Hate Notes

Blinking my eyes open, I looked over at the opposite side of my bed. I couldn’t remember when Reed left last night. I couldn’t remember much of anything.

The time shown on the clock caused me to gasp. I’d slept till noon? What the hell? Why hadn’t Reed called to wake me up?

A vague recollection of his talking low in my ear and apologizing to me last night registered, but I couldn’t figure out if I’d dreamed it all. Also . . . did we kiss? I thought we had, but I couldn’t be sure if I’d imagined that as well.

An empty feeling came over me as my head pounded. My cell phone rang. It was a number I didn’t recognize.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Charlotte. This is John.”

John was the instructor from yesterday who’d tried to get me to go out with him.

“How did you get my number?”

“It was on your registration paperwork.”

“Oh. How can I help you?”

“Your friend Reed was just taken to the hospital. His instructor drove him. He’s okay, though.”

My heartbeat accelerated. “What?”

I then remembered that Reed had scheduled an early-morning climb.

“Yeah. He was climbing this morning and fell. His legs gave way from under him. It’s company policy to take the client into the hospital for observation if anything happens on our watch.”

“You said he’s alright, though?”

“Yeah. He was coherent . . . walking and everything. Just with a slight limp. Again, it’s just procedure.”

“Which hospital?”

“Newton Memorial.”

“Can you take me there?”

He hesitated. “Um . . . sure. Yeah.”

John met me outside of the resort and drove me the couple of miles to the hospital. I insisted that he drop me off, figuring that Reed and I would call an Uber back to the hotel whenever he was cleared to leave.

After much searching, I spotted Reed inside one of the examination rooms. He was talking to a doctor. Unsure of whether to make my presence known, I instead opted to stand outside of the door. I couldn’t help listening to their conversation.

“The thing is . . . I’d really been feeling great as of late. I wouldn’t have planned this trip if I thought the muscle spasms were going to return.”

“So you have experienced symptoms . . .”

“Yes, but they’re fleeting. I’m still in the very early stages.”

“Well, multiple sclerosis can be sneaky that way. And the truth is, you may have several weeks or months at a time when you’re asymptomatic, only to have the symptoms return. Have you experienced anything else in recent weeks?”

“Aside from some mild vertigo, no.”

“Did you come to the Adirondacks alone?”

“No, I’m here with a friend. She doesn’t know I’m at the hospital and doesn’t know anything about the MS.”

MS?

Reed . . . has MS?

Reed has MS.

What?

It seemed like the hospital vestibule was spinning. My heart felt like it was ready to explode as I ran down the hall and to the elevator. I needed air.

Once outside, I knelt down with my head between my legs on the front grass of the hospital grounds.

Breathe.

Everything was suddenly making sense. The cancelled wedding. Everyone saying that Reed had his reasons for the way he was. Why he wouldn’t let himself be with me. The bucket list. Oh my God! The bucket list.

My shoulders shook as I cried into my hands. Never in my life had I felt so much pain for another human being. At the same time, something else was bursting through me as every moment I’d ever had with Reed seemed to flash before my eyes.

I was hesitant to call my feelings for Reed love. All I knew was that I’d never experienced what I was feeling before. I’d known for a long time that my feelings for Reed transcended normal infatuation. Now that I truly understood why he was preventing us from taking that next step, I could allow myself to really experience those feelings for him for the first time. I went from understanding nothing to understanding everything. Everything.

Reed thought he was protecting me.

“You deserve to be with someone who won’t ever hold you back in life.”

Where had that come from? Had he said that to me? It was buried somewhere in my mind. Had he said that last night?

Then I thought about the dress and the blue note. He hadn’t known what lay ahead when he wrote that note to Allison. Reed’s hopes and dreams were likely shattered sometime after. But why did they have to be? Surely he couldn’t just give up because Allison left him? She was a coward who never really loved him.

What Allison had done to him was really starting to hit me. She left him because of his MS. Had she never heard of in sickness and in health? To think that I believed that blue note sewn inside her dress represented unconditional love. The fairy tale was an illusion. The fact was, Allison wouldn’t know the meaning of unconditional love if it smacked her in the face.

An overwhelming need for information overtook me. Tonight, I vowed to read everything there was to know about MS on the internet until my brain bled. I needed to find every bit of information there was to give him hope.

I remember watching that talk-show host Montel Williams on TV. He had MS and was lifting weights and looked healthier than most people. There had to be a way around this. I needed there to be hope. Reed could not let this rule his life.

There were the tears again. How the hell was I supposed to hold myself together today if I didn’t tell him I knew? He clearly never intended for me to know about his diagnosis. He was never going to tell me. I just knew it.

I had to think long and hard about this, because I didn’t want to upset him. He deserved the right to be able to tell me on his own terms. My finding out the way I had was an unintentional violation of his privacy.

My heart. It felt so heavy, like it was weighing my entire body down.

I called John back to come pick me up, asking him not to mention to Reed that I’d ever gone to the hospital at all.

Returning to the resort, I went back to my room and immediately pulled up WebMD on my phone. Scrolling through article after article, I was doing my best to learn more about MS in the short time I had before Reed came back.

