Just Ales

Chapter 11 (Just Ales)

Nicholas’ POV:

I have probably been in love with Alessandra Heartwood since I was ten years old, and she didn’t know I existed until today.

Let me explain.

The Heartwoods and my parents, the Andrews, moved in the same social circles. They belonged to the same clubs, had summer houses in the same areas, and went to the same weddings and parties.

I couldn’t count the number of times I’d been to the Heartwood’s house, but had never actually held a conversation with Ales. She was either being paraded around and prodded by her mother, was off with her own friends, or was at the barn.

As we grew older, she spent more time at the stable, and I spent more time studying and getting medical internships. I already knew that I wanted to be a doctor – specifically, a neurosurgeon.

But the time I spent near her, I didn’t waste. I was too shy to start a conversation with her, so I just watched her. Not creepily of course. I just snuck glimpses of her whenever I could; sometimes I watched her from over a book I was reading, or talked with my friends specifically close to where she was standing. You could never get tired of watching Ales. She has these eyes that are kaleidoscopes of blue and gray, all mosaicked together. They say eyes are the window to the soul. I didn’t believe that until I met her.

She moves lithely, like she’s made of silk, but has steel in her veins. It’s hard to describe her. The curve of her neck. The swoop of her eyelashes. The readiness of her infectious laugh.

For me, at least, there will only be one girl. And I know it’s her the way an old woman with a healed knee can feel when it’s going to rain. It’s a little achy, but I know it’s coming.

For a few fleeting sacred seconds during graduation, our gaze was melded together. We were both graduating with high honors. She was just about to tell her parents that she wasn’t going to be attending Dartmouth in the fall. She was going to tell them about her dream, her future, the inner workings of her mind would be exposed. She was going to tell them she was ready for her European Tour, ready to break free.

Her eyes said it all. They looked wild, exhilarated. She was a bird. This place was a cage. I loved her. I would not be the one to bar her way out.

So she went.

I threw myself in my school work, tried to forget about her for a while. There were other girls, although none that lasted. They said I wasn’t emotionally there. And I wasn’t there – for them.

I was on track, straight to the top. Then Jer calls me one day about this girl who collapsed at his barn. Jer, who I’ve known my whole life, who stables my father’s polo ponies. Jer, who coached Ales.

When I arrived at Foxglove, I wasn’t in a hurry, although Jer had sounded urgent.  When I saw the girl lying on the floor, I strode over. Jer, and another young man there, both looked nervous. I knelt next to her, and opened one eye, and checked her pulse. Just to make sure this girl was still alive. Her facial structure looked familiar but….no. It couldn’t be. I was tired and had had a long day.

Her pulse throbbed reassuringly in her neck. Her eyes had contacts in them. I looked up at Jer.

“I need to take her contacts out. They’ll scratch her corneas if I don’t.”

Jer swallowed hard, then nodded.

“Jack,” he said, and the other young man looked up. “Go and let Castaway out into the back pasture. I’m not sure the Pony Clubbers running around are good for his nerves at the moment.”

Jack started to protest, but Jer cut him off. “Go.”

He left.

I opened the girl’s eye again, and carefully peeled away the contact. Holding it up to the light, I frowned when I realized it was a colored contact. I extracted the other contact, and pulled her hair away from her face. Then I opened her eye again, and felt like I had been hit by a bus. The air left my body in a resounding whoosh.

“You know?” I asked Jer. He nodded again. I moved the fastest I could, and worked to get her the private hospital room, and into stable condition. She was back. Ales. Sick, and she needed my help. This was my chance, and I couldn’t afford to pass it up.

Later, once she had been made comfortable, Jer and I were sitting in her room. He watched as I carefully adjusted her IV, and the softly softly softly stroked her pale wrist with two fingers where I had inserted the needle.

And then, I told him everything.