FIGHT FOR ME (7 page)

Anyone but him.

Chapter Ten

Two weeks passed. Ivy saw Lucas a few more times. They went out to eat and spent evenings wandering around tiny Paisley. They talked about how different small town life was from the city. Ivy talked about her childhood and her days in college and Lucas offered little tidbits about his life before Paisley.

She learned that Lucas grew up with a single father because his mother had left his father a few months after Lucas was born. Lucas's father had died from alcohol poisoning the summer after Lucas graduated high school. They had been very close and though he drank too much and too often, Lucas's father was a good guy.

Ivy spent a lot of time thinking about this. She imagined Lucas as a scrappy preteen with a shock of wild black hair and very few people in the world that loved him. She wished she could have known him then. If so, he wouldn't have been such a mystery to her.

They didn't sleep together again for those two weeks. Ivy sensed that some part of both of them wanted to make this connection last. Though the physical attraction was undeniable, Ivy felt that delaying another intimate experience would make it all the sweeter when it happened. She guessed that Lucas felt the same, though when they kissed he always had a look on his face like he wanted to push her down wherever they were and ravish her.

Her sister stopped complaining about their relationship about a week later. She gave Ivy a reluctant blessing. “If he hasn’t fucked you over yet,” she had said over a glass of wine one evening. “Then he probably won’t. Plus, you’re leaving in a few weeks so he doesn’t have much time to do it.”

Ivy had a dream where all these thoughts and memories ran through her mind over and over, like a recording on repeat.

She saw her and Lucas holding hands and walking through the park by the lake with Kimbo. She saw them leaning against a tree trunk and kissing. She heard Lucas’s voice talking about his father and childhood with little emotion. “He died after I graduated from high school,” she heard him say, but she couldn’t see his face. He was talking to her but there was no one there. “We were close.”

There was a clinking of glass against glass and she saw her sister pouring two glasses of wine. “He hasn’t fucked you over yet,” her sister said. “But there’s still time.”

The taste of wine filled her dream and she was at the Indian restaurant of their first date, sipping the expensive champagne Lucas had ordered. “I’m going to sleep with you tonight,” she heard him say. “And it’s going to be unlike anything you’ve had before.”

The scene darkened and she saw a scrawny teenage version of Lucas sitting by a bed in a shadowed room. In the bed was a middle-aged man, not breathing. The floor of the room was littered with bottles. The room smelled bitter.

Lucas turned from the body and looked straight at Ivy. This time she could see his face. Instead of the male model stare she was used to, Ivy saw fear in his dark eyes. She saw someone young and weak, not strong and confident like today.

A deep threatening purr came from the shadowy corner opposite the bed. A panther slunk from the shadows and curled itself around Lucas. The teenage Lucas put his arms around the cat. The panther’s glowing eyes didn’t move from Ivy.

Ivy took a step forward. She wanted to put her arms around this teenage Lucas. He looked like he needed her. Actually, he looked like he needed anyone.

The cat hissed but Ivy kept walking toward them. It seemed to take longer to reach them than it looked like it should. Each step moved her forward an agonizingly small amount.

The jungle cat jumped toward her and arched its back. It began to hiss louder and its fur stood up on its back. Even teenage Lucas started to back away from it.

“It’s okay,” Ivy heard herself say. “I don’t want to hurt him.”

She took another step.

In a blur of darkness, the panther leapt at her, its claws out. A paw scraped across her chest, leaving burning wounds.

She screamed.

The sound of her own scream woke her up.

Ivy lay there on the fold out couch, breathing heavily. She was covered in a sheen of sweat. She checked her phone. It was six in the morning. She easily had another hour she could sleep before having to get ready to bring Emma to school, but she knew she wasn’t going to sleep after a nightmare like that.

She decided to run herself a bath. She squeezed some scented bubble bath soap into the steaming water and let herself relax.

She told herself not to worry about the dream. She was having normal concerns about a man that she still didn’t know particularly well. That was absolutely to be expected.

Jess woke up about half an hour later. There was a knock on the bathroom door.

“You in there? I need to do my makeup.”

