Pink Ice (6 page)

             
“No, I’ll do it by myself.”

             
“The hell you are Katherine. You are way too weak to stand up.” Since I was not that bad anymore, our adorable selves were coming back.

             
“I can help you, Ms. Bianchi. Probably she wants some privacy, Mr. Berkeley.” Lorna tried to mediate the stare duel that she was witnessing. The tension could be cut with a knife.

             
“No, I’ll stand up by myself.” Wisely, Lorna took her stuff and left the room.

             
“You are going to hurt yourself, Katherine. You can’t do it.”

             
I can’t?
That was exactly what I needed to hear to try. “Watch me, asshole.” I took all the strength I could, and put both legs on the floor. I was going to do it, I grabbed the night stand next to me and tried to stand up in one movement. But then, my knees didn’t get the memo that we were ready to stand up, so they shook and dropped me like a paper doll. Blue Eyes was holding me before I even got to the floor. It took me a second to notice the closeness of his body, my breathing was affected, that wood scent of his driving me crazy.

             
“For once Katherine, give yourself a fucking break. You can’t be wonder woman all the time, needing help is not wrong!”

             
“I can’t need help all the time. I fucking need to do things for myself!”

             
“I promise you’ll be yourself again, but give this to me, ok? Let me help you.” The deep blue eyes that were staring at me, made me yield. That was the beginning of a lot of frustration, provoking a lot of semi-world wars in his parents’ room.

             
My eyes started filling with tears, angry at myself for getting hurt in first place. “What is it, doll? Are you crying because you hate to cry again?”

             
“You son of a bitch I want to fucking go to my apartment now!” He was making fun of my stupid emotions, the ones I wasn’t even aware I had before that stupid accident.

             
He traced my face with his finger, a smile curling up his mouth. “And there she is. I hate when you slipped through my fingers, doll. Come on, I’ll take you.” Dylan stupid Berkeley was just pushing my buttons and trying to make me myself again. And that just made my heart beat a little faster than usual.

             
After a couple of days and a thousand tries I finally could stand by myself. That was like getting Willy Wonka’s golden ticket. It meant I could walk through the apartment if I wanted to, instead of being glued to the bed.

             
But it also made me noticed that I was sucking Dylan’s life from his eyes. He was tired and he wasn’t used to be in his house playing nurse all day long. After a lot of effort, finally, I convinced him that he could go back to work and leave me for a couple of hours a day.

             
“I don’t want you to be alone.”

             
“I won’t be alone, Mrs. Danvers, Joe, Lorna and Celia are here. I have my own entourage! And you’ll be in your office just for a couple of hours. We need go back to normal, Dylan, and this is the first step to it.” It was not that I wanted him to be away from me, but I needed him to take a rest of his self-imposed obligations with me. For days he had been waking up every night to put some meds in my IV and to check my heart rate and temperature. During the day, he worked in his father’s office and watched me sleep most of the time. For someone like Dylan, this routine had to be terrible and life sucking.
He’s not even with you, baby, he must be bored and tired, give him a break.

             
“I’ll think about it, but if I go I’ll come back in a couple of hours ok?”

             
“Yes, that will be fine. You need it.” He kissed my forehead and turned off the light. For the first time, instead of falling asleep like a rock, I remained awake after he closed his eyes. I noticed he had created an imaginary line between us. Our bodies were not touching.

             
As the stalker that I had become, I observed him, wanting any kind of connection. It is terrible to have perfection, to know perfection, be so close to perfection, and being unable to touch it.
Damn princess stop now! Go to sleep and stop hunting the poor guy!
Hating the sane side of my brain, I stopped myself.

             
The next day I was awakened by the smell of the perfect wooden lotion he used. His lips were on my cheek and I opened my eyes to meet a perfect GQ cover. He was wearing his grey three piece suite, purple tie and handkerchief, and white shirt.  “I just didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye, doll. I’ll be back in a couple of hours, go back to sleep.”

             
‘”Have a good day.”

             
A few hours later I was alone and I couldn’t sleep. And of course free time is the cause of all suspicious, mysterious infidelities and conspiracy theories in the world. There was one thing in my mind: that forehead kiss. He hadn’t even tried his usual too close to the mouth kiss. He was not touching me that much; even when we were sleeping together, he stayed on his side of the bed.

             
At first I thought it was about my bruises and broken bones, but I was healing, and I couldn’t see how a kiss would change that.
He’s not with you anymore. You left him and he let you go.
Maybe finally I had gotten what I wanted, he was my friend now; he didn’t want me anymore.
Let’s be honest baby, who would want someone that looks like you right now?
I needed to talk to him, I didn’t want him to feel responsible for me if he didn’t want to be with me anymore. Even when it would kill me, I needed to free him.

             
Stop with this craziness!
I needed to stop, so to distract myself I started to think about work; that had always been distraction enough. I called Mrs. Cherry and arranged everything so I could get back to doing something work related.

             
“Joe, can you go to the office and get some stuff Mrs. Cherry will give to you?”

             
He looked at me suspiciously. “Ms. B, does Berkeley know about this? Maybe you should ask him first.”

             
“Joe, this has no importance. I just want to have here some stuff that I need. You know I can’t trust the people in the office.”

             
“Ok, but that’s it, right? You don’t want to do something stupid?” Big Guy knew me too well.

             
“Of course not Joe, I wouldn’t do that.”

