Chapter 25
The next morning Alex slowly opened her eyes, the room was still dark but she could tell the sun was coming up as it brightened the bedroom. She rolled over but Gavin was gone. She shook her head as she thought about the argument from last night. She felt his pillow and it was cold. She wondered if he had come to bed at all, his side was still perfectly straight and it looked unslept in.
She pushed the covers off of her, and slowly sat up. As soon as she did the cough came up, forcing her to bend at the waist, as it overwhelmed her. The sharp burning in her chest took her breath away, the pain radiating outward as she coughed, forcing her to wheeze in between coughs as she desperately tried to bring in air. Her throat was raw from the abusive power of her coughs as it felt like her lungs were going to come up at any moment. When she got control of herself she tried to stand, her normally strong legs, shook weakly.
"Back into bed," his voice commanded from behind.
"I'm sorry," she said again turning to face him. She expected harsh eyes and angry facial expressions but instead found a firmness, but it wasn't anger.
"Prove it," he said soundly. "Get back into bed for me."
She nodded as she slid back beneath the covers without a word, and he helped pull them up around her chin.
"I am sorry," she said again as he took her temperature. He said nothing, instead starting his exam of her.
Pulling out his stethoscope he lifted her shirt and put it on her as he listened.
"Gavin," she started.
"Shush," he warned her.
She closed her eyes. He was cold and unaccommodating. His demeanor, professional, like she was nothing more than a patient of his. Not the woman who lived with him. Not even the woman he fucked. His voice was cold, his mannerisms frigid and his eyes were like the North Pole, uninhabitable.
This man that sat on the bed with her was not the same Gavin she was with normally. This one was robotic, his focus was only on his examination. His eyes never looked into hers, instead it appeared he was intentionally keeping them from her.
Not the normal Gavin, not the Gavin she fell in love with, but then again, the fight that caused this demeanor, was her own doing. Her pride caused this. Her stubbornness caused this. Now the problem was, having never had any relationships that lasted past the first fight, she was uneducated on how to fix this. Fixing it was what she desperately wanted to do! Gavin went to his bag and pulled another needle out.
"Gavin," she tried again.
"Shush," he told her as he tilted a little vile of medicine loading the syringe.
He came to her and helped her roll over. He did so gently and it was the first thing he did to her that was gentle and remotely loving. Alex felt the needle insert just above her cheek and she realized it was much softer than last night. Proving that last night was intentionally painful, by his choice.
"What are you giving me?" she asked him.
"You have pneumonia," he told her flatly. "I would love to take you down for x-rays but the weather is too bad to do so. I won't risk making this worse by taking you out in the frigid temperatures, so for now, we are stuck here. If you don't respond to this in the next twenty-four hours, I will be forced to take you, by ambulance if necessary."
"I have school," she tried to tell him after she doubled over into a coughing fit, again her chest feeling as if it was on fire.
"It was cancelled because of the weather," he informed her, shaking his head at her complete denial of how sick she was. "Not like you could have gone in anyway."
"Gavin," she whispered as the drug started to make her woozy. "I'm sorry."
"No, I don't think you are," he said softly with a deep exhale. "You're sorry that it has turned out this way. That you wound up sick. But you aren't sorry that you did it."
"I sorry that I made you mad!" she explained drowsily. "I don't like that I disappoint you!"
"I'm more disappointed in myself, than you," he told her pushing her hair off her forehead. "I let you do this to yourself."
"You didn't have much choice," she whispered as she barely hung on to consciousness. Her eyelids feeling like five pound weights were on them.
"Yes I did, but that's another thing," he nodded with a concerned frown. "Something to address when you are feeling better, but for now, try and not worry. When you are better, then we will hash this out."
"So I haven't fucked this up beyond repair?" she asked him sleepily, her insides jumping up and down in happiness, even if she didn't have the energy to do so physically.
"This was a lack of communication," Gavin assured her. "Both on your part, and mine. No, this is not broken, this is something for us to discuss so we can learn and make us stronger."
"Us?" She asked, her eyes were impossible to keep open.
"Not getting rid of me that easily, Little One," he smiled.
She fell asleep as he stroked her face. She was trying to stay awake to talk to him but whatever he was giving her was putting her out. When she awoke again, Lena sat in the bed with her.
"Told you he would be pissed," Lena said as she flipped the channels on the TV, not looking at her, her face just as angry and firm as Gavin's had been.