“Yep,” Ivy said. She let the water start to drain and turned on the shower. “Let me rinse off and I’ll be out in a sec.”

She spent the rest of her free time in the morning cuddled on the couch in her bathrobe with her laptop. She watched an episode of sitcom from her childhood that greatly improved her mood.

Jess was about to leave for work when she stopped by the door. “Hey, you should go check and see if Emma’s all right. Usually she’s up and ready to go by now. There’s not a huge hurry, but you should probably wake her up.”

“I’ll go check on her. Have a great day at work.”

Jess rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’ll try. See you tonight.”

Ivy walked down the hall to Emma’s room. The door was covered in stickers of pink butterflies, kittens, and rabbits –Emma’s favorite animals.

She gave the door a good knock.

“Em! Time to get up and get ready for school.”

When there was no response, Ivy opened the door a crack and peeked in. Emma was curled up on the bed, breathing softly, still deeply asleep.

“Hey,” Ivy said quietly as she walked into the room. “Time to wake up.” She leaned down to give Emma a gentle touch on the shoulder to wake her up.

When the girl still didn’t open her eyes, Ivy pressed the back of her hand against her forehead. Emma’s skin was clammy and burning hot.

Ivy began to panic almost immediately. She had no idea what to do. I should probably call Jess, she thought.

The phone rang several times before the answering machine picked up.

“Hey Jess, I think Emma’s really sick. Um. Just thought you should know. Let me know when you get this message. Oh yeah. What should I do? Should I give her fever medicine? Yeah. So. Call me back.”

A few moments after Ivy hung up the phone, Emma’s eyes fluttered open.

“Emma! You’re awake. How are you feeling, sweetie?”

The little girl sat up slowly. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes a little glassy. “I don’t feel good, Auntie.”

“Okay. Okay.” Ivy took a few deep breaths. “I’ll call your school and tell them you won’t be able to come in today.”

Emma nodded. “Okay,” she said, her voice small.

“Want me to make you some breakfast?”

The girl shook her head. “I’m not hungry. I’m just sleepy.”

“Okay. Go back to sleep, all right? When you’re hungry just let me know.”

Emma curled back up under the covers.

Ivy didn’t spend much of the next few hours doing anything for herself. She checked on Emma every half hour or so and spent the rest of the morning checking the internet for what to do when a little kid had a fever. She had never been in this situation before.

Jess called back around eleven.

“Just let her sleep,” she said, not sounding as worried as Ivy thought she would. “There’s some fever reducer for kids in the cupboard if she complains of feeling really sick. Otherwise, let her sleep and make sure there’s water by her bed all the time if she needs it. I’ll try to come home early if I can. I’m super glad you’re there, Ivy.”

Around twenty minutes later Emma wandered out of her room into the living room while Ivy was making herself some lunch.

“I’m hungry,” she said plaintively.

“Go sit on the couch and I’ll make you something. Do you want soup?”

Emma nodded. “Soup please.”

Ivy heated up some chicken soup for her and gave her a little bowl after it had cooled down. She nibbled at the sandwich she had made for herself but wasn’t too worried to be very hungry.

A few minutes after eating the chicken soup Emma looked a little queasy. Without any other warning, she threw up the entirety of her lunch on the living room floor. Then she started to cry.

Ivy took a damp, cool washcloth and cleaned Emma up and led her back to her bed. “I’m going to call your mom, okay? Just get more rest.” The little girl sniffled and nodded. She was asleep within seconds.

After spending almost fifteen minutes getting the puke out of the carpet satisfactorily, she called Jess again. She didn’t pick up.

She briefly considered calling a doctor, but thought that might be going a little overboard. Then she thought of an in-between.

She could call Lucas.

He was trained in child care –he had to be –since he was teaching a roomful of fragile kindergarteners every day. The kindergarten school day had already ended, so he wasn’t at work.

The phone rang only a few times.

“Hi,” he said.

The single word calmed her down immensely. “Hey, Lucas. Emma’s really sick. She puked in the living room and she’s been sleeping all day and Jess isn’t answering her phone and I don’t know what to do.”