             
“Oh Ms. B, you would, that’s why I am asking.” Laughing he left the room. An hour later I had my iPad, laptop, and some files. I had asked Mrs. Cherry to direct my email to me again, and to let John know I would start doing some small things. Of course, it would be behind Blue Eyes’ back, he would go nuts to know I wanted to get back to work. Yeah I was really injured, no I was not the train wreck I was the last couple of days.

             
I wrote an email to John and one to my staff. After that, I put everything away and asked Joe to put it in Dylan’s mother’s library. There was no harm if Dylan didn’t know about it.

             
When he came back I was so happy to see him that I almost jumped to kiss him, but he stayed as physically distant as he had been.
You need to talk to him! He doesn’t want you anymore…
I knew I had to, but I was not ready to let him go yet.
Welcome to the pity parade!

             
I spent my oh-so-fucking-boring-days sleeping, working or exploring the house. Between these adventurous tasks I learned a lot about Blue Eyes; yes, my stalking tactics remained intact from the accident. In a corner of the library, I found some old photo albums, the ones that became my new pastime.

             
Even when it required a lot of effort to walk around the house, I was getting better, which meant staying out of bed for longer periods. Of course not everything was fun,
yes, super fun being in bed and dragging your ass out of it,
I also was suffering from sleeping with the sexiest man alive without being able of touching him. From one to “you’re sick”, how bad is that the only thing in my mind was to lick those amazing hipbones while he was sleeping?
You have become a crazy ass stalker, princess!

             
One day I was looking at some photos in Mr. Berkeley’s office, completely lost in young Dylan’s eyes when a noise scared the hell out of me. “What are you doing here?”

             
“Holy shit! Max you scared me!” The hot version of Kevin Costner on The Bodyguard, was a menacing man, way different from Joe. He was not my friend. In fact, he looked like a high level marine who would eat little stuffed animals for breakfast, though he was always protecting Dylan.

             
“I am sorry Ms. Bianchi. I was just not expecting you to be here. It is good to see you are better.” His badass demeanor had nothing to do with what he was saying.

             
“Thank you Max. I was just looking at some pictures of Dylan’s childhood.” I pointed to one of the photographs.

             
He came close to me, but it was obvious he was still in defense mode. “He was a nice kid.”

             
“How long have you known him?”

             
“His entire life. I was Mr. Berkeley’s security guard, Joe was Mrs. Berkeley’s bodyguard.”

             
They had known each other for a lifetime. Of course my brain got distracted by something shiny, the fact that Dylan put his mom’s man on my watch, that gave me girly stupid hope that he cared for me.
You’re already planning the wedding, you jerk!
“It’s nice to know more about him.”

             
“You know more than anyone else.” He was sharing more than he ever had with me and I wanted to prolong this as much as I could, so I remained silent. “You are good to him. You can make him the happiest man on Earth or break him for life. Like that Friday.”

             
I didn’t know where these words came from, but I wanted him to elaborate. “You are talking about the day of the accident.” I felt so guilty, my stupid singing made everyone worry about me.
Stupid John Mayer! I knew he wasn’t trust worthy!

             
“No, that day he just lost it; he just went crazy. I was talking about the day you left him. That day something broke in him.”

             
What?! But he let me go! He never went after me!
We really needed to talk about it. “Things are complicated.” His eyes stayed on me while analyzing the ‘are’, instead of ‘were’.

             
“I know, just be careful. You are the only thing he has in the world.”

             
He left the same way he had come, with the subtlety of a wrecking ball, leaving me alone with my crazy head after saying those words.
Stop thinking!
I went to my bed and tried to sleep haunted by the words of the menacing man.

             
“Ms. Bianchi?” Thank God Mrs. Danvers broke my thousand hypothetical theories.

             
“Yes Mrs. Danvers?”

             
The nice woman came to my side cleaning her hands in her apron. “Just wanted to know what do you want me to cook for today?”
What the fuck?
The look on my face must have given me away. I had no idea what she was talking about, so she continued nervously. “Yes, since you are now the lady of this house I supposed you’d want me to cook according to your wishes.”

             
For the first time since the accident, I laughed, a noisy, coming from my stomach, laugh. “Sorry, Mrs. Danvers, but no.” I cleaned a tear that was running down my cheek. “I am definitely not the lady of any house. Even with all my mom’s efforts, I am not even sure if I am a lady. I am a burden here, but I promise I’ll be better soon. So please, just keep doing what you’ve been doing all these years and I’ll be out of your way.”

             
A little embarrassed Mrs. Danvers smiled at me and accepted my speech. She left the room leaving me a little more amused than when she had come. After some time, the drugs in my body did their job and I drifted. Voices woke me up and I decided to walk towards the noise, hearing three women laughing in the kitchen. The voice of perfect Blue Eyes was in the background.

             
I stayed out of the door listening like the nosey woman I had become. “How was my girl today?” His voice was so soft and sweet that I melted. Unless he was referring to Mrs. Danvers, he was talking about me. It was the first time he referred to me as his in public and my knees felt weak.
I swear someone changed your brain during the accident, you silly girl.
You are so fucked, princess!
The accident had made us lower our walls, we were vulnerable and exposed for the first time in our lives. But that’s definitely not what we were, it was just an illusion of the circumstances.
So no Katherine, you can’t make permanent decisions with temporary feelings.