[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
Chapter 86

The following week came sooner than Claire would have liked. She was more nervous about the cataract surgery than she was letting on to anyone. The doctor had made it out to be a simple procedure, nothing to worry about. She wouldn’t even be put under anesthesia, he had told her; she would be awake the whole time. That had actually worried her more. Who wanted to be awake while someone cut into their eye??

The thought made her shudder every time it crossed her mind, but she’d tried not to show her fear in front of anyone else. All of her friends and even her brother had been visibly squeamish when she’d told them what she was having done, and in an instant, she’d found herself reassuring them, rather than vice versa, that it was no big deal. She’d been through much worse before… this was nothing to be afraid of.

What a joke. They’d all bought it, and even now, the day before the surgery, no one was acting particularly concerned. Now one knew how she nervous she really was. Well, that wasn’t exactly true – Nick knew. But Nick was in LA, and she couldn’t exactly go running to him for a shoulder to lean on and a comforting hug anymore, could she?

So, she ran to Dianna instead. Or rather, ran to the phone to call Dianna. “What are you doing tonight?” she asked, as soon as her friend answered.

“Tonight? Um, well, actually… Todd and I were gonna do something…”

“On a Tuesday night?” Claire interjected. Wow, they really were getting serious.

“Yeah… but I don’t know what yet though. Why, did you wanna- Oh! It is Tuesday, isn’t it? That means your eye thing is tomorrow morning, right?”

Claire’s stomach lurched as she replied, “Yeah.”

“Oh my gosh, I almost forgot!” Dianna exclaimed. “Well, did you want to do something tonight? Get your mind off it?”

Claire smiled, grateful for that sixth sense only a close friend possessed. “Well…” She hesitated; that was what she wanted, but she didn’t want to interfere with Dianna and her boyfriend. “That was kind of what I was hoping for, yeah, but if you and Todd have plans, don’t worry about it. I can call Laureen or something.”

“No, no, we’ll do something!” Dianna insisted. “We were probably just gonna hit a movie or something; I’m too tired for anything else tonight. Come with us – it’ll be fun!”

Claire blinked. Come with us? Ohhh no… “Di, I know you didn’t just ask me to be the third wheel on your date,” she said dryly.

“What? Ohh, no!” Dianna laughed. “You won’t be the third wheel! I’ll call Jamie to come too – it’ll just be a group thing! Just like in high school.”

“Except Todd didn’t go to high school with us. Won’t he feel left out?” Claire asked, trying to squeeze a hint of innocence into her voice. She didn’t really like the idea of a “group thing” with her, Jamie, Dianna, and Todd either – then she would still be the third wheel, Jamie would be the fourth, and it would all feel way too much like a double date, only she and Jamie weren’t dating.

“Cla-aire,” Dianna sing-songed in a patronizing tone. “You brought Nick to hang out with Jamie and me when you were with him, and we never complained! I wanna hang out with you, girl, but I don’t wanna ditch Todd…”

Claire wanted to remind Dianna of the time she’d basically told Claire not to bring Nick water-skiing with her and Jamie, but then she remembered how much she had wanted to and how bad she’d felt when she’d ditched him for her two friends and knew Dianna had a point. “Alright, alright. Are you sure you don’t mind us coming along?”

“Of course not!”

“And Todd won’t mind?”

“No way. If he minds, he doesn’t have to come… then it really will be just the old trio.”

“Fair enough. Why don’t you call Todd and make sure, decide what time you wanna go and all that, and then call me back. I can call Jamie.”

“’Kay, sounds good. I’ll talk to ya in a few.”

They hung up, and Claire sighed, wondering if she just should have called Laureen instead. She hadn’t seen Laureen much lately because her broken arm was keeping her away from work, so it would have been nice to hang out. But it was too late now; Dianna was probably calling her boyfriend to change their plans right that minute.

This had the potential to be an interesting night…

***

“Hey, how about The Empress?” Dianna suggested two hours later, twisting around in the passenger seat to glance back at Claire and Jamie, who rode together in the backseat of Todd’s car. “I haven’t been there in forever!”

“Is that that one really old theater?” asked Todd flatly from the driver’s seat, glancing briefly into his rearview mirror. He sounded bored and not at all thrilled to be sharing his date with two other people.

Poo on him, thought Claire; he could have Dianna all to himself any old time he wanted. Tonight, she needed her friends. She was glad that Jamie had agreed to come along too. Even though it was an odd arrangement – Todd and Dianna, Jamie and her – she was grateful for someone to make faces at across the backseat whenever Todd and Dianna started flirting in the front. It had happened plenty of times already, and they’d only been in the car five minutes.

