Sorry for the false alarm yesterday. I uploaded it, re read it and hated it! Here's another attempt!
X
On the ride home, Audrey found herself wishing Kashal would say something. After almost three years of marriage, their conversations had become sparse and meaningless. They still spoke about the mundane things like grocery lists and the weather but even those were now strained and forced. At the start, she was upset that things had cooled off so dramatically, but she wasn't any more. It was the new normal, that was life.
Right now, she was willing him to say something, anything. She wanted to know if he had seen them, if he was upset or just in his usual state of uninterested.
Her answer came as they arrived in the hallway of their condo.
"Do you dance with all your colleagues like that?" he asked flatly as she purposely took her time locking the front door behind them.
She froze.
"Kash, I'm sorry" she said quietly.
"I know we're far from a perfect couple but I thought you respected me enough not to flaunt something like that in my face" he said, sounding sad.
"We're definitely not perfect Kash, and we're hardly a couple at all" she replied, in disbelief. "But you know nothing has happened, and nothing will happen because I'm married to you" she emphasised.
"Is it going to become a problem?" he asked.
"Of course not" she replied hastily. "I made vows, I'm not the type to break them" she said sounding a little offended.
After a few moments of silence he spoke again. "Can you get the hospital to put you on opposite shifts or something so you don't have to see him" Kashal suggested.
"No" she said firmly. "I'm not going to give myself a reputation of being hard to work with, it'll ruin my career. You're going to have to trust me. Just like I trust you when you go off to head office for your meetings once a month" she said getting frustrated.
"I think I'll sleep out here tonight" Kashal said nodding towards the sofa, not even acknowledging her last statement.
"Up to you" she replied as she turned and headed to the bedroom.
They didn't say goodnight.
X
By the time she woke the next morning, he had already left for the office. He had made coffee but there were no other signs of life in the condo, they lived totally separate lives. She thought there might have been a little fallout from their talk last night, it appeared that life had gone back to normal.
She wasn't due at the hospital until after lunch so she pottered around the condo, sorting laundry and clearing up until it was time to go, albeit a little early. She wasn't in the mood for socialising today and hoped that her early arrival would avoid the busy, social shift changeover.
As she arrived, she walked through the lines of workers, moving like ants, cleaning up and packing away from the Gala the night before. Just as quickly as it was turned into an extravagant entertaining space, it was turned back into their daily haunt, even quicker maybe. She had noticed that a few steps ahead Neil, heading the same direction. Any other day, she told herself, she would have called out and they would have walked in together, but not today.
Unfortunately, those thoughts didn't last long because Neil had been stopped in his tracks by Jo who looked like she was dancing on pins. She couldn't help catching up with him just as Jo was starting to tell him about a crazy procedure from that morning.
"Perfect!" Jo exclaimed as she saw Audrey come up on them. "Now I get to tell you together. You're both early, let's grab a coffee."
"Hi, by the way" Audrey said, shaking her head.
"Hi" Neil replied, sounding a little groggy.
"Yeah, yeah, hi" she said. "Come on."
They sat around a small table with the steaming hot drinks, and got ready to listen.
The morning procedure was a scheduled hysterectomy and staging for an advanced stage cancer and not everything had gone to plan.
"We had the uterus, cervix, tubes and ovaries out and we had her abdomen opened from sternum to pelvis" Jo started, but looking around suddenly to see who was nearby. She continued in a much quieter voice which Neil greatly appreciated.
He was cradling his coffee gently in both hand just underneath his nose. It was still too hot to drink but he felt a bit better for inhaling the heady aroma.
"Anyway, we were waaaaay down in the corners of the pelvis digging out lymph nodes here and there when we found a massive one" she exclaimed. "I swear it was about the size of a tennis ball and had a bunch of vessels running through it. That was not good."
"We still had to get it out, but the blood supply was coming right off the internal iliac artery and was really tricky to get on to."
She took a pause to sip her coffee before the story made its crescendo to build the tension. Her friends both smiled at her, knowing how she loved a drama and eventually she continued.
"So, we clipped as many vessels as we could reach and then started cutting. I swear, we lost a full litre of blood in the next 60 seconds before we got control of the bleeding. The poor little first year on suction had no idea what was going on, the field was just flooding. Was scary as hell at the time but it turned out ok. She's in recovery now, Dr Edwards has gone to see the family" she said exhaling loudly at the end.
"Good job you laid off the free bar last night" Audrey smiled. "Maybe you should have too Melendez, you're looking fragile this morning" she said, speaking directly to him for the first time.
"You were fine leaving here, what happened?" Jo asked.
"After party at my place" he said gruffly. When he saw them both raise their eyebrows he continued "by myself, don't worry."
"Drowning your sorrows over Jessica?" Jo asked, fishing for information.
He quickly glanced at Audrey to see if she had reacted. He didn't know if she knew, or even if it would bother her if she did. He didn't know what he was looking for.
Jo's pager broke the awkward silence.
"Patient is waking up, got to go" she said leaving the two of them to finish their drinks.
After a few more minutes, Audrey spoke.
"So, you and Jessica?"
"We're done" he confirmed.
"Sorry" she said automatically.
'Are you?" he asked boldly. He had to much of a headache to get into this now. "I'm sorry, that was rude" he said putting his hand on hers to stop her getting up.
He felt a jolt but left his hand there, his thumb briefly rubbing the soft skin. She felt the jolt and after a couple of seconds, pulled her hand away, but she didn't leave. They sat looking at each other blankly.
"It's just wasn't going to work with the distance" he said finally. He didn't go into the commitment issues they had discussed, he didn't think it appropriate.
"Kash saw us dancing" Audrey said quietly in response. "Asked if anything was 'going on'."
"Sorry" he said, his shoulders dropping. "I didn't think."
"I did" she said quickly. "I knew he might see us, I checked the time, but I said yes anyway."
"Oh."
"Yeah, oh."
"You ok? Did you fight?" he asked cautiously. He knew he was getting close to overstepping the line.
"We don't fight" she replied. "Neither of us cares enough to fight anymore."
They sat a moment longer in silence, halfway between comfortable and awkward. Stuck in no man's land.
Audrey glanced at the clock on the wall, and nodded.
"We should go" she said standing up. Neil nodded and followed suit.
"I would" he said quietly as they walked together towards the elevators.
"Pardon?" she asked.
"I would" he repeated. "I would care enough to fight with you" he said solemnly, looking straight ahead.
She stopped in her tracks and let him keep walking. She didn't think getting in the elevator with him right now was a good idea.