“It was okay. I didn’t mind.”
“Well now that’s out of the way, you can continue what you were going to say.” I grinned.
Her full lips parted like she was going to say something and then she stopped. “Can this be off the record? I mean, what I’m about to ask?”
That got me real interested to hear what she had to say. “Yeah, sure.”
“What would really happen to me…if I couldn’t continue? What would happen if I truly couldn’t continue with my placement? They kept my offer open for a year and I didn’t have to go through the whole application process again. I’m sure it would be different if I started and…couldn’t continue.”
“I’m not sure Paige. I think that’s something you may have to look into more than the logistics. Is that what you want to do? Not continue?”
She shook her head. “No I want to keep going. All my life this…this was me. I’ve never wanted to do anything else. Just this. I knew from when I was five that I wanted to be a surgeon. Not even just a doctor. I was specific, very specific. I knew I wanted to be a heart surgeon. I shaped my life around that. I wasn’t like my sister. Not at all. She could have been anything she wanted to be. She was clever, smart, and beautiful. She was good at many things, she just chose acting because she had that personality everyone loved. I’m not like that.” She shook her head and winced. “God, I’m sure you have better things to do than listen to me wallow in sorrow.”
“Still here.” I was here, and surprised that I wanted to help her. “And we’re still talking off the record.” I nodded.
“Thank you.” She gave me a grateful smile.
“Paige, what actually happened when you had the panic attack?”
“I see it all happening…the accident. I was driving and the other car just came right at us. It slammed into us. I always wish I could have done something different. In my head I must have saved her—Lizzie, my sister—a million times. Ryan, I saw her dead. Next to me. She was the last…she was the last person like that I saw, and I think it became real. Death became real for me in that moment. Before that, medicine and being a doctor was about life and saving people. Helping people. Being a surgeon was about performing miracles. It was like being able to fix a person. I’d never thought about the part where the opposite could happen. Or what happens when you’re too late, or helpless. She was dead and I couldn’t fix her. I couldn’t fix her and make her alive again. I remember screaming and then fainting. That seemed to be the start of something I didn’t know would be a problem.”
God…
What did I say to that? What could I say?
“It doesn’t seem like something that can just be fixed overnight, but I don’t think we should jump ahead of ourselves and not try different ways to work around it.” This was my last attempt at seeing if I could manage this problem by myself.
She sighed. “I just…couldn’t go in the lab. How am I supposed to do anything if I can’t do the practical stuff?”
“We can try. We can see what works. That is just one part of this placement. One small but very important part. You’re very good with your patients.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I heard you managed to talk Mrs. Appleby into parting with her rabbit’s foot and nose ring. I don’t know how you did that.”
That woman hung onto that rabbit’s foot like it was her own foot. She’d been in and out of the hospital for years and the one constant thing was the damn rabbit’s foot. The nose ring was a more recent thing.
“I told her she was going into the lucky surgery room.”
I laughed. “Well, you seem to know how to handle the difficult. Let’s do this Paige. We’ll try to get through this.” I didn’t know what the hell I was promising or if this was the right thing to do. But I felt compelled to try.
“Thank you, but I don’t want to be a burden.”
“You’re not a burden, plus I kind of thought you’d be trouble from the second I met you. This just confirms it,” I joked.
She smiled and her eyes seemed more open. “I’m sorry about that. My friend dared me and I was drunk. I would never get up to such foolishness on a normal basis.”
I chuckled at the memory. “Well at least we didn’t need an icebreaker.”
“No, we didn’t.” She sighed. “Tomorrow is Friday. I feel like I wasted a whole week.”
“Don’t think that way. It’s still early so we have the chance to address this problem and see what we can do to fix it. You have live surgery with me tomorrow night. I’d like to see how you get on with that.”
She looked nervous. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Get back to everything else you have planned and we’ll pick up tomorrow.”
She nodded in agreement.
I made a move to tap her hand again but stopped myself when I saw Dr. Barry watching me.
Shit.
I hadn’t seen him there. He was across the restaurant near the fruit stall and the asshole didn’t even hide that he was watching me.
As casually as I could I sat back without making myself look obvious to Paige.
“Thanks for helping me Ryan. I won’t let you down.” Paige’s voice drew my attention back to her.
“I know you won’t, this is for you first. Ready to go?”
“Yeah.”
I was anxious to get out of there. The damn discomfort of being watched got on my nerves. Dr. Barry had the audacity to continue his watching as I left the restaurant with Paige.
I stayed with her while she did her patient rounds a little earlier than planned and left her when I felt she was more stable.
