Chapter 5

  Katie Benson 38 years old

  Katie opened her eyes slowly. Her thoughts had been racing all night. Brent was still fast asleep. Her rosy red cheeks felt dry. Her digits brushed across a spot on the sheets of the bed. It felt cold but no longer dampened from the tears that rolled off her cheeks the night before. She rolled over on the bed, glancing over at Brent to make sure she hadn’t disturbed him. She took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. Her eyes closed once more. The memories of the argument played back in her head like a movie. She could see it all again as if it was happening in real time. Brent’s voice echoed through her head. “Why won’t you let me see it?!” she heard herself yelling.

  “Because you won’t like what it says!! I don’t even like what it says!” came the sound of Brent’s voice yelling back at her.

  “Why the Hell Not?!” She yelled back, her voice starting to get choked up. Her eyes had closed. A single, small tear starting to form at the edge of her eyelids.

  “Because it was a moment of weakness.” he replied, a stern expression forming across his face. “And not one that i’m particularly. . “

  “Oh No! It’s not a weakness! Nuh uh!” she screamed reaching for the card, but Brent pulled it away. “Obviously something is wrong if you’re out taking phone numbers from other girls!”

  “Fine! You wanna see it so badly?!” came the sound of her fiance’s screaming voice as he slammed the card down on his nightstand.”Come get it!”

  “If you’re going to act like this, forget it!!” she screamed, brushing the tears away from her cheeks. She pushed past him and slammed the door of the bedroom.

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  Katie opened her eyes again, brushing her long red hair from her eyes. A tear hand formed and trickled down her cheek. She took a deep breath, but her breathing had started to get shallow. She tried to choke back her tears. A feeling washed over her. Feelings of inadequacy. She hated this feeling. It brought up a familiar thought. The same thought that crossed her mind the night before. Was this really him? Was Brent really the person she wanted to spend the rest of her life with? The fight played over again in her head. She poked her head up the second she thought about it. The card was still on his nightstand. She hadn’t looked at it, even after she pushed him out of the room. She was afraid to. Another girl’s number? And what made it worse was the fact that he kept it. Brent didn’t really seem to think about things like that. He didn’t seem to care how it looked or reflected on him. Was he having doubts about their wedding as it drew so close? Katie’s mind was flooded with questions.

  She finally sat up in bed peering over her shoulder at her sleeping fiance first, then glancing over at the nightstand. She took a deep breath, letting her gaze drop to the carpeted floor beneath her. The subtle sound of a meow alerted her to the cat’s presence. Tabbyona, her and Brent got her from a stray that one of Katie’s patients had adopted. Katie flashed her a brief smile that quickly fell away from her face. Katie rose up from the bed, slowly pulling her emerald green up over her torso and fastening it to her midriff. Katie rose up on her tiptoes and stepped carefully around the corner of the bed, trying to avoid stepping on any of the clothes that Brent had left laying around the room.

  Brent wasn’t exactly the cleanest of fiances to live with, but at least he wasn’t like any of her exes. He wasn’t demanding of her and he even still went to the trouble of holding doors open for her. He always told her that his mom would kill him if he didn’t. It sounded a little corny to her, but she didn’t mind it. Katie took out her phone and pulled up a flashlight, hovering the lit up screen over Brent’s night stand and picked up the card. Katie lifted the card up to the faint morning sunlight that cascaded between the closed blinds. She could barely make out the contents of it. Her sadness started to fade once she realized what it said. Katie scurried over to the clothing basket and dug around for her outfit from the night before. Stuffing her hands in the pockets of her dirty scrubs, she searched for it. The same card that she had picked up on her way out of work. A brief feeling of relief washed over her. Why had he refused to show this to her? What was her fiance so afraid of? Without paying attention to it, she set her own card down on Brent’s night stand on his side of the bed. She tiptoed back over the mess in their room and leaned down, grabbing a random pair of scrubs from her laundry basket at the edge of the bed. Katie opened the bathroom door and slipped inside, quickly shutting the door behind her and turning on the lights. She slid the robe off slowly, reading over the card again. Why had her fiance even received this? Was he still hiding Nat’s number? She folded her robe and finished undressing before slipping into the shower. The entire time the water drenched her strawberry blond hair, she thought about it. Who was this “Dr. Aeryn love?” The more she thought about it, the more her curiosity began to get the best of her.