“James, she’s taking it pretty hard. She doesn’t let many people inside her shell and she did you,” Lace told him. “She doesn’t understand.”

Lace, knowing how badly he missed her, had finally relented, begun to call him, tell him what she knew.

Almost two weeks without seeing Rae. It was crushing him. James felt as if he had lost his right arm, so deep was the void where their friendship had been.

Christmas was drawing near and Rae was pleading the pressure of end of year work to avoid him. She had skipped the party tonight, and he had come for only one reason, to see how she was doing, to give her an early Christmas gift. He had never meant to hurt her, not this way.

They couldn’t have a future together; it was for her own good that he had pulled back. But he was miserable and it didn’t help to know she was also as miserable. This was for the best. It had to be. No matter how many times he stopped to consider the options, it always came down to a simple fact that he didn’t have the energy for a marriage, to provide for a wife, let alone the energy to raise a family. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t take away her dreams of a family, her dreams of writing, just to make his life easier. She would wear out caring for him.

He was no longer a nice, patient, optimistic man to be around. The pain had removed that pair of rose-colored glasses. The pain had taught him that he wouldn’t be able to have everything he wanted. It felt like a cruel lesson, and he hated the reality, but he couldn’t change it. He couldn’t make the pain go away.

He wanted so badly to be well, to be fit enough to ask Rae to marry him, to build a home with her, to raise a family with her. But reality and what he wanted were a long way apart. It took energy to be in a relationship. It meant being able to at least take walks with her, carry out the trash, repair things that broke, mow the lawn, be there to take care of her when she got a cold. In the shape he was in, she would be constantly having to take care of him. He hated that reality.

But he had never meant for her to get hurt.

He needed to see her, to explain again as best he could why it had to be this way. She was still at the office, Dave had told him that. Since she was avoiding him, he would need to go to her.

He looked at the clock. There was no better time than tonight.

Dave had given him the key to the office suite, and for the first time he walked through the rooms to find them quiet, dark, silent. Her office door was open, the light spilling out into the research room.

She sat at her desk, her head in her hand, the droop of her shoulders weary, as if she felt the weight of the world pressing her down. She was walking a pen down a spreadsheet of numbers, deep in thought. Two weeks. He looked at her and wanted so badly for things to be different. He loved her so much.

“Hey, lady,” he said softly, “it’s awful late.”

She looked up.

Her face lit up momentarily when she saw him, then clouded again. “James. What are you doing here?”

“May I come in?”

She nodded to the chairs in front of her desk, then out of consideration, moved from the chair behind the desk to one of the group in front of the desk. Not the one beside his.

“How are you?” she asked quietly.

“Four out of ten,” he replied in the shorthand they had used for a long time. He studied her face, missing her, hoping something could be done to restore at least their friendship. “You look tired.” It was an understatement. He hated what he saw, but knew he had contributed to it.

She grimaced. “There’s been a lot of work to do,” she replied.

He reached in his pocket and retrieved the gift he had hoped to give her tonight at the party. “I brought you something.”

She hesitated before accepting the envelope, opening it.

He loved the smile he saw for he had the feeling she had not smiled in the past two weeks.

“Tickets to the Bulls game?”

“You need an evening away. If it turns out to be a bad day for me, Dave volunteered to take you,” James said with a slight smile.

“Dave will help you have a bad day so he can go in your place,” Rae replied, amused.

“Will you come?”

James watched her bite her bottom lip.

“Rae, it’s a simple question.”

She shook her head and handed back the tickets. “Thank you, James, but no.”

He felt the rejection cut deep into his heart. He did his best not to show it. He deserved it. “What if Dave is the one who takes you?” he asked quietly.

She shook her head.

“Rae, you need a break.”

“I’ve got one. I’ve been working on the book in the evenings.”

“When are you sleeping?”

She didn’t like him pushing; he could see it so clearly in her expression. It was buried alongside an enormous pool of hurt. He had never meant to leave her with that.

She got to her feet. “James, I’m okay. Honestly. But I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

He could hear the unsaid goodbye in her actions.

He hated this, hated this death of a friendship. “I’m sorry, Rae. I don’t want it to end this way.”

“Neither do I. But it has to be this way.” There were tears in her eyes as she moved back to her desk.

James had never felt more helpless. “Will you call me if you change your mind about the game?”

She nodded. “Take care of yourself, James,” she whispered.

“You too, Rae.”

He left, feeling his heart break. He walked to his car, the tears flowing down his face, hating the disease which had cost him what he most wanted in life.

Rae tried to concentrate on her book, tried to pick up where she had left off in the story, but the page blurred and the words ran together. She wasn’t going to cry anymore. She wasn’t!