It was going to be a long night. But not as long as it would have been if Claire had spent it sitting at home, fretting over the cataract surgery the next morning, so she couldn’t complain.

“Yeah, that’s the one. We used to go there in high school all the time cause it’s cheap! Wanna go?”

“What’s playing there tonight?” piped up Jamie.

“I dunno. Let’s drive by and see. We can always go somewhere else if we don’t wanna see whatever they’re showing. Sound good?”

“Sure,” Todd and Jamie both replied with about an equal lack of enthusiasm.

“Claire?”

“That’s fine,” answered Claire, secretly torn over the idea. She loved the old theater, but the last time she had been there was with Nick. It now held not only memories of nights out with her high school crowd, but memories of him…

When Todd slowed the car in front of The Empress, Dianna leaned eagerly across the front seat to read the brightly-lit marquee. Claire didn’t even bother – too blurry. The only good thing about having this surgery tomorrow was that she’d be able to see properly again – out of one eye, at least.

Dianna let out a squeal at the exact same time Todd groaned. “What??” Claire asked.

“The Notebook is playing,” Jamie replied for both of them, with his usual lack of enthusiasm.

“The Notebook?” Claire repeated, frowning. “Hasn’t that been out on DVD for, like, a year?”

“Yeah, I have it! It’s the greatest love story ever!” Dianna gushed excitedly. “I didn’t know they were showing it here tonight! But it makes sense… they’ve been showing romance classics all month, for Valentine’s Day. It’s the last day of the month, so might as well end it with the greatest love story ever!”

Claire rolled her eyes. “Are you kidding? Have you ever seen Gone With the Wind? Casablanca? Those are classic romances… not the freakin’ Notebook.”

“Don’t knock it till you’ve seen it, Claire,” Dianna said sharply, craning her neck to glare back at Claire, who was sitting directly behind her. “It’s sooo good – trust me! I promise, it will melt even your cynical heart.”

Claire rolled her eyes again and looked to Jamie for back-up, expecting him to protest against the chick-flick. She nearly choked when he said instead, “I haven’t seen it either, Dianna.”

Dianna’s eyes lit up. “You haven’t? How about you, Todd?”

“No,” came Todd’s grunt.

“Ahh, perfect! Notebook virgins! You all need to see it – come on! We’re going!”

Todd didn’t seem thrilled, but he obediently turned the car into the parking lot, while Claire sat looking between the two men, still shocked that neither of them had put up a fight. Dianna may have had Todd too whipped to know any better, but Jamie? Come on! Since when did Jamie like sappy love movies?

She still couldn’t believe it as she trudged through the parking lot with the other four and reluctantly bought her ticket from the old-fashioned kiosk at the front. The theater was uncrowded, and there was no line for popcorn. Claire splurged on a large popcorn, realizing she was not supposed to eat breakfast the next morning before her surgery. Might as well pack in the calories tonight, she thought happily, balancing the large bucket on her cast as she followed the others into the theater.

They had just found seats in the middle section when the lights dimmed, and the heavy, velvet curtains in front of the screen swept back grandly. Claire shoved a handful of popcorn into her mouth as the screen crackled and popped before the New Line Pictures logo appeared.

The movie opened with a beautiful sunrise over the dark maroon waters of a calm lake or river. In the middle of the water, she could barely make out the dark silhouette of a solitary figure in a rowboat. Her breath caught in her throat as she pictured a similar sunrise, reflecting on the shores of Tampa Bay… a sunrise she had watched from the deck of a boat, much larger than the one in the movie, in the arms of her love.

Watching the man on the screen slowly row across the still waters, while melancholy piano music tinkled in the background, she was reminded of him. Nick…

***

Nick threw his suitcase down on his bed and heaved a sigh of exhaustion. It was eight o’clock in the evening, and he’d finally made it home to Tampa. A snowstorm in Salt Lake City had delayed his connecting flight by several hours, leaving him stiff, tired, and annoyed from having to sit and wait so much longer than he’d anticipated.

But it was over now, and he was glad to be home, if only for a few days. He’d make a point to take his boat out at least once while he was here; he hadn’t been out on the water in awhile. But the real purpose of his visit was Claire, and she came first. He’d knew that her surgery was sometime in the morning, but he wasn’t sure what time. Figuring she’d need a ride, he pulled out his cell phone to call her and find out. She’d be in for a surprise – she didn’t even know he was in town…

He still had her on speed dial, so he held in the right number and waited as the phone started to dial her cell. Putting the phone to his ear, he listened as it rang a few times before connecting to her voicemail. He hesitated before leaving a message. “Hey... it’s Nick. Give me a call back as soon as you get this, okay? Later.”