The rest of the day was one of those days that was busy and draining because of two emergency surgeries.
I took a break at nine. It was nine and I just wanted to go home, but there was too much to do.
I headed to my office and frowned when I saw who was inside.
Alana.
It was women like Alana who got guys like me in trouble, and on the watch. I frowned and hated that she felt that she could just come in here.
I’d shared this office with two other doctors until last year when they did some refurbishments. The others went because they hated being so close to the morgue. I stayed because I saw it as an opportunity to get an office to myself. Not specifically because I didn’t like sharing but because it allowed me to get up to all kind of wildness with women like her.
“Alana.” I really tried to say her name without sounding annoyed.
She laughed and tossed her dark locks over her shoulder. “Is that how you greet me? We haven’t seen each other in so long,” she cooed and looked me over with seduction.
She was a nurse who worked between sites. I’d known her since I started working here. That was a little over four years.
Of all the women I’d been with I was probably with her the most and people might have considered her to be more than just a casual hookup to me.
She wasn’t, however, and definitely the first one to go when I changed my ways. She was also the kind of woman who loved to spread gossip. If there was ever something that was supposed to be kept secret or confidential she’d broadcast it. So even if I’d made the decision to keep seeing her and keep it under wraps, people would still know.
“Alana I’m not sure why you’re here, but I’m busy,” I stated. It was better to dismiss her and discourage any conversation.
“That seems to be your mantra these days. Too busy for me?” She stood up and walked over to me in that slow sassy walk I would have normally found alluring and sexy.
“Too busy for everybody.”
“But not your new toy?” She raised a perfectly arched brow.
I narrowed my gaze at her. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Is that right? Of course you don’t. Like you would say anything other than that. Saw you with your first picking from this year’s intake. Does blonde hair and big tits ring a bell? If you sa
y no I’ll know you’re lying,” she chuckled.
I stared her down. “Alana, I am her mentor and I don’t owe you an explanation for anything. I told you we can’t screw around anymore.”
“And I don’t see why we can’t,” she countered.
With the exceptions of my family and Ben, no one else knew the ultimatum my father gave me. No one knew. As far as anyone was concerned I came to work one day a changed man. Suddenly I wasn’t chasing skirts anymore.
The whole fiasco with Celina was still talked about but the women I’d hooked up with didn’t think the whole occurrence would have change me the way it did. Maybe it wouldn’t have either if Dad hadn’t laid down the law.
“We can’t.”
She got a saucy but crude look in her eyes. “Because you want to screw someone else? The little blonde toy you seemed so taken with in the restaurant?”
Shit. I guess it was more than one person who was watching me in the restaurant today.
“Alana, stay out of my business. Just stay out. We’re done.” I meant that.
“Finding it hard to answer my question? You may think you’ve changed but all you’re doing is taming the inner beast to please your father.” Her smile turned up a notch and she looked me over as if she had me where she wanted me. “You’re the same old Ryan. The leopard that won’t change his spots. You want that woman. I can see it in your eyes. Let me know when you’re done with the small fish and ready for the big league.”
I didn’t answer as she walked out. I just watched her. It was a twisted thing when people like her knew your weaknesses. Not a good thing. Not good at all because they were a constant reminder of the past and past mistakes.
I was no priest, not by a long shot, and if I were honest I would admit that yes, I wanted to help Paige. I genuinely wanted to help her and wanted her to do well. It would be good for her and good for me too. However, that desire to help stemmed from something more that I couldn’t quite deny. Something that stemmed from that first night we met at the bar. I wanted her then, and I could lie to myself all I wanted and try to paint my attraction to her in all colors of the rainbow, but truth was truth. The wanting didn’t actually stop when she burst through the door on that first morning and I realized I was her mentor.
It didn’t stop then and it hadn’t stopped as the weeks rolled by.
It was still there now.
Chapter 9
Paige
I pulled in a deep breath, held on to it, and released it slowly.
It was practice. Dr. Marion said I should practice for when I needed to access the breathing technique, also that I would be surprised how much a few breaths could do to alleviate a panic attack and stop it from escalating.
She’d been my therapist since the accident. She was strict in her methods but with her help I was able to get back on my feet.
I’d gotten home late today but thought I’d give her a call. I was hoping the phone would go to her voicemail, however, she’d answered on the first ring. I’d liked that she was attentive. It made it easier.
In the beginning I had to go on some seriously strong medication to control my anxiety and I hated it for the side effects.
