Kele Moon - Crossing the line

“Wyatt,” she said as she tilted her head back to look up at him. She appeared to be studying him with a keen eye before she shook her head. “I see what she’s talking ’bout.”

“Was she asking for me?” Wyatt asked quickly. “Is she okay? You need to let me go see her.”

She held up her hand. “We have a room where we can discuss this. Follow me.”

Wyatt saw his father pale, but he recovered quickly. His father grabbed his arm when something in Wyatt wanted to stop. What if she told him Tabitha was gone in that room?

“Is she dead?” Wyatt asked quickly. “If she is, just—”

“She’s not dead,” she interrupted him. “I believe she’ll recover. Now would you like to follow me?”

“O-okay,” Wyatt stuttered and then followed the doctor when she turned without another word.

Once she had ushered Wyatt and his father into a private room with a couch and some chairs, she gestured for them to sit. That didn’t bode well, but they both sat because this woman had a way about her that demanded attention.

“Your wife had an unfortunate incident with taking too much medication. It happens sometimes when people don’t read the medicine boxes properly,” she went on in a very calm, conscientious voice. “We pumped her stomach and are giving her drugs to counteract the negative effects to her body.”

“What drugs?”

“I’m afraid it’s a private matter, and the patient has asked that it not be shared.”

“That’s bullshit!” his father shouted. “If he’s her husband, he has a right to know. She’s not in any condition to make medical decisions for herself.”

“She has a mother, doesn’t she?”

“Her mother?” Wyatt barked. “You’re going to turn her medical care over to her instead of me?”

“Yeah, this is all kinds of illegal!” his father agreed. “And trust me, I know her mother. She ain’t fit to take care of herself, let alone her daughter. Either you start giving us real answers, or we’re gonna get a lawyer in here faster than you can say lawsuit.”

“How long have you been married to her, Wyatt?” the doctor asked curiously. “Because none of the forms her family filled out had your name on them.”

“F-four days,” Wyatt said, wishing he had a better answer.

“I believe she would be within her legal rights to get that marriage annulled if you start stomping all over her medical wishes,” the doctor countered. “I would give the very real and honest advice to both of you that pushing this is going to create a whole lot of complications you don’t want. Your best hope for saving your marriage is to drop it. Step back for a little while. Let your wife heal, and then go from there.”

“Why doesn’t she want me to know?” Wyatt scowled at her. “What is it? If she just took something, that’s not—”

“Go home, Wyatt.”

“No!” Wyatt shouted. “I’m not leaving until I see her!”

“She doesn’t want to see you.” The doctor held up her hands. “I’m sorry. She was very adamant about it. I’m not going to force a patient who is in a fragile medical state into a situation that would cause her stress. If you have to sue me, then so be it.”

“It was just a fight! People fight!” Wyatt yelled, his voice echoing off the stark, white walls. “Tell her I’m sorry. Sometimes I say dumb shit, but she knows I don’t mean it. She knows that about me!”

“I believe she does.” The doctor smiled, and Wyatt could have sworn he saw tears in her eyes, but then she turned away and ran a hand through her hair. “I’ll tell her what you said.”

“This can’t happen,” Wyatt said frantically. “I love that girl in there more than air. She can’t be sick, and I can’t be out here while she’s in there. I’m supposed to be with her.”

The doctor opened up the door and gestured to it. “Let her be for now. Give her a night to heal. In the morning things may be better.”

“Come on, Wy.” His father nudged his arm. “We’ll go home. I’ll call my lawyer first thing in the morning. This ain’t over.”

Wyatt stayed on the couch stubbornly. “I can wait for her in the waiting room, right? I can stay there until she’s released. I can stay there for a week if I have to. I need to see her.”

“Wyatt,” the doctor said softly. “What you don’t know is that you have an angel looking out for you. Why not make all her effort worthwhile and go home for tonight?”

“What?” Wyatt frowned, feeling like this doctor was speaking another language.

“Someone loves you. Be thankful.”

“Did Tabitha say she loves me?” Wyatt pressed.

“Yes, Wyatt, she did.” The doctor nodded. “But she wants you to go home.”

Wyatt threw up his hands in defeat and then stood because he didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize Tabitha’s health. “I guess.”

“Okay.” She smiled, and again, her eyes appeared watery as she opened the door wider.

Wyatt walked out behind his father, but then he turned back and grabbed the doctor’s arm. “Listen to me, Doc. You tell Tabitha I love her. Tell her I’m sorry. Tell her that I will spend the rest of my life making this up to her. All she needs to do is come back to me.”

She nodded. “I’ll tell her.”

* * *

It was the first time in Wyatt’s life his father broke a promise to him.

He didn’t get to see her again.

Tabitha never came back to him.

Two days after her overdose, Terry showed up at their doorstep. He looked tired and worn thin, but Wyatt didn’t have any sympathy for him. He had been sick with grief for days.

“Is she with you?” Wyatt barked, wondering why he hadn’t thought of Terry in the first place. “I went to her house because the hospital told me they’d discharged her, but her brother said she left and—”

“She was with me,” Terry said hesitantly. “I picked her up from the hospital last night.”

“Why the fuck didn’t you call me?” Wyatt yelled at him. “I’ve been puking my guts up for two days. What the hell is wrong with you? Is she okay? Where is she?”

