Avoiding Responsibility (Avoiding #2)(57)
Author: K.A. Linde

"Hi," Lexi squeaked out. "Is he going to be okay?"

"Oh he is going to be just fine. The doctors will come in and explain everything to you shortly. You’re his daughter I presume?" she asked waddling over to her father’s bedside. Lexi nodded mutely as she watched the nurse begin to fiddle with the IV stuck into his hand. For some reason Lexi hadn’t even realized it was there. "Well I’m just going to monitor the ECG until the doctor arrives."

A short while later her mother bustled into the room. Her face was still covered in tears and at the sight of her husband hooked up to machines, she fell into another round of hysterics. Lexi stood and allowed her to take the seat at his side that she had occupied. She watched her mother reach out tentatively and grasp his hand in her own. She stayed there staring at the love of her life, the man she had spent the last thirty years with, the man she had had three children with. Lexi wondered if she would ever be as happy as them one day.

Just then the doctor walked through the door. Lexi turned around to face the door as the small brunette entered her nose buried in his chart. "Well let’s see what we have here," she began. "George Walsh. Age forty-nine. Heart attack. Overall I’d say you are rather lucky under the circumstances, Mr. Walsh." Finally she looked up at her patient.

Lexi released a short gasp at the recognition between the two. "Parker?"

The doctor looked between Lexi and the patient she had just been addressing and back. She was clearly thrown off that her personal life had somehow managed to wiggle into her work environment. "Lexi?"

"You two know each other?" Lexi’s mother asked glancing back and forth between her daughter and the doctor who she realized looked just like Lexi. Lexi and Parker both nodded. "But…you look so much alike," she said wistfully.

"We’ve heard that before," Parker answered returning to her paperwork quickly.

Lexi forgot how shy Parker could be in uncomfortable situations. "This is my father," she stated even though the fact was now obvious. "Sorry I’ll just…uh wait outside. I just need some air. I’ll be back in a minute mom." Lexi rushed past Parker and out into the hallway. She took a deep intake of the stale hospital air. She was sure that she was overreacting, but being in the same room with her at such an emotional time had just felt wrong. She needed to leave. She needed to get out of there.

A seat had been placed outside of one of the rooms and she slumped into it. All she wanted to do was shut her brain off. She closed her eyes and pressed her palms to her temples in an attempt to stop the pounding in her skull. A tear fell from her eye as the pressure from the last couple hours seemed to settle on her body. She just wanted to go home, cuddle up with some double chocolate ice cream, and cry herself to sleep. She had almost lost her father today. It wasn’t a feeling she was soon to forget.

Lexi looked up when her father’s hospital door opened again and Parker exited. Instead of turning away, Parker walked down to where Lexi was sitting, crying. "Hey let’s go get some coffee," she said her voice lowering comfortingly.

Lexi wiped at both of her cheeks and stood slowly. "Don’t you have to get back to work?" Lexi asked though she was extremely grateful for the offer.

Parker shrugged. "I’m in need of a break. They can still run without me for awhile."

"Sure," Lexi said following her down the hall and into the coffee shop. "I didn’t know you worked for the ER." She ordered a large black coffee. The caffeine was exactly what she needed right now.

"They just have me in the ER when other doctors call out. I’m usually in surgery," she told her. Parker ordered a small coffee and doused cream and sugar in it as soon as it was pushed across the counter. The two found a vacant table and slid into their seats. "Sorry about your dad," she spoke softly.

"Me too," Lexi murmured.

"I think he’s going to be okay now though. Your mom will keep a close watch on him and I prescribed some blood thinners," she told her reassuringly. "He’ll only have to be in the ICU for a day or two."

"Thanks," Lexi said forgetting she was talking to a woman that she had so many reservations against. "I really…just thanks for everything you did."

Parker blushed at the words. "It’s my job," she said dismissively.

"Yes well it’s admirable. I mean I’m just a blood sucking lawyer," Lexi said with a chortle at the end that she really wasn’t feeling.

"I’m sure you do good too," Parker responded quickly.

Lexi shrugged noncommittally. She wasn’t sure what to say. Instead she just took another long sip of her coffee and let the caffeine fight her ailments. If someone had told her a few days ago that she would be having coffee with Parker or that her father was going to have a heart attack, she wouldn’t have believed them. But here she was at the hospital and both things were true.

"Lexi?" Parker asked hesitantly looking down into her coffee cup. "Can I be honest with you?"

Lexi looked up from her own coffee and stared at Parker speculatively. She wasn’t sure she wanted to have this conversation…whatever it was. "About what?"

Parker bit down on her bottom lip. She released a long sigh before meeting Lexi’s gaze. "About Ramsey," she said barely louder than a whisper.

Lexi’s stomach dropped. Here it was. Everything she had been waiting for. Everything she had suspected. She had known all along deep down that there was more to the story. She had always wanted to believe what Ramsey had told her about his relationship with Parker, but the story had never settled right with her. She wasn’t sure what it was about it. Maybe it was the way that Jessie had talked about them the first time Lexi had met Parker over spring break. Maybe it was the looks that they so easily passed between them. Maybe it was just jealousy after everything she had dealt with in her life. But whatever it was, she was about to find out.

