Purposefully Accidental

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I spent a lot of time away from Freddie ever since the pandemic lockdown ended. After completing my treatments and getting the okay from my doctors to leave the city, I immediately flew back to my parents' home to be with my family.

I recovered mostly at home, making up the first few months of Lucy's life that I missed while I was sick in New York. It wasn't well until after the second dose of the vaccine was distributed throughout the states that I began to attend various social events publicly with Freddie, as advised by my doctors. Those were the only times we actually get to see each other in the past couple of years.

Other than that, I mostly stayed with my parents, spending quality time with my family as I continued grieving for my brother. Freddie's so swamped with work, but he came to visit my town a few times in the past—usually while on his way to a business meeting somewhere on the West Coast or while he was picking me up for an event that he wanted me to attend with him.

It wasn't always easy between us.

I almost pulled out of our agreement when Tony first got sick, begging for Freddie to just bring me back home to my parents. But he told me that he needed me just as much I needed him, so I stayed in New York.

Freddie knew what he was getting into when he married me after my cancer diagnosis. But I don't think he was quite prepared to witness what it would look like when my health began to deteriorate. To watch me wither away in my bed, screaming at him to bring my brother back from the dead, and not speaking for entire days when everything got too loud inside my head.

There was a long period of time when Freddie wouldn't touch me—hell, he wouldn't even look at me. We slept on different floors in his massive house and there would be weeks that we didn't see each other even when we lived together during lockdown. But he got me everything I needed—all the best doctors on speed dial, and the live-in nurses who bathed and fed me and changed my sheets when I didn't have the will or energy to even lift a finger, not to mention all the treatments I couldn't afford on my own, which I still don't know how to repay him for.

I don't remember much, but I know I was such a pain in the ass to live with. I didn't blame him for keeping himself away in his rooms. In fact, I felt so guilty for invading his space while he was overloaded with work, as he was finishing business school and working for his dying dad from his home office, that sometimes I wished he never married me at all.

So I kept my own distance from him, even after I finally got better in the end. It took a long time for that look in Freddie's eyes to finally disappear whenever he set his eyes on me—I still believe that it was either disgust or revulsion from remembering how awful I looked at the lowest point of my life, or all the nasty things I said to him in my grieved state of mind, but he never could keep his eyes on me for more than one second before looking away and sometimes even leaving the room.

But I always showed up whenever he called, standing next to him in designer dresses as he shook hands with all these rich and powerful people who only cared about him for his last name. And, eventually, it becomes easier to see him again, without the guilt that used to eat away at me, knowing I'll never be able repay him for everything he's done to help me get better and healthy again.