“She—” Terry sighed and looked past Wyatt to Jules and Clay standing behind him. “She left, Wyatt. I took her to the airport. She wanted to leave.”

“Over an argument?” A crazed laugh burst out of Wyatt. “One fight in all this time, and she leaves me. This is bullshit! Something ain’t right. I don’t buy it. Where was she going?”

“She wouldn’t tell me.” Terry shrugged. “She said I’d tell you.”

“We can track plane records,” Jules cut in. “We can find a way. We ain’t even certain she’s medically sound. That hospital is looking at a big lawsuit.”

“She wanted me to give you this.” Terry handed him an envelope. “I’m sorry, Wyatt.”

Wyatt looked at the envelope in his hand, already knowing he didn’t want to open it. “This ain’t happening,” he whispered as he flipped it over, seeing his name written in Tabitha’s neat handwriting. “This is a breakup letter.”

Terry shrugged again as tears welled up in his eyes. He wiped at his cheeks hastily and said, “Yeah, Wyatt, it probably is. I really am sorry. You have no idea how much.”

Wyatt turned away from the door before his emotions got the better of him and he punched the messenger. He let his sister say good-bye to Terry. He just sat numbly on the couch and stared at the letter in his hand. Clay sat beside him, and it was one of the nice things about his best friend. He didn’t press anything. He simply let Wyatt digest that his life had just been shattered.

He was still staring at the letter an hour later when Jules spoke from her seat on the other side of him. “Are you gonna open it?”

He shook his head. “If I open it, that’ll mean it’s over.”

“I’m sorry, Wy Wy.” Jules wrapped an arm around him and leaned her forehead against his shoulder. She cried the tears he felt too dead inside to cry and then reached over and took it from him. “Do you want me to open it for you?”

“No, burn it instead.”

“Wyatt, you need to know what it says,” Clay finally broke his silence to say somberly. “If you don’t know, it’ll drive you crazy. We all need to know why she would do this. It’s like she betrayed all of us by turning to that crap. We need a good reason. There has to be one.”

He took it back from his sister, knowing Clay was probably right. He could hear the hurt in Clay’s voice, the absolute denial that this was happening. There was some clue in this envelope about why the girl he had loved for as long as he could remember would leave him over one fight.

It was a terrible fight, but still.

He stood and stuffed the envelope into his back pocket. “I’m going outside.”

“You want me to go with you?” Jules asked him and then wiped at her cheeks. “We’ll both go with you.”

“I know.” He nodded and gave her a weak smile. “But I think I should be by myself when I read it.”

“Okay.” She reached out to poke his side in a way that would have been playful any other day but today. “We’ll be here.”

He went out to the lake in back, remembering all the times he walked Tabitha from her car in the dead of night to get her up to his bedroom so they could laugh and love each other without anyone else in the world getting in the way. He sat down heavily on a rock by the embankment and used care to open the envelope when usually he would tear one open.

He pulled out the letter and stared down at it, willing some sort of peace for himself.

Wyatt,

Please be happy.

Love life like only you can.

Be amazing at everything you do.

Never stop being silly. I always loved you for it, even when I said I didn’t.

Letting me stay gone is your last gift to me, and I know in my heart you’ll give it to me. You said I could have anything. This is what I want.

I’m sorry. I know the moon would’ve been easier.

I will never, not until the day I stop breathing air, regret what we had together.

My childhood was beautiful because of you.

Thank you for staying a perfect memory,

Tabitha

Wyatt stared down at the letter until the words started to run. He realized he was crying again when he thought the tears had dried up days ago. He hated this letter. He abhorred it for containing the one thing that would keep him from going after her. He wanted to ball it up and throw it in the lake, but he couldn’t. This letter told him something happened. He could see through the lines, could read the intensity of it. The wild desperation on Tabitha’s part not to be found. What if it was something Wyatt couldn’t face? Worse, what if seeing him somehow reminded her of what she was trying to escape and pushed her to do something rash again? Jules said Tabitha made him stupid, and he knew his sister was usually right about most things. He just never expected that blind love and stupidity to damage Tabitha, but it had. He’d broken his own rule in life.

He didn’t want to hurt her. Not again. He would do anything to prevent it.

He folded it up and stuck it in the envelope instead. Then he slid his wedding ring off his finger and threw it into the lake in its place.

That was his final gift to Tabitha.

He never could say no to his girl.

August, 2000

New York City

“My brother could take that guy, you know? Just ’cause he got a technical knockout in the first round don’t mean nothing.”

Tabitha looked over at the kid sitting next to her in the bar. He was obviously Italian, with the New York accent to match. She instantly liked him. Her little nook of New York was mostly Italian, which was the reason she’d settled here after shopping for apartments for such a long time. They had a brassiness to them she appreciated.

It sort of reminded her of Wyatt.

“Oh yeah?” Tabitha turned in her stool and arched a skeptical eyebrow at him. “You sure ’bout that? He’s pretty badass. I saw him do a roundhouse off the cage once that’d knock your socks off.”

“Hell, my brother’s bigger than him.” He gestured to the television hanging over the bar that was broadcasting the UFC fight. “And he’s got a whole shitload of black belts. He could kick his ass blindfolded.”

“Your brother sounds like a scary guy. Does he know you’re hanging out in a bar?”

“Nah, what my brother doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” He shrugged with a mischievous grin. “Besides, I got a reason for being here.”