The Evening Wind Never Reached Him

At the amusement park, my sister and I fell off the carousel at the same time.

My knees hit the gravel, and blood beaded up on the skin.

The pain made me suck in a breath.

Dustin Fox came running.

Past me. Past my outstretched hand.

Straight to my sister, pulling her up.

Where does it hurt? Are you okay?

He crouched in front of her, brows drawn tight, the worry in his voice impossible to hide.

Not once, start to finish, did he look at me.

Sitting there on the ground, staring at the back of his head, I suddenly felt like my knees didn't hurt so much anymore.

He got her on her feet before he seemed to remember I existed, turning to toss over his shoulder: "Wait here a minute. I'll take her to the first-aid room."

The night wind was cold, and it stung my eyes.

I looked down at my bleeding knees.

I didn't want to wait.

Three years ago, in the car crash, he saved my sister first and left me stuck in the crumpled wreck for another forty minutes.

Two years ago, in the rainstorm, he brought her an umbrella first and left me waiting an hour and a half outside my office.

And now, even a scraped knee had to wait.

I stood up slowly, and when my knee bent, I nearly went down again.

I dug out my phone and sent him a text.

"Dustin, let's break up."

......

Message sent.

Beside the green bubble was the one he'd sent a few hours ago: "I'm here, waiting for you at the entrance."

I stared at those words, and a laugh slipped out of me.

I shoved the phone back in my pocket.

I limped toward the park's exit.

Every step sent a sharp stab through my knee.

Blood mixed with grit, sticking to my skin, filthy and raw.

But my heart had never been so calm.

Like a pool of dead water that could never ripple again.

The exit was bright with lights, crowds coming and going.

I flagged down a taxi and gave the driver my friend's address.

We hadn't gotten far before Dustin called.

I hit decline.

He called again.

I hit decline again.

After a few rounds of that, he sent a text.

"Jane Pruitt, what are you throwing a fit about now?"

I looked at the line and felt nothing but the irony of it.

Right. In his eyes, all my hurt and resentment was just me throwing a fit.

Then a second message popped up.

"Vi's heart is acting up. The doctor wants to keep her for observation, and I can't get away. Go home first. We'll talk when I'm back."

Viola Pruitt again.

Always Viola.

My sister, Viola.

She was born with a heart condition, and from the time we were small she'd been everyone's precious thing.

Dustin included.

I blocked him on messaging and dragged his number into the block list too.

The world went quiet all at once.

The taxi pulled up outside my friend Melinda Sullivan's building, and I paid and got out.

Melinda came rushing down the second I called, and when she saw the state of me, especially the knees still bleeding, she jumped.

"Oh my God! Were you off fighting a war? Where's Dustin?"

"We broke up."

I said it flatly, like it had nothing to do with me.

Melinda froze, then slapped her thigh.

"Good riddance! A man carrying a torch for his girlfriend's sister? What would you keep him around for?"

She helped me upstairs, dug out the first-aid kit, and carefully cleaned the wound.

The sting of the antiseptic made me shudder head to toe.

Melinda cursed the whole time. "Easy, easy, hang in there. Dustin, that blind idiot, a whole grown person falls flat on the ground in front of him and he doesn't see it? Are his eyes just for show?"

I didn't say anything, just stared at my knee.

The wound came clean, laying bare the raw, ugly mess of it.

Hideous.

Melinda smoothed on ointment and wrapped it in gauze.

"There. Keep it out of water for a few days." She packed the supplies away, then couldn't help asking, "You really broke up this time? Not just talk?"

"Really."

I sank into the couch, feeling like every bit of strength had been wrung out of me.

Three years ago, in that crash, all three of us were in the car.

The car was crushed out of shape, and I was pinned in the passenger seat with a broken leg.

Dustin climbed out of the driver's seat, and the first thing he did was pull open the back door.

He carried the unconscious Viola out and got her onto the ambulance.

Only then did he come back.

