The Ex by Freida McFadden
Prologue: The Ex
When my live-in boyfriend of many, many (many) years told me he was taking me out to dinner to discuss “something important,” there was only one thought running through my head:
It’s about damn time.
Of all our friends, Joel and I had been together the longest. I don’t want to say how long. It’s embarrassing. Let’s just say that I danced at the weddings of friends who had been together half as long as we had. And then a few months earlier, my sister got married. My baby sister got married before I did. In India, they have a rule that the eldest sister must be married off before any of the younger siblings may, and I think it’s about time they bring that rule to the western hemisphere. Because otherwise, you end up sitting alone at your little sister’s wedding while elderly aunts pat you on the hand and assure you that it will be “your turn next” until you end up hiding in a stall in the ladies room, stuffing wedding cake into your mouth.
Joel missed that wedding because he pulled the short straw and ended up with an ER shift that day. Or that’s what he told me. After the fact, I have to wonder.
But tonight, all was forgiven as I walked into the crowded bar and grill where Joel and I were meeting for dinner, since he was coming straight from the hospital. The tables were packed so tightly into the small space that I had to twist my hips to navigate across the room. Smoking had been banned in this establishment for many years, but I still detected a whiff of cigarettes, clinging to the wood of the tables and chairs, ground into the sticky floor.
This was, in fact, the very same bar and grill where we had our first official date together all those years back—if that wasn’t a sign he was about to pop the question, what was? I had barely enough time to change clothes after work, and I’d made the most of it. I splurged on the Ultimate Little Black Dress last month, and I’d been dying for an occasion to wear it. I spent nearly an hour with my curling iron, trying to get my hair maximally silky and shiny. I loved the look on Joel’s face when he saw me in a sexy outfit—the way his mouth dropped open slightly, and a smile spread across his face.
My first clue that something was amiss was that Joel was wearing his green scrubs. Not that Joel wearing scrubs was anything out of the ordinary. He worked as an Emergency Room physician at a local hospital, and he admitted he’d live in scrubs if it were socially acceptable. I did our laundry every Sunday, and there was usually a full load of nothing but scrubs. He wore them whenever I didn’t nag him to put on real clothes. I mean, jeans and a T-shirt would have been fine. I wasn’t picky.
So it wasn’t a surprise to see him wearing scrubs. Yet I figured if he were going to propose, wouldn’t he want to wear something nicer? Also, it made me feel ridiculously overdressed in my Ultimate Little Black Dress when he was wearing freaking scrubs.
A waitress started talking to Joel as I approached the table. She was all of twenty-two with curvy hips and blond hair, and before I got to my seat, her hand was on his shoulder. Joel in regular clothes got second looks, with his penetrating blue eyes, shy smile, and lean but muscular build. But in scrubs, he was absolutely irresistible to women.
“Hey.” He lifted those blue eyes when he saw me. He looked tired, but that was also nothing new. “You’re here.”
The waitress reluctantly pulled her hand off my boyfriend’s shoulders. I was unsurprised by her reaction to me because I got it all the time. The eyes traveling up and down my body as she appraised her competition. But at last she left us alone.
“How was your shift?” I asked as I settled into the chair across from him.
His face brightened the way it always did whenever the subject of his work came up. Joel loved his work more than anyone I knew. Even when we first met, back when he was a first year medical student, he knew he wanted to be an ER doc. He lived for his work. It was absolutely the most important thing in his life.
How things have changed since then. Now that he has her.
“I diagnosed a dural venous sinus thrombosis,” he said. “Two days ago, they let this girl walk out with just some Fioricet for her headache. I caught it though.”
“So…” I grinned at him. “You saved her life.”
“Well.” He lowered his eyes. One thing about Joel was that he never oversold himself. “Maybe. I’m sure someone would have figured it out eventually. And then I passed her on to neurology, so if anyone is going to save her life, it’s them.”
“Of course you did,” I insisted. Because while my boyfriend was always reluctant to tout his own achievements, I had no trouble doing it. I would tell anyone who would listen about the Great Dr. Joel Broder. I wasn’t bragging—I believed everything I said. I was so proud of everything he had achieved during the time we were together. In my eyes, there was nobody better than him. No better doctor. No better man.
No better person to spend the rest of my life with.
I still believe that. In spite of everything that happened next.
“There are lots of people I don’t save,” he said.
Without him saying the words, I know what he’s referring to. One month ago, a man dropped dead in his ER. A young man—about our age, give or take a year. He came in complaining of vague chest pain that had been triaged as “likely heartburn.” Joel hadn’t even seen him yet when a “Code Blue” was called. Joel rushed to the room, but wasn’t able to save him. Cardiac arrest, he said.