"I haven't even given him the box yet," Alex told her as she turned over and tried to prop herself up. The coughing caused her to hang her head over the side of the bed in fear she was going to vomit again. She felt Lena's hand on her shoulder as she held her for comfort.
"No, just wait until he finds out you spent four grand on that box and didn't buy a better car!" Lena warned her. "Especially now, since he found out yours broke down!"
"Fuck," she gasped. "How pissed is he right now?" She had forgotten about her car and now that was surely going to bring another fight! She hadn't recovered from the first one yet. She turned over and faced Lena and pulled the covers up close to her face. The room still feeling like it was a refrigerator.
"Um," Lena shook her head. "I'm thinking I have never seen anyone as pissed as he is right now!"
"Fuck," she shook her head again. "What do I do?"
"Pray he doesn't...," Lena stopped talking, and pursed her lips tightly to keep the words at bay and shook her head.
"Doesn't what?" she asked her when she stopped talking.
"End your relationship," Lena said softly looking at her, concerned at how that was going to hit her.
"Did he say that?" she asked sitting up. "No he said we were just having communication problems!" Alex said remembering his soft words as she drifted off the day before.
"Yeah, that was before the police called and told them about your abandoned car, something you neglected to mention to either of us! He then calculated how far you walked to the train, then from the train to the condo...he said it was no wonder you had pneumonia! He was livid last night!" Lena told her. Lena was angry as well, for Alex's stubbornness.
"Do you know what could have happened to you? Did you know, that just one block from where your car broke down, three people were shot? One died? No, of course not! You're too stubborn to take in consideration the dangers! I would break up with your stubborn ass too!" Lena continued to rail making Alex want to hide under the covers that the two people she loved were so pissed at her.
"Did he say it was over?" Alex asked her softly, thinking what he said before was just to placate her until she was well enough to end it.
"No," Lena frowned. "It was his eyes that said it. He is worried about you, but he is also wondering if he can handle someone who won't let him close enough to help. If your pride won't let him take care of you the way he wants too."
"What are you talking about?" Alex growled, tired of the lashing she was taking from her best friend. "I'm the one who said I loved him, to the world! He hasn't said it back!"
"Just words," Lena said softly shaking her head in disbelief that Alex just wasn't getting it. "How many guys have said that to me, I can't count them, but they were just that? Words. Doesn't mean they are true! Actions mean more than words."
"Make sense," Alex said rubbing her forehead, tucking herself back deep into the covers to fend off the shivers.
"If you loved him, you would let him love you in the way he knows how!" Lena pointed out. "He shows it by spoiling you. By doting on you, by the little things he does!" Lena shook her head. "That man loves you, I can see that, even if you can't! I can tell by the worry on his face and by the way he does everything for you. You're so blind because you are looking for some stupid fucking words!"
"I've had guys tell me the words but not the action," Lena told her. "You have a man who is showing you, but not saying it. I know the words are important, the whole verbal commitment and all, but if you weren't such a spoiled little brat, you would have heard him say those words each and every day! By what he does."
***
She awoke with him pumping up the blood pressure cuff. He was staring at the gauge as she slowly released the air from the cuff.
"Gavin," she attempted.
"Shush," he said again, it was a fighting tactic that was really starting to piss her off. Her anger spiked and she hit full boil in record time. How was she going to make this right if he wouldn't let her talk to him?
"No, I will not shush!" she barked out. "I want to apologize!"
"What did you say to me that day?" He asked, looking at the ceiling as he removed the cuff from her arm angrily. "Oh yeah," he said with a cock of his head, he turned his angry eyes to her. "Go fuck yourself!"
He got up and left the room and Alex could do nothing but watch him leave. The tears of pain falling, her bottom lip quivering as he smashed her with his heavy hammer of anger.
Lena was standing in the doorway of the bedroom as he started to make his way by her, she touched his forearm in a comforting touch that he nodded at in appreciation. She went to the bed and sat down pulling her feet up and turning on the TV again.
"Oh my God," Alex whispered. "This is it, isn't it?"
"No," she assured her with a shake of her head. "I talked to him last night, he isn't thinking that. Lucky for you he is fantastic and not like most of the assholes that dot this planet, wasting valuable space!"
"I know," she said turning over and taking Lena's hand. "How do I fix this?"
"I don't know baby," Lena said laying down next to her. She gently stroked her friend's hair, looking into the watery blue of her eyes. "I've never had true love, so I don't know what it is like to have a guy that cares for me, more than himself."