The firefighters were cutting the car apart while he stood off to one side, watching me through the shattered glass.

I was in so much pain I was close to passing out, but I still forced a smile at him.

"I'm fine."

He didn't say anything, just his eyes went red.

I thought it was because it hurt him to see me like that.

Later I understood. It was fear catching up with him.

Fear that something might have happened to Viola.

I waited in that wrecked car a full forty minutes.

Forty minutes is long enough for a heart to go from scalding to ice-cold.

After that, it felt like everything changed.

And also, like nothing had changed at all.

He'd only taken that favoritism and moved it out of the shadows and into the open.

The next morning I woke to my phone buzzing.

An unknown number.

I swiped to answer, and Dustin's voice came through, tight with barely held anger.

"Jane, aren't you clever now, blocking me and vanishing?"

I held the phone a little away from my ear and let him finish.

"Are you done throwing your fit? Viola was in critical condition last night. I sat up with her the whole time. Now get home. Right now."

His tone was matter-of-fact, edged with command.

As if I owed him my patience. As if I was supposed to keep waiting, no questions asked.

"We've already broken up, Dustin." I said it evenly. "Where I go, whether I come home, none of it has anything to do with you."

A beat of silence on the other end.

"Broken up? Jane, don't say things like that again." His voice softened, took on a coaxing note. "I know you took a fall yesterday too. That was my fault, I let you slip past me. Where are you now? I'll come get you."

"No need."

I hung up and blocked that number too.

Melinda came out of the kitchen carrying breakfast.

"That scumbag calling?"

"Yeah."

"Did you tear into him?"

"Not worth it."

For someone you've already decided to give up on, even one more word is a waste.

Melinda handed me the milk. "Good that you're letting go. Plenty of decent men out there. We don't need his type."

I drank the milk and said nothing.

That morning, I went back to the place Dustin and I shared.

We didn't have much. I had even less.

One suitcase held all of it.

I was wheeling the case toward the door when it opened.

Dustin stood in the doorway, haggard, dark shadows under his eyes. He looked like he hadn't slept at all.

He saw the suitcase at my feet, and his expression darkened.

"Where are you going?"

"Moving out."

He stepped forward, blocking my way, and reached for my wrist.

I stepped back and dodged him.

"Jane, stop this." He pinched the bridge of his nose, worn out. "I know I was wrong. I'm apologizing to you. But you know Viola's condition. She can't be upset."

That line again.

Viola can't be upset.

So what about me?

Is my heart made of iron?

"Dustin, three years ago, you saved her first. My leg was broken and I sat in that car waiting for you for forty minutes."

"Two years ago, in the downpour, you brought her an umbrella first. I stood outside my office building waiting for you for an hour and a half."

"Yesterday, we fell together, and all you saw was her."

I looked at him, one word at a time.

"I'm tired of waiting. I'm done."

He had no answer. The color drained slowly from his face.

"I" He forced the words out. "Janie, it wasn't the same. The crash, she was unconscious, I didn't know how badly she was hurt. The rain, her office was far away, and she didn't have an umbrella."

"And so?" I cut him off. "So I deserved to be left behind, deserved to get soaked, deserved to sit alone on the ground waiting for you to spare me a glance?"

He was silent.

A long moment later, he said quietly, "I'm sorry."

That apology came too late.

And it weighed too little.

"I don't need your sorry." I gripped the handle of the suitcase. "From now on, you go take good care of your Viola. Don't come looking for me again."

I went around him and reached for the door.

My hand had barely touched the handle when he seized my wrist from behind.

Hard enough it felt like he wanted to crush the bone.

"I won't let you leave!"

There was a thread of panic in his voice, faint but there.

I didn't turn around.

"Let go."

"No!" he repeated, stubborn. "Janie, we've been together seven years. You say it's over and it's just over?"

"Seven years?" I let out a laugh, as if I'd heard the biggest joke in the world. "Dustin, ask yourself honestly. In these seven years, did you ever really love me?"

