Read Online One Last Thing Before I Go by Jonathan Tropper - Free Book Online
Authors: Jonathan Tropper
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see her drink again. She was tipsy, funny, and he knew, within the first ten minutes of talking to her, the way a man knows only when a woman lets him, that if he listened and nodded sympathetically, and danced all the slow dances with her, that she’d let him be the one to peel off that ridiculous dress when the wedding was over. The reception was at the Hilton, and for the sake of convenience, she had booked herself a room for the night, which meant no car ride during which she might sober up and reconsider.
So they danced, and he made her laugh with his moves, and refreshed her drink just the right amount to maintain her buzz without crossing over to staggering drunkenness, and a few hours later, after only some minor awkwardness, they were in her hotel room, where she fucked him with a drunken energy that bordered on anger before passing out facedown on his belly. And seeing her like that, vulnerable and spent, awoke something in him, and he studied the graceful slope of her spine down to the roundness of her ass, the smoothness of her skin, the way her small breasts held their own in pretty much any position, and he decided that hers was a beauty that revealed itself in stages, and congratulated himself on discovering it and getting laid at the same time.
He had planned to leave in the morning before she woke up, but by the time he opened his eyes she was already in the shower, and it seemed inexcusably rude to leave while she was there, somehow not at all the same as her waking up to find him gone, although he couldn’t have said why. So he stayed for breakfast, and she told him she was getting her real estate license, and he told her about his band, and he was inordinately touched by the fact that she wasn’t bemoaning their night together and saying things like “I never do this” or “I was so wasted,” which he would have taken personally. So sex led to a relationship, and the relationship led to a marriage, and the marriage to a baby, and only after it was too late did he realize the die had been cast all because she woke up before him, and that he’d fallen for her largely because she didn’t regret sleeping with him. Which, in time, she most definitely would.
CHAPTER 14
T he doctor who tells him he is going to die is the same man who will be marrying his ex-wife in two and a half weeks, which is either poetically just, or at least the sort of karmic fart that is emblematic of his life these days.
Rich Hastings is a tall, thin man, with a narrow face and bushy eyebrows that offset his receding hairline and make him look like a thoughtful owl. He is the one who bought Casey her car and will be paying her college tuition. He has not only replaced Silver as husband and father to his own family, but clearly fills that role better than Silver ever could. And yet Silver finds it impossible to dislike him, and not for lack of trying. He has expended no small amount of energy trying to cultivate a healthy disdain for Rich. But there is just something too innocent about him, something that defies cynicism. Also, he just seems to like Silver so damn much, and that is a rare trait indeed. And even now, as Rich tells him he is going to die, Silver can’t find it in himself to resent him.
“You have an aortic dissection,” Rich says, his voice low and grave.
“I don’t know what that means.” Silver’s ability to speak has returned, although the words still sound a bit funny to him, alien, hanging in the air until they lose their meaning.
Rich holds up his scans, not so much to show him the colorful nonsense as to hide behind it.
“There’s a tear in the inner wall of your aorta.”
“Well, that can’t be good.”
“It’s not.” Rich puts down the papers. “Your blood rushes into the tear, filling the wall, causing the layers of your aorta to separate and expand. This is also called a dissecting aneurysm.”
“Don’t people die of aneurysms?”
“Yes, they do. But you caught a break here.
So they danced, and he made her laugh with his moves, and refreshed her drink just the right amount to maintain her buzz without crossing over to staggering drunkenness, and a few hours later, after only some minor awkwardness, they were in her hotel room, where she fucked him with a drunken energy that bordered on anger before passing out facedown on his belly. And seeing her like that, vulnerable and spent, awoke something in him, and he studied the graceful slope of her spine down to the roundness of her ass, the smoothness of her skin, the way her small breasts held their own in pretty much any position, and he decided that hers was a beauty that revealed itself in stages, and congratulated himself on discovering it and getting laid at the same time.
He had planned to leave in the morning before she woke up, but by the time he opened his eyes she was already in the shower, and it seemed inexcusably rude to leave while she was there, somehow not at all the same as her waking up to find him gone, although he couldn’t have said why. So he stayed for breakfast, and she told him she was getting her real estate license, and he told her about his band, and he was inordinately touched by the fact that she wasn’t bemoaning their night together and saying things like “I never do this” or “I was so wasted,” which he would have taken personally. So sex led to a relationship, and the relationship led to a marriage, and the marriage to a baby, and only after it was too late did he realize the die had been cast all because she woke up before him, and that he’d fallen for her largely because she didn’t regret sleeping with him. Which, in time, she most definitely would.
CHAPTER 14
T he doctor who tells him he is going to die is the same man who will be marrying his ex-wife in two and a half weeks, which is either poetically just, or at least the sort of karmic fart that is emblematic of his life these days.
Rich Hastings is a tall, thin man, with a narrow face and bushy eyebrows that offset his receding hairline and make him look like a thoughtful owl. He is the one who bought Casey her car and will be paying her college tuition. He has not only replaced Silver as husband and father to his own family, but clearly fills that role better than Silver ever could. And yet Silver finds it impossible to dislike him, and not for lack of trying. He has expended no small amount of energy trying to cultivate a healthy disdain for Rich. But there is just something too innocent about him, something that defies cynicism. Also, he just seems to like Silver so damn much, and that is a rare trait indeed. And even now, as Rich tells him he is going to die, Silver can’t find it in himself to resent him.
“You have an aortic dissection,” Rich says, his voice low and grave.
“I don’t know what that means.” Silver’s ability to speak has returned, although the words still sound a bit funny to him, alien, hanging in the air until they lose their meaning.
Rich holds up his scans, not so much to show him the colorful nonsense as to hide behind it.
“There’s a tear in the inner wall of your aorta.”
“Well, that can’t be good.”
“It’s not.” Rich puts down the papers. “Your blood rushes into the tear, filling the wall, causing the layers of your aorta to separate and expand. This is also called a dissecting aneurysm.”
“Don’t people die of aneurysms?”
“Yes, they do. But you caught a break here.
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