Fortune Annabel Joseph (life books to read .TXT) 📖

softly and her eyes closed. “You always say that. But I think you do know.”

She started to struggle then. Her hips twisted and her arms pulled in their weblike rope bonds. “Please untie me.”

“No.”

“If we were like them, with a baby, all married and stuff,” she said angrily, “then you couldn’t do this anymore. This stuff you love so much. You couldn’t get naked and tie me in knots—”

“It wouldn’t matter.”

“And fuck me whenever you want and…and have your friends come over and—”

“Kat. It wouldn’t matter. I would be happy just to be with you, just to love you. I love you.” He leaned over her where she twisted on the floor. “What’s really wrong? What are you really upset about?”

“It’s just…I’m just…” She came to rest from her struggles, her chest heaving in her exertions. The rope slid across her taut nipples. “I’m afraid I’ll die without ever really knowing what I want. Without knowing who I am.”

“Who are you then? Someone different than the girl I know? Tell me then, if you’re someone else. Who are you? What are you like?”

“I don’t know. That’s the problem. I’m just like my father. I’ve been pretending to be someone else for so long, I’ve completely lost who I am. I’ve played all these roles that aren’t really me for so long,” she wailed, looking up at him.

“What do you mean? What kind of roles?”

“I don’t know. Wayward daughter. Mean sister. Club girl. Submissive. Slut.”

“You mean you aren’t really a slut?”

She responded to his joke with a gaze like poison. “Untie me.”

“I’m kidding, Kat.”

“Let me go. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to talk about this.”

“I know. Believe me, I know. But we’re going to talk.” He held the edge of the rope hard in his fist, mid-tie, not letting her unravel the progress he’d made so far, not letting her get away. “Why do you play all those roles if it makes you unhappy?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Think about it. To fulfill people’s expectations? To hide?”

“I don’t know! Untie me. Please!”

“Okay, answer me one thing first. Are you playing a role right now? Drama queen?” His voice sounded harder, angrier than he wanted it to. She looked up at him and burst into tears.

“Please untie me.”

Ryan relented, starting to untie the knots with shaking fingers. “You know,” he said in a harsh tone. “Kat…you know…”

“I just don’t know how to love you,” she cried out. “I’m scared.”

“I’m scared too,” he snapped. “I don’t know if the love I feel for you will ever be returned. Because you overthink everything and you expect the worst in everything. And I’ve folded eight hundred and seventy eight cranes in the hopes that you might change, that you might get brave enough to love me anyway.” He unraveled the rope from her, feeling numb and defeated. He didn’t look at her face, at the tears that devastated him, the tears he didn’t know how to stop. “I thought if I just loved you enough, everything would work out for us. I wish I knew the answers, Kat. I wish I knew—” He undid the last knot with a jerky movement and pulled the rope away from her.

“You wish you knew what?” she asked in a tremulous voice.

He looked at her, twisting the useless rope in his hand. “How to not lose you. How to keep you from getting away.”

She reached out for him, an abrupt desperate movement and he drew her close. He felt her tears fall against his cheek and drip down onto his shoulder. “I don’t want you to go away, Kat,” he whispered hoarsely. “Not ever. Don’t worry about love, marriage, ever after. All those words. Just please, please try to understand how I feel about you.”

“I do.” Her fingers stroked the hair above his ears. “I feel it in my heart. My father told me once—”

The phone rang. Ryan kissed her, squeezed her tightly and they let it ring. He felt her relax, felt her open to him. Her tears ceased and transformed to soft sighs of pleasure.

A moment later, the phone rang again.

* * * * *

Ryan hadn’t been able to make much of Elena’s hysterical ramblings about Dmitri. It was part-Russian, part-English and part-gibberish. What he did understand was the gravity of the situation and the abject terror in her voice. He and Kat dressed and drove to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital where the Argounovs had taken over the waiting room. He left Kat with her sobbing sisters and went with Elena to talk to Dmitri’s doctor.

Kat’s father had been admitted to the hospital with a splitting headache. Brain scans revealed a glioblastoma multiforme, a cluster of aggressive tumor cells. It wasn’t an uncommon form of brain cancer but it was a serious one.

Ryan felt the doctor exaggerated Dmitri’s chances of survival. He knew the prognosis was actually very grim. Ryan struggled with his own dread and sadness privately, letting Elena and her children believe, just for a while, that Dmitri had a chance. And he did have a chance at a few more months, with radiation and chemotherapy. Or surgery, if the tumor was operable.

In the waiting room, Ryan explained the medical terms and procedures to the whole family as well as he was able. Like the hospital doctor, he found himself glossing over the hard realities, obscuring the true depth of Dmitri’s peril. They hung on every word, searching for hope and reassurance. Elena hugged him and sobbed against him. “Dr. Ryan, you give us so much comfort. You are very smart man, smart doctor. Brain doctor.”

Ryan tensed, waiting. It was Kat who suggested it first, with her big green eyes full of tears. “You have to do the surgery, Ryan. You’re the only one who can do it. I know you could save him. You’re so good at what you do.”

Ryan was already shaking his head but Elena grasped him with a new surge of hope.

“Yes, why do I not realize this? You