Lexi gulped hard. "What about Ramsey?" she asked her hands shaking.

"I just…I…Lexi you have to know I don’t like to lie. It’s not in me to lie," she said seemingly trembling with the weight of what she was trying to say. "I didn’t want to hold back everything from you." Lexi felt a numbness fall over her. Lies. Hidden information. None of this could be good. "I don’t really talk about what happened, but I just didn’t think it was fair for you not to know. I can tell that ya’ll are getting serious, and I…" she faltered pushing her hand up through her hair before continuing, "well, I would want to know if the roles were reversed."

"Know what?" Lexi asked leaning forward in anxiety.

Parker shook her head forcefully and pushed herself back against the chair. "I’m sorry. I can’t talk about this." She stood abruptly scraping her chair against the tiled floor.

"What?" Lexi gasped louder than expected. "You say all of that and then refuse to explain?"

"I’m sorry. You don’t understand what I went through with him," she told her trying desperately to keep her voice even.

"What did you go through with him?" Lexi asked frantically unsure she would ever get the truth out of anyone if Parker didn’t confide in her right now.

Parker glanced around the busy coffee shop realizing that she was drawing attention to herself. A few of her colleagues were looking at her sudden outburst curiously. She smiled reassuringly in their direction and took her seat again. "I wish he had just told you," she whispered resting her elbow on the table and sinking her chin into her hand.

"He told me that you guys were old family friends and like…friends with benefits," Lexi told her hoping to get some kind of confirmation on the story.

"Friends with benefits?" she gasped lightly. "He actually said that?" The hurt was evident in her voice. It was so apparent that Lexi immediately knew that the statement was false. There had been much more to their relationship. No one could fake pain like Lexi had just seen in Parker’s eyes. Lexi hated confirming what she had just told Parker. She seemed to be in a trance when she spoke next.

"We were inseparable," she said the words as if they were more than a fact as if the words were etched in stone. "Of course I had a crush on him when I was younger. Bekah and I were best friends growing up. It was easy to have a crush on him when he was two years older. I never expected him to ever see me as anything more than his little sister’s friend," she told her as if she had transported through time. "We started dating my sophomore year of high school. He was a senior. He didn’t care about the ridicule or slander that came our way when we together. I was a year ahead of everyone in my grade so I’d be graduating only a year behind him. He always told me the age difference didn’t matter. That we’d be together in the end.

"He settled on Tech to stay in the city…to be close to me. His parents wanted him to go to a private school: Princeton, Stanford, or Duke, but he swore he wouldn’t leave me." Her hand dropped from her chin and she stared down into her coffee. "He was only there for a year before he transferred to Duke when I started my first year. His parents were proud of course. They were already…planning our marriage since I had always been the perfect influence on their rebellious son."

Lexi shook her head unable to believe this tall tale. This was about as far from Ramsey’s story as Parker could possibly get. He had claimed never to have a girlfriend. He had never been in love. Her insides were icing over. No. He had never had any of these things before her. Now she was finding out that not only had he had a girlfriend, but his parents had been planning for them to get married likely since childhood.

"But it all went wrong," Parker gasped grasping her cup firmly with both hands as she tried to hold back the tears that were clouding her eyes.

"What happened?" Lexi asked surprised she even had a voice. She felt like she was living someone else’s life right now. She couldn’t believe that these things had actually happened. She had gone through too much time in one day. She was having delusions. Her fears were catching up with her. She had gotten stuck in a soap opera where everyone lied, everyone hid information, everyone was deceitful.

"Oh God, it all happened so quick. I’d been feeling sick for about a week. It was during finals," she told the story as if she had gone back in time and was still there. It was clear that she was trapped in her memories. "I’d asked for an extension because of the sickness. I just couldn’t stop throwing up.

"I was finally able to hold down a meal and I raced over to Ramsey’s. I hadn’t seen him since falling ill because we didn’t live together. Our parents would never have allowed it of course," she said swiping the tears from her blood shot eyes. "He was drunk…terribly drunk. I’d never seen him so drunk. His roommates were there with four or five mostly nak*d girls. I looked like hell and worse I felt like it, and there he was having a raving good time with some girls that would have sucked his dick at a snap of his fingers." The vulgarity surprised Lexi almost as much as the situation and her mouth fell open. She covered her hand with her mouth as she imagined the scene before her.

How could he have done it?

"I lost it. I just snapped. I screamed at him, yelled at him, called him every dirty thing that I could think of. It made me sick to my stomach and I had to rush to the bathroom. He was just as vulgar. I remember him telling me that all I cared about were my studies, that I’d changed, that he couldn’t even see the old me anymore. He said more things that I hate to even imagine, but he was so drunk, he couldn’t stop himself.