"Or were you only loving someone else's shadow through me?"

Viola and I are fraternal twins.

Alike enough, seven or eight parts the same.

But nothing alike in temperament.

She was frail, I was strong.

She needed protecting. I was used to carrying things on my own.

The grip on my wrist went suddenly slack.

I took the chance to shake him off, pulled the door open, and walked out without looking back.

Behind me came his low, strangled shout.

I didn't stop.

I moved into Melinda's place for the time being.

She helped me get my things unpacked, then pulled me down to sit beside her.

"So what's the plan now? What about work? You and Dustin are at the same company."

I was quiet for a moment.

"I'll quit."

Dustin and I met in college, and after graduation we ended up at the same firm.

He was an architect. I was a structural engineer.

Everyone called us the perfect team, the couple everyone envied.

Looking back now, it just felt like a joke.

"Quitting's not a bad idea." Melinda nodded. "Better than running into each other every day, having to see his face. Do you know where you're going yet?"

"Not yet. I'll rest for a while first."

I'd been wound too tight these past few years.

Driven at work, and in love... even more so.

I kept thinking that if I was just good enough, impressive enough, Dustin would spare me another look.

Only now did I see how wrong I'd been.

He didn't look at me not because I wasn't good enough, but because I simply wasn't in his eyes at all.

For the next few days, Dustin didn't come to bother me.

I figured he thought I was just throwing a fit, that once I cooled off I'd naturally come back.

I was glad for the quiet. I finished my resignation paperwork and started browsing apartments online.

A week later, I got a call.

It was my mother.

"Janie, what's going on with you and Dustin? Vi tells me you two had a fight? And you've moved out?"

I leaned against the balcony railing, watching the traffic flow by below.

"Mom, we broke up."

"Nonsense!" Her voice shot up at once. "Everything was fine, why would you break up? What has Dustin ever done wrong by you?"

I closed my eyes.

"Mom, everything about him is wrong by me."

"What kind of way is that to talk?" She was displeased. "Dustin has been so good to you, the whole family has seen it. Did Vi upset you again? You're the older sister, can't you give in to her a little? She's not well, you know that."

Here we go again.

My whole life, whenever Viola and I had a falling-out, I was always the one in the wrong.

Because I was the older sister.

Because she wasn't well.

"Mom, I'm the one you actually gave birth to." I couldn't stop myself.

The other end went silent.

It was a long moment before she sighed.

"Janie, I know you feel wronged. But Vi... she's different. Three years ago, after the accident, the doctors said she might never wake up. It was Dustin who stayed by her the whole time, talking to her, who brought her back. He did this family a great kindness. You can't treat him this way."

So that was it.

There were things I hadn't known.

Something clogged up in my chest, a heavy, aching pressure.

"So I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life repaying his kindness?"

"Repaying, what repaying? Aren't the two of you dating?"

"That wasn't dating." I cut her off. "That was charity."

I hung up.

My chest heaved, my eyes stinging hard.

I thought I was past being hurt by any of this.

But it turned out I wasn't.

That afternoon, I met an agent to look at an apartment.

It was in an older complex downtown, not far from Melinda's.

One bedroom, one living room, plainly furnished, but clean.

I put down a deposit on the spot.

Coming out of the agency, I was waiting for a car at the curb when a black Cayenne pulled up in front of me.

The window came down, and there was Dustin's familiar face.

He'd gotten thinner, a bluish stubble on his jaw, something worn and haggard about him.

"Get in."

His voice was hoarse.

I didn't move.

"I've already rented a place. I don't need a ride from you."

He pushed the door open and got out, crossing to me in a few strides.

"Jane, do you really have to be like this?"

"Like what?" I looked at him. "Dustin, it's over between us."

"I didn't agree to it!" He grabbed my arm, losing his grip on himself a little. "A breakup isn't something you decide all on your own!"

The people passing by were starting to throw us curious looks.

