Page 82 of Insidious Heart
Margie stares at me for a few beats, almost as if she’s trying to hang on to these fleeting seconds as they tick by far too quickly before giving me a tired smile. “Have you… have you ever been in love, Stevie?”
“What?” I snort through my tears, completely caught off guard by her question.
“Love, dear.”
“I know, but I wasn’t expecting you to ask me that.”
Mrs. Sanderson’s smile widens as she closes her eyes and turns her face toward the moonlight streaming in through her foggy window. “It’s wonderful… finding that one person you can’t… can’t bear to live without.”
Victor flashes through my mind and my cheeks heat.
Don’t even go there; you’ll only be disappointed in the end.
Becauseloveisn’t something I’ve truly experienced, and it’s not something I’m allowed to have in any capacity of the word. Especially with someone like Victor.
I don’t get to love or be loved in return, serial killer or not, and that’s my hard truth.
“I wanted that for Louise.” My heart skips a beat as Margie says her daughter’s name for the first time since living here, so I stay quiet. “Wanted it for… for Jolene, too. I had it with… with Arthur. The truest love… one that is so… so big it almost… hurts.”
She takes a deep, painful breath as I lean toward her, my hand returning to her hair, gently brushing it back with my fingers. “Why don’t you rest, Mrs. Sanderson? Just rest and try to save your—”
“I want that for you, Stevie.”
And now I’m openly crying, on the verge of sobbing really, and while her words are like salt on an open wound, I know this is Margie’s goodbye.
“Take care of Jolene for me.” She takes a few shallow breaths before exhaling slowly. “And fall in love… with someone who makes your heart ache in a… a good way. Someone it hurts… to live without.”
I slip my free hand into hers, the tears silently rolling down my cheeks as I look over the peaceful expression on Margie’s face. I watch her chest barely rise and fall, the movement less and less with each passing moment. I watch the fight slowly leave Mrs. Sanderson for thirty-one minutes and seventeen seconds before she takes her final breath, surrendering in a battle none of us can ever win.
But that doesn’t mean she’s not victorious, because Margie is finally with the ones she loved so big that it did in fact hurt.
With a shaky sigh, I get to my feet and wipe my eyes, trying to pull myself together enough to go notify Linnie. She needs to know so she can do the final assessment and file the report, but she’d want to know because my friend also had a soft spot for Margie.
With a trembling hand, I reach for Jolene, gently removing the well-loved cloth babydoll from under Margie’s arm then clutch it to my chest. I need to keep it together, and I need to be professional once I walk out that door because as heartbroken as I am, I still have a job to do.
One I owe Mrs. Sanderson to do to the best of my ability.
I can fall apart later with Jolene when Beau locks me in my room for the night.
So, I take a deep breath, hold Jolene tight, then make my way out into the hall where I immediately hear, “Who the hell do you think you are?”
I pull the door closed behind me and turn to see Chris storming down the hall, his face twisted into an expression so full of anger that it makes him look like a completely different person.
Or maybe he finally let his mask slip andthisis the person Chris really is.
“How dare you,” he hisses as he stops inches in front of me. “How fucking dare you report me, you little cunt.”
“I-I had no choice. Mrs. Sanderson—”
“Is just another vegetable waiting to die like the rest of them!” Chris barks in my face as he slams his hand against the wall next to my head. Instinctively, I shrink away from him, trying out of reflex to prepare myself for whatever he’s going to do while he continues yelling. “She isnothingwho hadnobody, and her days were numbered the second she got dumped in this shithole to rot. But you went and reported me anyway, ran to the nurse supervisor totattle,spinning lies about my job performance just because you blew your chance to go out with me, didn’t you, bitch?”
As if his words set off some bomb that’s been quietly ticking away, just waiting to go off at any second, a wildly inappropriate laugh bubbles up my throat as I straighten my spine and blink in Chris’s face. “What?”
His scowl falters for a second before he nods. “Came back from yourvacationand found out I was seeing someone, so you came up with the first thing you could think of to get back at me for it.”
“Seriously?”Wow, this guy is crazier than I thought.“You’re really standing here accusing me of coming back to work after a week off, giving enough of a shit about you to pump Linnie for information then getting so mad over finding out you’reseeing someonethat I decided to fabricate a patient illness, and what? Killed Mrs. Sanderson myself?”
All the color drains from Chris’s face as he straightens up and glances at the door behind me. “She’s dead?”