Needing to figure out how I was going to approach it, I decided that I wasn’t going to tell him I knew. At least, not yet. When my phone rang, I picked up.

“Reed. Where are you?”

“How are you feeling today?”

“A little hungover, but I’m fine. How come you didn’t wake me this morning?”

“Trust me, you needed to sleep.” He paused. “Listen, you should know . . . I slipped during this morning’s climb. They made me go to the hospital just as a precaution. A few scrapes and bruises, but I’m fine. I’m already back in my room.”

Trying to act surprised, I said, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes. I’ll be good to drive back to the city.”

“When are we heading back?”

“Whenever you’re ready.”

“I’d like to go soon,” I said.

“Okay. How about I swing by your room in about twenty minutes? We can grab some lunch then hit the road.”

“Sounds good.”

The ride back to Manhattan was tranquil. I was afraid if I opened my mouth, I wouldn’t be able to hide my feelings. So I chose to say nothing at all.

Reed turned to me as the sun was starting to set over the interstate. “You okay?”

I finally looked at him. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

He seemed preoccupied. More silence passed before he asked, “Do you remember anything about last night?”

Last night.

Even if I did remember the details of our drunken encounter in my room, anything beyond the bombshell from this afternoon was a total blur.

“Bits and pieces.”

His voice was low. “Do you remember . . . the kiss?”

So it was real.

“Vaguely.”

He sucked in his jaw. “Nothing else happened. In case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t.” That was the least of my worries.

“You passed out. I stayed for a while. Fell asleep. Then I left early in the morning.”

“Why did you stay?”

“I didn’t feel right leaving you. You were upset.”

“Well, thank you . . . for staying.”

“I take full responsibility for coming to your room, but we can’t get carried away like that anymore.”

I just kept nodding. And I could feel tears forming in my eyes. Shit. This was why I couldn’t talk to him. Turning my head to look out the window, I was hoping he didn’t notice my total loss of control.

Reed turned up the volume on the radio when Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” came on. The words reminded me so much of my situation with Reed because you only had so much control over another person’s feelings. I couldn’t make Reed see his future the way I did. He had to come to that realization himself. The song wasn’t helping my predicament.

“Charlotte, look at me.” When I turned to him, he could see my tears. “What the fuck? Don’t cry. Why are you crying?”

Because you have MS.

And because you believe that would matter to me.

Holding out my hand, I said, “It’s not about anything you said. I’m just feeling emotional. This Bonnie Raitt song that’s on . . . ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me.’ It’s depressing,” I lied, “and it’s also my time of the month.”

Reed simply nodded in understanding. He seemed to accept that explanation without questioning me any further.

Keeping everything in was taking a toll on me, and it hadn’t even been a couple of hours since finding out. Not even a full day, and I couldn’t hold it together.

The rest of the ride home was quiet.

After Reed dropped me off at my apartment, I immediately called an Uber to take me to Iris’s house.

Her doorman knew me and let me go right upstairs.

The moment she opened the door, the words fell from my mouth. “Do you know?” Brushing past her shoulder, I let myself in.

Her eyes filled with concern. “What are you referring to, Charlotte?”

Out of breath, I said, “The MS.”

Iris closed her eyes and walked toward the couch. “Come sit.”

I sat down and placed my head in my hands. “Iris, my heart is breaking. Tell me what to do.”

She placed her hand on my knee. “He told you?”

“No. I’m not supposed to know anything. I accidentally found out.”

She looked shocked. “How?”

“Long story short, we went rock climbing in the Adirondacks. Reed is okay, but he fell and needed to get checked out. We weren’t together when it happened. I followed him to the hospital. I overheard a conversation between him and his doctor. He doesn’t know I was ever there or that I know.” Placing my head in my hands, I was on the verge of tears yet again. “I don’t know how to handle this. I can’t just pretend like I don’t know. But I’m afraid he’ll be irate if he finds out.”

Iris nodded in understanding. “Give it some time. The right answer will come to you.”

I looked up at her. “You were right. You always said that he had his reasons for being so closed off, but I never imagined this.”

She let out a deep breath. “Charlotte . . . you know . . . MS is not a death sentence. Reed was actually cautiously optimistic when he was first diagnosed. He’s seen all of the best specialists in Manhattan, and they all reassured him that many people can live perfectly normal lives with it; it’s just that there are some who aren’t so lucky. There’s really no way to know which category Reed will fall into. Only time will tell. But when Allison determined that she couldn’t handle the thought of the worst-case scenario, Reed was blindsided. That gave him a different perspective, one none of us have been able to snap him out of. He started to focus on the negative . . . the what-ifs. He lost a lot of faith that he hasn’t been able to get back.”

“He really loved her . . .” That was the one thing I’d known from the very beginning.

“He did. But clearly, she’s not the one. He’s determined not to let love in, Charlotte. I can’t say with absolute certainty that he will ever change his mind on that. But the thought of my grandson living his life without experiencing the joys of true love and a family of his own makes my heart hurt immensely.”

Tears stung my eyes. To imagine that there was a chance Reed might never be able to experience love again hurt my heart immensely, too.