I didn't want to tussle with him in the middle of the street.

"Let go of me first."

"I won't!" He stared at me, stubborn. "You're coming home with me."

Just then a white car pulled up beside me.

The window rolled down, and a gentle male voice came through.

"Miss Pruitt? Do you need any help?"

I turned and saw an unfamiliar face.

The man wore thin gold-rimmed glasses, refined and mild-mannered.

Then it came to me. He was the ER doctor who'd cleaned up my scrape that day. A Dr. Dickerson.

It was like grabbing a lifeline.

"Dr. Dickerson? What a coincidence." I twisted free of Dustin's grip. "My friend's here to pick me up. I have to go."

I opened the door and got in fast.

Dustin froze where he stood, his face as dark as it could get.

As the car pulled away, I could still see him in the side mirror, standing there, not moving at all.

"Thank you, Dr. Dickerson." I let out a breath.

"It was nothing." He gave a small smile. "A friend of yours?"

"Ex-boyfriend."

At that, he raised an eyebrow but didn't ask anything more.

He drove me to the entrance of my complex.

"How's your knee doing?"

"Much better, thank you."

"Don't mention it." He handed me a card. "I'm Gilbert Dickerson, orthopedics at City First Hospital. If there's any problem with the wound, you can reach me anytime."

"Okay, thank you."

I took the card and got out of the car.

Back at Melinda's, I told her all about running into Dr. Dickerson.

Melinda's eyes lit up in an instant.

"An orthopedic surgeon at City First? Gold-rimmed glasses? Refined and mild-mannered?" She grabbed my hand, her whole face lighting up. "Girl, your spring is on its way!"

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"You're reading too much into it. He just helped me out because he happened to be passing by."

"Passing by, my foot. This is fate!" Melinda said it with total conviction. "You have to grab this chance!"

I didn't take her words to heart.

But I never expected that the very next day, I'd run into Gilbert again.

My new apartment turned out to be in the same complex as Gilbert.

The day I moved in, I was hauling boxes and bags upstairs, out of breath and dripping with sweat.

At the elevator, I ran into Gilbert, just coming home from work.

He saw me and paused for a second, then broke into a gentle smile.

"Miss Pruitt, you live here?"

"I do. What are the odds, Dr. Dickerson."

"Let me help." He took the two heaviest boxes out of my hands as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"No, no, I couldn't trouble you like that."

"It's no trouble. Neighbors should help each other out."

He insisted, so I let him.

We got into the elevator together.

I was on the seventh floor, he was on the tenth.

He carried everything into my apartment for me, a thin film of sweat on his forehead.

"Thank you, Dr. Dickerson. Come in and have a glass of water."

"Don't worry about it." He waved it off. "Get yourself settled. If you need anything, you know where to find me."

After he left, I looked around the empty apartment, and something warm stirred in me.

The first weekend in the new place, Melinda dragged me out shopping.

Her words for it: celebrating my new lease on life.

We spent the whole afternoon at the mall and came away with plenty of bags.

That evening, Melinda suggested hotpot.

The place was loud and packed, steam rising off every table.

We took a spot by the window.

"So that neighbor of yours, the doctor. Have you two been in touch since?" Melinda asked, swirling a slice of beef in the pot, hungry for gossip.

"Just twice, both in the elevator."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"You block of wood!" She jabbed my forehead, exasperated with me. "A chance like that, and you can't even put in a little effort!"

I just smiled and said nothing.

The truth was, I did like Gilbert.

He was gentle, considerate, and knew where the lines were.

A completely different kind of man from Dustin.

But I hadn't fully climbed out from under the shadow of my last relationship.

I didn't want to jump into something new this fast. It wouldn't be fair to Gilbert.

Right in the middle of it, my phone rang.

It was Viola.

After the breakup, I'd only blocked Dustin, not the rest of the family.

I hesitated, then picked up.

"Jane, where are you?" Viola sounded frantic.

"Is something wrong?"

