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Cover to Cover - Final Chapter

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She was living in an apartment near the center of town, a few blocks from the hospital. She spent most of her time in the room, only venturing out to the grocery store for the most part. She had walked to a nearby park a couple of times and had sat reading a book. She currently had bandages on her face but when she went to the park I had noticed that she did not have any bandages. That made sense. She had just had another surgery so the bandages would likely be there for a week. I decided to try to catch her at the park after her bandages were removed.

A few days later she went back to the doctor’s office and when she came out the bandages were gone. I had a pair of binoculars and watched her from a distance. She definitely looked different but I could see improvement from the last time I’d seen her.

I let the Private Investigator go since I was keeping an eye on her myself now. I watched her apartment for two days before she finally came out and began walking up the street towards the park. She was wearing a wide brimmed hat and sunglasses, probably to protect her tender skin from the sun. She had a slight limp, but it was apparent that her broken leg had healed, at least to a large degree.

I knew where she was going so I followed at a safe distance on the other side of the street. I entered the park from a different direction just in case she was looking and it took me a few minutes to locate her. She was sitting on a bench and I was able to work my way around her and approach from behind. I walked up and around the bench and sat down facing in her direction. Her face was covered by the rim of the hat and she didn’t look up at first. I guess she sensed that I was watching her and she turned and looked at me.

“Alex, don’t leave, I need to talk to you,” I said. “It was very unfair of you to leave like that and not even say goodbye. What made you think this accident would make any difference to me?”

She didn’t say anything at first, and then I saw a tear run down her cheek.

“You have no idea how much my face was damaged,” she said. “I’m not the same woman you used to know. I knew you would try to act like nothing was different and you would be good to me, but only because that’s the kind of guy you are. I would always have doubts about how you truly felt.

These surgeries are going to wipe me out and I won’t be able to model ever again. I could not bear the thought of you taking care of me because you felt sorry for me. I couldn’t burden you with that. You are a wonderful guy and you deserve the best, and that’s not me.”

“Alex, do me a favor and take off your sunglasses,” I asked. She looked down at her lap and didn’t move for a moment, but then she reached up and took them off. She continued to look down at her lap so I moved over next to her and reached my right hand up to her chin. I turned her head gently toward me and looked at her face. The bones had healed but there was a slight indentation above one eye. The scars were not that noticeable in this light but I could still see them.

“You know what?” I said. “You’re already pretty. You still have beautiful eyes, and I’m betting that you still have a beautiful smile. I’d like to see that smile again Alex. Yes, I admit that you do look different and that will take a little getting used to, but that won’t be difficult for me to do. It may be harder for you, but you don’t have any choice, I do.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small box. I opened it and turned it toward Alex. She looked down at the 1 carat, heart shaped white diamond ring. I let her look at it for a moment before speaking.

“Alex, the woman I fell in love with is still here, sitting heret beside me. Your face isn’t the same, but you’re still pretty and your heart and your mind are still the same. I love you Alex, I truly and honestly love you, and I want to marry you. I’m not speaking from pity or from any sense of obligation or guilt; I’m speaking from my soul. If you turn me down you will break my heart.”

Alex began crying uncontrollably and I pulled her to me and we hugged. She tried to speak but she was crying so hard she couldn’t get any words out. Finally she regained control of herself. She pulled back and looked at me and smiled the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen.

“Yes, Nick,” she said, “yes I’ll marry you.

Later that evening Alex and I were in a restaurant having dinner when I my phone rang.

“Nick, its Tom, any news? He asked.

“Tom, I’m glad you called. I’d like you to be the first to know that Alex and I are getting married.”

“You’re kidding me, that’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time. Is Alex with you? I want to tell her the second best news I’ve heard in a long time.”

I handed Alex the phone.

“Hey Tom,” said Alex, “it’s good to hear from you. What? You’re kidding right?”

Alex listened for another minute then turned to me.

“How soon can we get back to L.A.? she asked.

“I’ll have to check but we should be able to get back by tomorrow. Why?”

“Because I have a job interview. Tom’s company has an opening at corporate headquarters and he has praised me so highly that they want me to come in as soon as possible.”

“Tell Tom we’ll be back in town tomorrow and see if he can make arrangements for the interview.”

Alex did so and hung up.

We flew back to L.A. the next morning. That afternoon Alex had her interview and left with a second interview already scheduled. The job was at a lower level than she had previously set her sights on, but the upward potential was very good and she was excited for the opportunity.

Alex still had one more plastic surgery scheduled with the doctor in Folsom, but she decided to cancel it and meet with her doctor in Los Angeles. When she saw her doctor he said that her improvement was remarkable and he agreed that only one more surgery was needed. He admitted that she was not going to look the same, but that after all of the surgery was complete and her face healed she would still be a very pretty woman.

The doctor’s comments buoyed her spirits and when I saw her again that night she was the smiling and happy Alex I had known before the accident.

The company that Alex was interviewing for was a conglomerate that owned not only a string of fast food restaurants, a chain of high end restaurants, but also a retail clothing division, among others. She was interviewing for the position of V.P. of marketing for the clothing division. Because of her modeling background she had good insight into clothing trends, especially for high end clothing. Having graced the cover of Cosmopolitan gave her the leg up that finally got her the job.

Because the corporate office was in downtown Los Angeles, I offered to let her move in with me, which she did.

We decided to schedule the wedding for as early as possible after her face had completely healed, which would take about two months. In the meantime I had returned to my work with and before the wedding day I had hired another architect. The time had come for me to open an office outside of the house. I found a suite in Beverly Hills that was centrally located and an easy commute from home.

The wedding day came and went; we spent two blissful weeks in the Caribbean, and then returned to focus on our respective careers. My business continued to grow, and Alex was doing very well also.

One morning I took my coffee and a stack of mail and sat out on the back deck. As I sipped my coffee I went through the mail. At the bottom of the stack was the latest addition of a fashion magazine. I looked away and began to reflect on how quickly things had changed for Alex, and for me.

About a year after we got married my old workshop was renovated and became a workshop for Alex. She had decided to design her own clothing line and was still determined to run her own company.

She worked evenings and weekends for months designing clothes and talking quietly to buyers. After another year she felt she was ready and she quit her executive position and began pushing her own line of clothes to all of the buyers that she had met and worked with over the past two years. It was slow at first but she had determination and confidence, and slowly her lines began to sell. In another year her clothes were selling in major department stores and she had recognition around the world as a successful clothing designer. She had also started a line of expensive, high fashion clothes that were selling in a boutique shop on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

Alex was written about in several fashion magazines, but few people knew about her accident and the subject never came up. Then one day Jack Carpenter called. Cosmopolitan was interested in doing an in depth story about Alex. Jack knew about the accident of course, and had convinced the editors of Cosmopolitan that it was a human interest story that would garner a lot of interest.

This time Alex was wholly in favor of it because it would be good for her business. Part of Jack’s incentive was that he knew something that Alex did not yet know. Alex was going to be nominated for designer of the year. Whether she won or not didn’t matter, the history of how she had gotten there was going to sell a lot of magazines.

They timed the article to be published just before the voting. I looked down at the glossy magazine before me to see Alex once again gracing the cover of Cosmopolitan.

Published 
Written by WadeMorgan
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