Heart's Desire Ch 7

Chapter 7

“What’s up Sook, you’ve been distracted all day? Do you feel ok?”

“I’m fine Sam; sorry I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”

“Anything I can help you with?”

“No, I’ll be fine. Thank you though.”

Sam was a good man. He had moved to Bon Temps about 12 years ago after buying the old Swamp Fox Diner. He added the bar and renamed the place with his family name and it had proven to be quite profitable for him. Liquor and Bon Temps a good combination, who knew?

I had met him when I came in to inquire about a job for after school and weekends. Not many people would have taken a chance on a quirky 16 year old, but Sam did. Because of my age, I was not allowed to do a lot of things in the bar, but as I got older my responsibilities grew and now, 9 years later and I could run the place if I had to. Matter of fact I do run the place when Sam is on vacation or goes back home to visit family. I’ve always felt relatively proud of my knowledge of the bar that is until yesterday.

I goals, I did. I had taken a few classes at the Community College a little while back and had always planned to return and finish my degree one day but one thing or another always seemed to pop up and get in the way. But Eric’s assessment of my current career path had gotten me thinking about the things I had put on the back burner of my life. Maybe it was time; maybe I should take better stock in my future and commit to furthering my education. Maybe I need to think about this later and worry about getting Mrs. Mildred her chicken tenders before she starts complaining.

The day seemed to drag on and on. It had been a fairly large, happy crowd at the bar tonight and normally this would have been my ideal type of night to work, but not this time. Tonight I found my thoughts continually wandering back to room 29B at Bon Temps Hospital. I wanted to call him. I wanted to ask him how his day had gone. What about therapy, was it getting easier? How about eating, he should be able to feed himself now, how did that go? But even if I did get up the nerve to call him, would he even speak to me? We had barely said 10 words to each other once we reached our stand off yesterday; did I really think he would talk to me over the phone?

I could hardly make it up the stairs to the shower when I got home from work. It was 2:00 am and I was exhausted but it was mental more so than physical exhaustion. I considered forgoing the shower but knew if I had any hopes of sleeping then washing off the beer and grease was required. I crawled in bed secretly fearing I would be up all night battling my thoughts but instead fell asleep shortly after my head hit the pillow.

I woke up the next morning a new woman; sometime during the night I decided what I needed to do and I awoke with new resolve. I had the lunch shift at work today so I didn’t have to be there until 11:00 that still gave me plenty of time to fix some breakfast and do a few chores around the house I had been neglecting over the last few days.

By 4:00 I had completed my shift and was headed home to shower and change. I was eager to get to the hospital as quickly as possible so I decided to pick up good old junk food to take with me rather than cook, so I would just hit a drive thru on my way in.

I had my speech all prepared, I had gone over it in my head repeatedly throughout the day but I was still nervous so I stilled myself outside of his door and took a deep breath before knocking.

“Come in.”

I cautiously entered the room. When he looked at me, I started.

“Eric I’m so sorry.”

“Sookie, I’m sorry!”

Both of us blurted out at the same time. I smiled at him. “You go ahead.”

“I just wanted to tell you that I am sorry I hurt your feelings yesterday. I promise you that was not my intention.”

“Eric, I’m the one that should be apologizing. I should have never gotten upset with you just because there are things you do not want to tell me. It’s your choice what you decide to share and what you decide to keep private. I should have never tried to impose on you what I thought it was going to take for you to heal. What works for one person may not work for another; it was not my place to say any of that to you. You know, my friends accuse me of thinking I can fix anyone one that is broken and of being relentless in my efforts to do so. But in this case, you hardly know me; I should have never thought that it was my place to take on that role with you. I am sorry.”

Eric’s gaze never left my face. “Sookie, please come here and sit down.”

I walked over to the bedside table and put down bags of food and grabbed a chair and pulled it to the side of the bed.

“Look first of all, it is me that should be apologizing. You come in here practically every day, bringing me home cooked meals and today I can smell McDonald’s french fries and it’s almost killing me,” he grinned, “you spend your days off here helping me exercise and insuring I don’t lose my mind staring at these four walls And even when you are dead tired, you still come by to check on me and the only thing you have asked from me in return is for me to tell you about myself. What kind of an asshole denies someone that request?”

He laid his head back on the pillow and began rubbing his eyes, when he opened them again his bright beautiful sapphire eyes had been replaced by dark sad almost pleading ones.

“Sookie, I need for you to understand something. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you these things; it’s that I don’t think I can. I don’t think I’m capable. Sookie, I am broken and I don’t believe it’s fixable. I think soon you may figure out that your initial assessment of me when we first met was an accurate one and you should have saved all your energy and time for someone worthy of it.”

“My initial assessment? What are you talking about?” I asked him, not understanding what he meant by his statement.

“You know, the first day we met; the first day you came in with Ms. Broadway after being railroaded into feeding me. When you came around the corner and first saw me, the expression on your face was one pure shock. I could tell you wanted to be any place in the world except in a room with me.”

I mentally played that day back in my mind. Oh my god! The ogling followed by the opened mouthed stare. He must have thought…uh oh, way to go Sookie! Damn girl you may need to check on your facial expressions!

“Oh my god Eric.” I could no longer hold in the laughter. “You’ve got it all wrong.”

“Sookie, please stop laughing, this is hard enough without you turning it in to Def Comedy Jam.” Eric was getting a little miffed because of my laughing.

“Eric, your assessment, to use your words, of my facial expression could not be further from the truth.” I tried to calm myself and continued. “At the risk of being forward and in the interest of full disclosure let me try to explain what happened when you and I first met.”

I decided this conversation could take awhile so I grabbed the table and pulled it over by the bed so we could begin eating while we talked.

