My Boyfriend’s Weekend Escape Was With My Best Friend Chapter 04
Watching the balance on the card drop lower and lower, I thought, when the money we saved for our wedding runs out, I’ll leave.
They wheeled Chloe out of the ICU, pale and unconscious, into the bed next to Jason’s. The anesthesia hadn’t worn off yet.
Every half hour, Jason buzzed the nurse to ask why she wasn’t awake yet and whether something was wrong. By the seventh time, the nurse had had enough.
“I told you. She’ll wake up when the anesthesia wears off. You can’t even notice when your own girlfriend cuts her hand, but you keep obsessing over someone else’s girlfriend.”
The nurse had been cold to Jason ever since she found out I was his actual girlfriend. Jason felt humiliated.
He scowled at me. “She’s always so clumsy. She gets into car accidents on the way home. She nearly burns down the kitchen cooking. She cuts herself peeling fruit.”
I looked down at my index finger, still bleeding from where the knife had cut.
The car accident happened because he’d asked for roast chicken from a specific grocery store. I took a detour after work to get it for him. I didn’t expect to get caught in that pileup.
I started cooking because he kept saying his coworker’s girlfriend packed lunch for him every day, all healthy and delicious.
I could barely fry an egg, but I followed video recipes and practiced in the kitchen every single day, learning how to pack lunches for him.
The only thing I was making for myself right now was this apple.
The nurse shot Jason a look, wheeled over a cart, and grabbed my hand. She disinfected the cut, applied ointment, and wrapped it in a bandage.
“You have a clotting disorder. You need to avoid handling knives. Take care of yourself.”
Then she glanced at Jason. “He’s the one with a cast on his leg. His hands are fine. He can’t even peel a piece of fruit?”
Jason’s face flushed, then went pale, then flushed again, he looked awful. Annoyed, he grabbed the apple and the paring knife from me and started peeling in silence.
When he finished, he cut it into small pieces and shaped some of them like little hearts. He arranged them neatly on a plate. It looked beautiful.
I watched his practiced movements. In five years together, I had never eaten a single piece of fruit he’d cut for me.
Then I glanced at Chloe in the bed next to him.
She only ate apples if they were cut into little hearts. She said they tasted sweeter that way.
A sound came from the other bed. Chloe’s fingers twitched, and finally, her eyes opened.
Jason shouted for the nurses.
A crowd of nurses gathered around Chloe’s bed. Jason couldn’t get up, but he stretched his neck as far as he could, watching every move from the next bed.
When the doctor said she was out of danger and just needed rest, he finally exhaled in relief.
Jason handed me the plate of apple pieces, and I froze.
“What are you waiting for?” he said impatiently. “Take it to her.”
Chloe looked at the heart-shaped apples on the plate and immediately popped one into her mouth.
She smiled at me. “Stella, you’re the best. You remembered I only eat them like this.”
My voice came out cold and stiff. “Jason cut them. He never forgets, apparently.”