The tears slipped down onto the page anyway.

James had looked so tired tonight, in so much pain. She desperately wanted the right to be with him on nights like this; to be his wife, have the right to hold him, help him, be with him. Instead, she sat alone in her home, trying to distract herself with a story that would probably never be finished, let alone be published.

God, why?

It was a prayer whispered around choking sobs. She hurt so badly.

He was the man she loved, the man she so hoped would become her husband, and he had instead simply said, “I can’t.” Nothing in her life had ever hurt this bad. Not the death of her parents, not the death of her grandmother, not even the death of Leo.

God, why?

“James, are you sure I can’t get you something?”

James reached up and softly squeezed the hand that rested on his shoulder. “Thank you, Patricia. But I’m okay.”

His sister didn’t believe him. James couldn’t blame her. He looked and felt like something that had been flattened by a semi. “You ought to be off your feet,” he cautioned.

“I’m fine.”

James tugged her to a chair with a smile. “Sit.”

She reluctantly did as ordered. “I feel like a beached whale.”

“You look beautiful pregnant. Enjoy it.”

“You’re not the one who gets to feel Junior kick for the fun of it.”

James laughed. The sound was rusty; he hadn’t had reason to laugh for a while. “Still sure it’s a boy?”

“I don’t know. Emily was like this, too, active. I guess I’m willing to wait for the surprise.” His sister rubbed her aching back. “You saw the doctor this morning?”

James rubbed his aching wrist. “Same old, same old. Another anti-inflammatory medication to try. They don’t have many suggestions.”

“I’m sorry, James.”

“I know.” He wished he could stay even slightly optimistic that the pain would fade like it had done before. “It’s the breaks.”

“How’s Rae?” Patricia asked softly.

James felt his face grow taut. “Angry. Hurt. About what I expected.”

“She’ll forgive you, James.”

James sighed, feeling so old. “Someday.”

The office was silent. Rae rubbed her burning eyes, trying to restore her concentration. She had added the numbers three times and come up with different answers each time. She had work to do. She couldn’t afford to be calling it a night at 9:00 p.m.

Her body had other plans. Wearily, she conceded the choice was no longer hers.

She closed the folders and added them to the stack at the side of her desk. Tomorrow morning. She could finish them then.

Her life was entirely this job. She had chosen to make it that. No use having a pity party over her own choices.

Her car was in the first spot in the parking lot, since she was normally one of the first people to arrive at the building in the morning. Tonight, her car was also one of only three cars left in the parking lot. She got in, tossed her briefcase and purse onto the passenger seat, flipped on her car lights.

Her body reminded her that she had not eaten since ten that morning, and she wearily gave in to the insistent demand. There wasn’t much at home. She needed milk. Some ice cream wouldn’t be bad, either.

Traffic was sparse.

Rae drove home, trying to pull her mind off work and think about her book, what she would write that night. Some nights it was only a page or two, but it was better to be working than to be thinking about James.

She wasn’t angry at him anymore. She knew how hard the decision had to have been for him to make. She didn’t necessarily want to see him again, either. Lace was upset with her because she had canceled joining them tonight. She didn’t want to see James, didn’t want to feel the hurt, didn’t want to be reminded of what she wouldn’t have. Marriage. Children.

At first, the hope had been strong that he would recover and change his mind. As the weeks were passing and reports from Lace and Dave were of no change, her hope had dwindled. She was down to Psalm 37, verse 30. God was her refuge in time of trouble. The verse fit; it helped. She had never needed a place of refuge more deeply than she did now.

“Is Rae coming?” Dave asked.

“She pleaded work when I called,” Lace replied.

Dave’s mouth tightened. “This is getting ridiculous. She takes on new clients and refuses to hire more help.”

James, seated on the couch, knew what Rae was doing but also felt a need to defend her. “She’ll eventually pull back again, Dave. She’s hurt and work is her first defense.”

Dave sighed. “Any suggestions?”

“No. I wish had one. Would you stop by her office, offer to take her to dinner? Lace says she’s losing weight again.”

“I’ll do that. Why don’t you two just get back together?”

James shifted the cane he was now forced to use all the time. “She doesn’t need another burden, Dave.”

“Really? Was that her decision or yours?”

Rae chose the corner store near her home to pick up milk, was disappointed with the ice cream options and ended up choosing plain vanilla.

A light freezing drizzle had begun to fall. Rae shivered as she slipped back inside the car, was grateful for the warmth. She pulled to the corner and waited for the red light to turn.

Her car was hit in the driver’s door as she pulled out with a green light.

When Lace returned to the living room after answering the phone, her face was white. James felt himself bracing even before he heard her words.

“Rae’s been in an accident.”