“First of all, the reason I was at the hospital to begin with that day was because a close childhood friend of mine had just delivered a baby after going into labor at my house the night before. By the time I met you; I had already been at the hospital for over 18 hours and had been in the same clothes for more than 24, so you understand this was not my finest hour? Anyway, I was heading home and stopped to fill Amelia, Ms. Broadway, in on Tara and the baby condition. Amelia was swamped at the time with everything that was going on here and although I had never volunteered at the hospital before, I could not leave my roommate in a bind, so I asked what I could do. She told me she needed help getting the lunches to the patients, so I agreed to help. Now I will admit was not expecting to have to actually feed someone their meal, but it needed to be done and there was no one else available so I just sucked it up.” I paused for a few seconds to take a bite of my sandwich and grab a sip of my milk shake. OK…OK…I’m stalling, I know. GET OVER IT!

“Anyway” I continued, “when I walked in your room, I was shocked, but not for the reasons you think. Eric, I was completely and utterly stunned by your blue eyes; as embarrassing as this is to say out loud, I have never seen eyes as beautiful as yours in my life. I could not stop myself from staring and then when I finally realized I was doing nothing short of ogling you, I was so embarrassed that I was unable to mask my reaction. Eric, I was in the room with you for a good 5 minutes before I even noticed the traction device, that’s how distracted I was by your eyes.” I paused before continuing. “I’m so sorry I gave you the wrong impression.

Eric just stared at me without expression for what seemed like forever. He closed his eyes in an apparent attempt to gather his thoughts.

“Don’t you understand that just makes it worse?”

“Worse? How does that make it worse?”

“Because of my actions! Sookie, I thought I was justified in my treatment of you because of your obvious distaste for me, but now I find that those were not your feelings at all.” He paused again. “I just don’t understand. Why? Why did you come back that next day and why to you continue to come back when I have done absolutely nothing redeemable toward you?”

Now it was my turn to be speechless. I wasn’t sure just how to respond to him because I wasn’t sure I knew the answer myself. I was an extremely independent woman, the death of my parents and later Gran, had forced me to learn early how to take care of myself. I was dependent on no one, financially or otherwise. I had my friends that were there for me, but ultimately I knew I could get by without anyone if I needed to.

When I thought back to everything that had transpired between he and I, his question was a valid one. Why did I come back? I certainly would not have exposed myself to those actions willingly for anyone else. Why him?

“Eric, I don’t know, I don’t understand why myself. All I know is that I see something in you. I don’t know what it is or how far down it’s buried, but I know it’s there and I know I need to find it, not just for my sake, but for yours as well.”

He stared at the ceiling for a moment before speaking again. “What if when you find it, you don’t like what it is?”

“I don’t think that’s possible”. I smiled at him and then changed the subject. “So Northman, I couldn’t help but notice the way you are scarffing down those fries over there; you wouldn’t happen to be a closet junk food junkie would you?”

“No Stackhouse, I’ve been out of that closet for a while. But I see you have not been properly schooled on how to eat said fries when accompanied by a chocolate milk shake.”

“Well by all means, please enlighten me on proper ‘fry-shake’ etiquette.”

Eric removed the lid from his milk shake and proceeded to take 2 or 3 fries bunched together and dipped them in the milk shake before popping them in his mouth.

“Eww. Northman that’s disgusting, why would you ruin fries and a perfectly good milk shake by dipping them like that?”

“Try it!”

“I don’t think so. I trust McDonald’s knew what they were doing when they put them in separate containers.”

“Stackhouse I never took you for a chicken.”

“Fine, I’ll play your silly little game.” I grabbed a couple of fries, stuck them lightly in to my milk shake and shoved them in my mouth. I had to admit the taste was not bad, it was actually a good mix of salt and sweet. I looked over at Eric and he is sitting there with a big ass grin on his face.

“OK, it’s not disgusting, but it’s not chocolate and peanut butter either.”

“Well, hell Sookie, nothing can compete with the holy grail of junk food, but it is good right?”

“Yes it’s good; now let’s talk about something else before I have to hold a pillow over your head you smug ass.” He laughed out loud happy with his little victory.

We finished dinner and I cleared away the empty wrappers. We made small talk for several minutes before he apparently remembered about his physical therapy session earlier that day.

“Guess what?”

“What?”

“They’re coming tomorrow morning to remove the traction and casting off my legs and put the braces on.”

“You’re kidding, already? How do you feel, are you nervous?”

“A little, but I’m ready to be able to move some. I know the braces will prevent too much movement, but just to be able to shift positions a little in the bed will be heaven. I have practically been in this same position for over a month now, I think it’s time for a change.”

I got up and went to the window to look out for a minute. The sun was beginning to set and everything outside had a beautiful orange glow.

“What is it Sookie? What are you thinking about?”

“I was just wondering?”

“Wondering about what?”

I took a deep breath and turned from the window to face him. “What happened to you? How did you get injured?” I quickly added, “I won’t be mad if you don’t want to talk about it, but you asked and well, that’s what I was wondering about.”

He laid his head back on the pillow and began rubbing his eyes. I could see from his face the battle he was fighting in his head, but I was not willing to let him off the hook just yet, if he was not willing to discuss it that was fine but he was going to have to tell me that I wasn’t going to just offer it to him.

He opened his eyes again and it was hard to tell if they were red because of rubbing them or some other reason but I dismissed that thought.

“Are you working tomorrow?”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“No, I’m going to answer your question, but answer mine first.”

“No, I’m off tomorrow.”

“Are you coming to see me?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll be here.”

“OK, then I will answer all of your questions tomorrow.”

“Why tomorrow, why not now?”

“Because I’m happy right now and I don’t want to spoil it with that conversation.”

“OK, tomorrow then?”

“Tomorrow. I promise.”

TBC