“Slow down,” he said. “Emma’s sick?” He paused. “Want me to come over?”

“Oh my gosh, yes please.”

“Okay. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Thank you so much. See you.”

* * * *

After Lucas felt Emma’s forehead and talked to her a little, he took Ivy out of the room.

“I’m not a doctor,” he said, “but I’m pretty sure she just has a fever, Ivy.”

“But she threw up…”

“So it’s the flu. She’ll be fine with rest and liquids, just like Jess said. Do you have any kid ibuprofen?”

“Yeah.”

Ivy found the children’s fever reducer in the cupboard and helped Emma sip some of the cherry flavored liquid before she fell asleep again.

Ivy and Lucas sat down on the couch. Ivy had folded the bed part back into the couch that morning but had left her crumpled sheets on it. She’d been too worried to do anything other than think about Emma.

She let out a sigh of relief.

“Thanks for coming over,” she said, letting her head rest on his shoulder. “I’ve never had to deal with a sick kid before.”

“I can tell.” He laughed.

There was silence. There was the faint sound of someone walking down the hall to their apartment, and a dog barking somewhere nearby. A car drove by. Ivy felt sleepy. She could fall asleep on Lucas’s shoulder right then, and have that extra hour of sleep she was used to. She let her eyes shut.

As soon as she felt herself drifting off, she remembered the dream she’d had that morning. Suddenly she was filled with questions about Lucas and their relationship.

“Why did you go after me in the library that day?” She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him.

He didn’t answer at first. “Because I was interested in you.”

“Why are you interested in me? Why do you like me?” She realized she had wondered that every day of the few weeks they had been together. She seemed like the opposite of the types of girls he was used to in the city. Why would he choose her?

He cocked his head and seemed to think about her question for a long moment. “You’re something I’ve never had before,” he said quietly.

Ivy had thought that was why he wouldn’t like her, but apparently it was why he did.

He put a hand on her cheek, gently, and held her face in his hands and he kissed her forehead and let his lips brush down her nose to her lips. He kissed her sweetly, a kiss that softened her with its sweetness. She wrapped an arm around him and kissed him back with all her heart.

She was something he had never had before, and that was a good thing.

Chapter Eleven

“You know, I’m leaving in a few days.”

Lucas rolled over in bed and looked Ivy in the eyes. “Back to the city? Oh yeah,” he said.

She held his hand loosely in hers under the blankets. She ached sweetly between her legs. They had just slept together for the second time, and it had been just as intense. Ivy couldn’t imagine enjoying any type of sexual encounter with anyone normal now that she knew what it was like to sleep with Lucas. His lovemaking was like a fantasy.

“I could only get a month off of work,” she continued, watching Lucas’s expression carefully. It didn’t change. He looked… unconcerned. He leaned over her to the bedside table and took a cigarette from the pack there.

He began to smoke, not asking her if she minded. The smoke stung her eyes. However pretty it looked clouding between his lips and filling the air above them, it still pissed her off a little.

Suddenly, she realized that however different things felt with Lucas, he was just like all her other boyfriends. The relationship would last a month or two at the most and then they would drift apart, one of them not quite as into the other.

This time around, it was definitely him who seemed completely indifferent.

Ivy sat up, got out of bed and started to collect her clothes from the floor.

Lucas pushed himself to a sitting position, the sheets loosely covering him from the hips down. Seeing the panther across his chest made Ivy feel even worse. It seemed to symbolize the fact that Lucas wasn’t willing to let her completely in.

“Are you going home?”

“Yeah. I should start… packing, anyway.” She pulled on her jeans and t shirt.

“I thought you said you had a few days.”

Ivy shrugged. “I should spend these few days with my niece and sister. I came here to do that anyway.”

She kneeled down to Kimbo’s level. He was sleeping on a little dog bed in the corner of the room. She scratched his ears. “Bye, Kimbo.”

Then she straightened, gave a surprised Lucas a little wave, and left.

* * * *

She walked Emma to school and picked her up without saying a word to Lucas for the next two days. At first he tried to engage her in conversation, but when she was unresponsive, he stopped trying.