He ended the call and glanced at her name on the screen of his phone for a moment before flipping it shut. He wondered what she was doing right then and why she wasn’t answering her phone.

***

Claire sat with tears in her eyes as she watched Noah and Allie break up onscreen and knew that this time, it had nothing to do with her hormones. This was all too reminiscent of a break-up of her own. Not with Nick… but with Jamie.

“Are you breaking up with me?”

“I don’t see how it’s gonna work…”

She could feel Allie’s pain as she watched Rachel McAdams’ character break down, looking pitiful as Noah drove away. Meanwhile, Jamie, she realized, was sitting right next to her. She marveled over how odd it was that, after all their history, they could enjoy a relationship that was purely platonic now.

Blinking furiously to clear the tears from her eyes (for some reason, she was embarrassed to be crying over this, even though she was quite aware of Dianna sniffling on her other side), she chanced a look over at Jamie. She was startled to find him looking back at her. As his piercing blue eyes met with hers, her heart skipped a beat. Quickly, she jerked her head back towards the screen, but she stared without really seeing the movie being projected onto it. She was glad it was dark inside the theater, so that he would not see her cheeks flushing pink. What just happened? she wondered, completely flustered by her reaction just then. She was practically trembling inside…

She began to settle down again as the movie continued and the similarities waned. Yet when they came to a scene with Allie working as a nurse, caring for the “broken me” who had fought in World War II, her stomach jolted again, and this time, she couldn’t help but think of Nick. She watched Allie help a man in a body cast sit up and remembered how hard it had been, seeing Nick in pain and despair following the loss of his leg. She’d had to fight hard to hide how much it hurt her to see him hurting then. Was he hurting still, because of her?

As the movie progressed, she found herself plagued with memories of them both. Nick and Jamie… Jamie and Nick. Her poor memory felt almost as torn as Allie was in the movie, torn between her high school sweetheart and her charming, wealthy fiancée.

Noah, Claire thought emphatically, trying to focus on the characters in the movie and not on her own life. She has to end up with Noah… He was her first love. It just seemed right.

By the time the movie ended, she could no longer contain her tears; she walked out of the theater with wet trails of them down her cheeks, her eyes red and swollen from crying. “I knew you would love it!” Dianna gloated before whipping a makeup compact out of her purse in a vain attempt to clean up her own tearstained face.

“You got me… it was good,” Claire admitted, fumbling with her purse as well in search of a kleenex.

“Here,” said a voice, and she glanced up to see Jamie holding out a tissue that he had seemingly conjured out of nowhere.

Caught off-guard, she accepted the tissue and looked back up at him as she blotted at her eyes. She could have sworn even his eyes seemed a little red-rimmed, but maybe it was just the lights of the theater. By the time they made it out to the parking lot, it was too dark to tell.

The car ride home was fairly quiet; the movie had left everyone subdued. Todd dropped Claire off at her new apartment complex first, and she told everyone goodnight, thanking Dianna and Jamie for taking her out that night, and went inside. Her stomach knotted as she walked up the stairs to her floor, realizing she would be leaving again in about nine hours’ time for the hospital. The movie had done a good job at distracting her, but now that she was back home and alone, her nerves flared up again.

She took a couple of Tylenol PMs with her nightly regime of pills, hoping they would help her get to sleep easier. Only when she finally walked back to her bedroom and went to plug her cell phone into its charger for the night did she notice the missed call and voicemail from Nick.

***

The droning of the TV had nearly lulled Nick to sleep when his cell phone jarred him awake. Blinking in momentary confusion, he realized where the sound was coming from and plucked his phone off of the coffee table. “’Lo?” he answered without bothering to check the caller ID. He was hoping it was Claire.

“Hey, Nick.”

Nick smiled. “Hey, Claire. How’s it going?”

“Eh, it’s going,” she replied with a weak laugh. “How are you?”

“Fine…” Nick said slowly, then paused and added, with an air of mischief, “Here…”

“Here…? What do you mean, here?” asked Claire.

Nick smiled. “I’m here. In Tampa.”

“You are??” Her voice rose. “What are you doing back?”

“What time’s your surgery tomorrow?” Nick answered her question with one of his own.

He heard her hesitate. “Um… eight a.m. I need to be at the hospital by seven-thirty. Why…?”

“Cause I’m gonna pick you up. You’ll need a ride, right?”

“Oh, yeah, but that’s okay, Nick. My mom’s already planning to come down for the day and take me,” said Claire.

“No, seriously, Claire, that’s what I’m here for. I don’t mind; I want to. Your mom shouldn’t have to drive all that way… I mean, unless you want her there with you. I guess you’re probably pretty nervous about it, huh?” Nick hadn’t really thought about her family. Funny, he’d made his mother go away before his amputation surgery… and no one had bothered to call her when he’d had his lung surgery. But then again, his mother certainly wasn’t like Claire’s.

