It’s exactly what I wanted. I didn’t want to see the look of love shining in his eyes or his defenses crumbling at his feet. I’m the weak one when it comes to that side of Cole. It’s a side I’ve rarely seen and never been able to ignore. It’s much easier to deal with the Cole who has shut down than the one who wears his heart on his sleeve.

“I’ll make sure the agency sends a new nurse as soon as possible. Good-bye, Cole.”

He doesn’t say a word as I turn and make my way out of the house. He doesn’t call out to me and he doesn’t try to plead his case. The pain seeing him again called forth disappears and I feel good about the fact that I finally turned the tables on him. This time, I’m the one saying good-bye and walking away without a backwards glance.

“WILL YOU GET your ass back in bed? You do realize that your inability to follow the doctor’s instructions is what landed you back in the hospital, right?”

I poke my head out of the bathroom door in my tiny hospital room and scowl at Caroline. My nurse, who I told to leave me the fuck alone when she tried to help me into the bathroom, quickly rushes over to my side at Caroline’s orders. She wraps her arm around my waist and walks me back to the bed. If I close my eyes, I can almost imagine it’s Olivia’s arms around me. The nurse, whose name I didn’t bother to remember, has the same long black hair as Olivia, but that’s where the similarities end. Where Olivia is tall and slender with just the right amount of curves, this woman is short and plump. She’s also got a nasally, whiny voice, where Olivia’s is soft and sweet.

Except her voice isn’t sweet and soft anymore; it’s cold and hard. Even when we fought, which wasn’t often, she never looked at me the way she did before she turned her back and walked away from me the other day, like she couldn’t stand being in my presence.

Caroline stares down at me with an irritated scowl once I’m situated back in bed, but I ignore her, folding my arms angrily across my chest and giving the nurse a curt nod when she tells me she’ll be back in to check on me. I don’t need Caroline to remind me that this particular hospital stay is my own damn fault. While Olivia stormed out of the house a few days ago, the words she threw at me began playing on a loop in my head.

I felt sorry for you.

I felt sorry for you.

I felt sorry for you.

As soon as I heard her car pull away, I staggered over to the main house on my crutches, went right to the workout room and pushed myself far beyond my current abilities. Four months ago, I could run fifteen miles on the treadmill, bench press my body weight and spend an hour on the rowing machine, barely winded.

I made it through twenty reps on the bench with eighty-pound weights, a few meager leg-lifts and attempted to walk-slash-hobble for a mile on the treadmill before I fell off the fucking thing and had to crawl over to the phone in the corner of the room to call for help. In my haste to prove that I wasn’t weak and pathetic, I reopened my surgical incision, exposing myself to whatever nasty shit that caused the infection they’re pumping me full of antibiotics to fight.

“Where the fuck is the doctor? I need to get out of this hospital. I’m going crazy.”

Caroline shakes her head at me before grabbing a chair by the window, pulling it closer to the bed and plopping down on it. “If you weren’t such a stubborn ass, you wouldn’t be here in the first place.”

I know she’s right, but I don’t need to hear it. I want to go home, pull my head out of my ass and find some way to convince Olivia to talk to me long enough to give her the explanation she deserves. Jesus, I wasn’t lying when I told her I’d almost forgotten how beautiful she is. Seeing her in pale blue scrubs reminded me of all the mornings I laid in bed, watching her get dressed for work. I’ve been tormented by images of her sitting on the bench at the foot of our bed wrapped in a towel, rubbing lotion to her skin, and the way she’d brush out her long, black hair before pulling it up onto the top of her head in a ponytail. I interrupted her morning routine often, pulling her on top of me as I released her hair from its tight confines and stripped her out her scrubs in between her laughing protests that I was going to make her late for work.

Where did that woman go? The one who smiled easily and looked at me like I was her whole world. Did my leaving a year ago really do this to her? Turn her into someone cold and distant? Someone who couldn’t even stand to look at me? I hated myself every single day for walking away from her, but that’s nothing compared to the disappointment in myself knowing that I’m the reason she doesn’t smile. It was a given that she’d be pissed the first time she saw me again, but I thought she loved me enough to give me a chance to explain. There wasn’t a single trace of love shining in her crystal blue eyes and it fucking killed me.

“So, do you want to tell me what threw you into a tizzy this time? I’m going to assume by the squealing of tires I heard the other day that you forced another nurse into early retirement,” Caroline laughs, bringing her feet up to the edge of my bed and crossing her legs at the ankles.

I honestly can’t explain why I hadn’t told Caroline that Olivia was the nurse the agency sent, or that I royally fucked up my first meeting with her. Seeing Olivia again, having her in my arms, if only for a few seconds, completely rocked my world. I guess I didn’t want my memories of the smell of her skin, the softness of her hair brushing against my cheek and the way her body fit against mine like it was made for me tainted with “I told you so’s.” I love my sister, but she wouldn’t waste any time telling me how I fucked up. Aside from my old SEAL brother Garrett, Caroline was the only other person in my life who understood the extent of my feelings for Olivia. She knew how much I loved her and how leaving her almost ripped me in two. I’m sure she’d be on my side and help me in any way possible to get Olivia back, but this is something I need to do on my own. I need help with practically everything else in my life right now because of this fucking knee, so I have to do this myself. I need to feel like I have full control over something in my life, even if it’s just this one thing.