"Dustin, he... something's happened to him!"

My stomach dropped.

"What happened?"

"He drank too much and his stomach's bleeding. They're doing emergency treatment right now! Jane, please come, he keeps calling your name!"

There was a sob in her voice.

I gripped the phone, my fingertips ice cold.

Melinda saw the look on my face and leaned in. "What is it?"

"Dustin. Stomach bleeding. He's at the hospital."

Melinda frowned.

"How is his stomach bleeding any of your business? Don't you dare go soft!"

I didn't answer.

Reason told me I shouldn't go.

We'd already broken up. Whatever happened to him had nothing to do with me.

But...

"Jane, please come, I'm begging you!" Viola was crying on the other end. "The doctor says he's in a bad way. If something happens to him, I..."

I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath.

"Which hospital?"

"City First Hospital."

I hung up, grabbed my bag, and headed for the door.

"Jane!" Melinda called after me.

I stopped, but didn't turn around.

"I'm only going to take a look."

"You..." Melinda was too angry to get the words out.

I took a cab to City First Hospital.

At the ER doors, I found Viola waiting, wracked with nerves.

The moment she saw me she rushed over and grabbed my hand.

"Jane, you finally came!"

Her hand was cold and still shaking.

"How is he?"

"They're still working on him." She was crying. "It's all my fault. If it weren't for me, Dustin never would have gone drinking."

Looking at her tear-streaked face, I felt a wave of irritation.

"What exactly happened?"

"After you broke up with Dustin, he's been miserable, drinking every single day. I went to check on him today and found him passed out at home, empty bottles all around him..."

The tears fell harder as she spoke.

I listened in silence, everything tangling up inside me.

Just then the ER doors opened.

A doctor stepped out.

It was Gilbert.

He saw me and paused too.

"Miss Pruitt?"

"Dr. Dickerson."

Viola pulled me forward and asked in a rush, "Doctor, how is he?"

Gilbert took off his mask, his expression grave.

"The patient had acute gastric bleeding and lost a lot of blood. Fortunately he was brought in time and he's out of danger now. But his stomach is badly damaged. He'll need to stay for observation."

Hearing he was out of danger, Viola let out a breath and sagged against me.

I held her up.

Gilbert's gaze lingered on my face for a moment, then moved to Viola.

"Are you family?"

"I'm his... his girlfriend's sister." Viola glanced at me and said it quietly.

Gilbert nodded, then looked at me again.

"The patient is very agitated. He's been calling your name. Go in and see him, help settle him down."

I walked into the room.

Dustin lay on the bed, his face white as paper, not a trace of color in his lips.

His eyes were shut, his brow drawn tight, as if he couldn't rest even in sleep.

I stood at the bedside and looked at him quietly.

Seven years.

This was the first time I'd ever seen him this fragile.

He seemed to have lost a lot of weight, his features gone sharp.

"Janie..."

He murmured suddenly, calling my name.

Something twisted in my chest.

He slowly opened his eyes, and when he saw me, a spark flared in their dull depths.

"Janie, you came."

His voice was weak and hoarse.

He struggled to sit up, reaching out to take my hand.

I stepped back.

His outstretched hand froze in midair.

The light in his eyes dimmed, bit by bit.

"Are you... still angry with me?"

I said nothing.

The room was dead silent.

A long time passed before he gave a bitter laugh.

"I'm sorry. I made you worry again."

"I wasn't worried." My voice came out cold. "Viola begged me to come."

His face lost another shade of color.

"Janie, can we really... never go back to how things were?"

"No."

My answer was clean and quick, without a shred of hesitation.

He closed his eyes, his throat working, as if fighting to hold something down.

"Why?" He opened his eyes again, the whites laced with red. "Because I helped Vi up first? Over one little thing like that, you'd throw away seven years of us?"

A little thing?

I looked at him, and suddenly it struck me as absurd.

"Dustin, that wasn't a little thing."

"It was the last straw. The one that broke me."