“Well, yeah… but, I mean, if you really don’t mind taking me… I could call her…”

He could hear the hesitancy in her voice and jumped on it. “No, ‘course I don’t mind. I’ll pick you up at seven tomorrow morning?”

“O-okay… um, sounds good. Thanks, Nick!”

“No problem,” Nick said, smiling, glad she’d agreed.

“Um… do you know where I live?” she asked awkwardly.

Huh? Nick thought at first, and then he remembered – she’d moved. Duh. He let her give him directions to her new apartment complex and talked to her for a few more minutes before they decided to hang up. She had taken some sleeping pills, she told him, and wanted to get to bed. He let her go, telling her that he’d see her bright and early in the morning.

Better get to bed myself, he thought when he got off the phone. The last thing he wanted to do was oversleep and make her late.

***

“That was… weird,” Claire muttered to herself as she plugged her cell phone in and turned down the covers on her bed. Yet she couldn’t help but smile. Nick had been so adamant about wanting to be there for her tomorrow. It was so sweet of him, but it made her feel guilty. She told herself that if he was facing something like this, she would be there for him too – that’s what friends were for, after all. But after all they’d been through, after what she’d done to him, it wasn’t that simple. She couldn’t expect anything like this from him. And yet, he was still there for her.

In a way, she was sort of glad. Despite the tension she had caused between the two of them, Nick had always had a way of putting her at ease. Whereas her mother unknowingly just stressed her out. She meant well, but she worried too much. She would probably have been an absolute basket case tomorrow, more nervous about the eye surgery than even Claire herself. Yet she had been the only one available to drive Claire to and from the hospital. Her dad, Kyle, Dianna, Jamie, and Laureen all worked, and Amber was at home with a new baby. Her mother was happy to do it, but Claire was happier to have Nick there.

Oh shit, I need to call her and let her know, Claire remembered and reached for her phone again, hoping her mom hadn’t gone to bed already. Luckily, she was still up and picked up on the second ring.

“Hi, honey!” she answered. “Are we all set for tomorrow? I’ve already got my alarm set for four o’clock, and I’m planning to be on the road by quarter to five. I’ll be at your place by seven at the very latest.”

Claire smiled ruefully; her mom always sounded so hyperactive when she was stressed out. “Hey, Mom. Actually, that’s what I was calling about – um, Nick called today, and he’s back in town, so… he offered to take me tomorrow, so that you don’t have to get up so early and drive all that way.”

“Oh, sweetheart, you know I don’t mind. I want to make sure you’re in good hands. Wait, did you say Nick’s back?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Oh… well, isn’t that a little… awkward, for the two of you?” her mom asked hesitantly.

“A little… yeah. But we’re still friends, Mom. He’s just… being a friend.”

“Well, okay…” The older woman sounded unsure. “Are you sure you’re okay with this, Claire? I have no problem driving down there; I want to be there for you.”

“I know, Mom, but it’s okay. It’s a simple procedure, and I’ll be fine. All I really need is a ride there and back, and Nick’s perfectly capable of taking care of that,” Claire replied calmly. She always felt the need to play down her nervousness in front of her mother, just to keep her from freaking out.

Her mom finally agreed to let Nick give her a ride the next morning and made her promise to call as soon as she felt up to it after the procedure. Once they’d said their I love you’s and hung up, Claire set her phone back on her nightstand and slid beneath the covers, reaching over to shut off the lamp next to her bed.

As darkness filled the room, she lay down and closed her eyes. The Tylenol she’d taken earlier had relaxed her, calming her nerves so that she could slip off to sleep with surprising ease.

***

“Okay, Claire, I’m going to start now. I need you to hold perfectly still,” said Dr. Dumagan.

Claire could barely see her face through the hole in the heavy blue drape that had been put over the left side of her face. “Okay,” she said, her voice high and small. She could feel her heart racing, and her palms had begun to sweat. Why, oh why, did she have to stay awake for this?

The nurse that was assisting on the surgery put more saline drops in her eye, and instinctively, she tried to blink, but couldn’t. This was torture.

She was aware of the doctor probing in her eye, but she couldn’t feel a thing, thankfully. The only sensation she was aware of was a tickling in the back of her nose, like she was about to…

Oh no…

Before she could react, she let out a mighty sneeze and felt her head jerk.

At that very moment, everything went black.

She cried out in terror. And then she heard her doctor’s voice, stripped of its former professionalism.

“Oh shit.”

***

AN: To Carrie, who begged me to :)