have been together for three years.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, feeling sorry for me, not for her. “It’s the truth. He asked me to marry him tonight. At his mother’s sixtieth birthday dinner.”
Sarah closes her eyes. I can tell it’s sunk in. That she believes me. Me, I’m still struggling to come to terms with this new reality. Dom can’t be a cheating dirtbag. This is not who he is. He is the Savior of Lost Girls. The sweet, dimpled, mild man who stormed into the picture and made it all better.
“How long have you been together?” She wipes her eyes.
“Three months.” It feels inadequate in comparison to her three years. I feel inadequate. She is a gorgeous doctor. I’m a . . . I’m me. What was Dom thinking? Why did he start things with me?
“I guess that’s why he stopped inviting me over to his parents’。” A brittle laugh bubbles up her throat. “I thought it was because of my night shifts and his schedule. Wow.”
The double doors between us slap open. Joe appears like a mirage, oozing dark energy. He sees Sarah and me standing in front of one another and makes a face. It is something between Shit and Dom, you dumb fuck. It is an exceedingly Joe-like expression.
“Seph,” Sarah moans. Her shoulders sag. “Oh my God.”
I don’t know if she is saying this about the accident, or about the acuteness of Dom’s situation, or about the cheating, or about all of it.
“Sar. How’re you holding up?”
Seph and Sar. This is all the confirmation I need that these two know each other.
“Terrible,” she says.
Joe’s eyes travel to me. He is checking the temperature. Trying to gauge how angry I am.
Because it is easy—and because he deserves it—as soon as he reaches for me, to give me a hug, I slap him. This time I get his left cheek. Two slaps in one day is some kind of record, I’m sure.
He rubs at his cheek. “I deserve that.”
“You bastard,” I hiss.
“Guilty as charged. We’ll revisit the subject later.” He turns to Sarah. “Any news on him?”
Sarah is hugging herself. I can tell that she is watching our interaction closely, and that she finds it very odd. She shakes her head. “Not yet, but I was going to try to get into the operating room.”
“You should do that,” he says firmly. “Now.”
After looking between us helplessly, Sarah stalks off down the corridor. Joe and I are left alone. It seems stupid to talk about Dom’s infidelity when he might not even make it. Then again, there is nothing else to talk about. We don’t know anything. As screwed up as it is, Dr. Sarah Nelson is exactly the distraction I need to forget that my fiancé is currently fighting for his life.
“He is two-timing me,” I say matter-of-factly once Sarah is gone and it’s just the two of us between the mint-green walls. I notice that Belinda the receptionist is showing a healthy interest in what’s going on in her waiting room. She’s been reading the same page in her novel for ten minutes now.