I was on those for the whole time was in the hospital. When I got home I’d improved a lot and therapy was used instead. Dr. Marion was a Cognitive Behavioral Specialist. I took to the treatment well and was able to relate to it.
Tonight I spent an hour on the phone with her. It was eleven by the time we finished talking and I found myself telling her everything that happened and my fears. I hadn’t meant to go in too much depth, but the concern of this new thing I had to worry about affecting my residency gave me a kick in my ass and made me want to do what I needed to nip it in the bud. It was a good session with her. She booked an appointment for Monday and promised to call again over the weekend. She wanted to see me at least once a week too just to make sure I got the correct support. Of course I agreed to all of it.
My door opened and Kelly came into my room with a plate of cookies and a glass of chocolate milk.
I’d messaged her earlier to let her know what happened to me. She came to check up on me during the day and this was her showing she was worried.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” I replied, straightening up on my bed. I’d been holding one of my fluffy cushions while I did the breathing techniques.
“I heard you finish a little while ago so made these.” She set the cookies down on the nightstand and sat on the edge of the bed. “What did Dr. Marion say you should do?”
“The standard. Breathing techniques, and guess what?”
“What?”
“She said I should face my fear.” Yup. That was Dr. Marion’s main advice and the bulk of our conversation was based on that. She’d said I’d made an association with death and my accident. Not even Lizzie specifically. It was the accident. The images in my mind were all linked to a fear of death. Me dying. Me. That was what she said.
“God, that’s a lot. And face your fear?” Kelly narrowed her eyes. “Paige, it might not be as easy as that.”
I laughed. “No, it’s not going to be. She said the key was unravelling whatever misconceptions I’d weaved into these associations. I don’t even know how I did this to myself.”
“Did she say how you could do this unraveling?”
“She said to think back to how it was before. Think back to my mindset as it was before my accident. It’s funny, I have that thing about cars and the cars I drive but I never fainted at the sight of a car or had a panic attack over driving.”
“Maybe it was because it wasn’t about the car and as much as you’ve said you wished the car was faster or whatever, deep down you know there wasn’t anything you could have done in the situation,” Kelly deduced.
I nodded agreeing. “Yeah. Maybe. I need to get past this and soon. This year is supposed to be exciting. I never thought I’d have this problem to worry about. This year was supposed to be me moving on. I can’t put my life on hold anymore. The grief was so bad last year.”
She reached out her hand and covered mine, giving it a gentle squeeze. “You’re a fighter Paige. You are. I’ve watched you literally fight and hell, let’s face it—you’re the friend who is this massive support to everyone else. Lord knows I wouldn’t have made it through college without you.”
I had to laugh because that was probably true. “Thank you for being there for me too and for being here now. I hope tomorrow will be a little better. I have surgery with Ryan. I kind of think I may be okay with him.”
Kelly smiled and got this very curious look on her face. “Ryan? Is this the same Dr. Demon, Dr. Asshole, Dr. Prick, Dr. Asshole Prick?”
I burst out laughing. “Yes, the same guy.”
“Now he’s Ryan? You skipped past Dr. Dawson and landed on first names?” Mischief flickered in her eyes.
“Kelly, please. I call him Ryan. It means nothing. He was actually a great help to me today and not as assholish as I thought.” He’d actually impressed me and I got the sense that he could be nice when he wanted to be.
I was grateful for the niceness because he could have been the opposite. Then what would have happened to me?
“Be careful Paige Taylor. Remember what I told you about this guy. Player. That is him. No one changes just like that. Not saying I wouldn’t go there with him, but you’re more of a relationship girl.”
I scowled at her. “Hey what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what I said. It’s not a bad thing. It just means you’re the girl you get with if you want long term, not the fling, or the fun girl who just wants to love ’em and leave ’em.”
I knew some part of that was supposed to be a compliment, it just took me back to how everyone used to tease me in high school and college.
“Okay,” I replied in a flat tone.
Kelly laughed. “Oh my gosh. Paige, please don’t be upset. Sometimes I wish I c
ould be like you. You have your head screwed on right and you know what you want. People like you always find their way. People like me tend to float around until we find the path we want to be on.”
Now that was a compliment, even though she’d put herself down.
“You’re not like that Kelly. You know what you want too and it’s not a bad thing to be spontaneous. We balance each other.”
She smiled. “I like that. Want to balance me now?”
“Sure.”
“So, I got a message today. A text from Devon.” She tilted her head to the side.
My eyes widened. Devon was her ex-boyfriend. They met during our internship. She thought he was going to continue on at St. Michael’s with his residency but he went to a medical camp in the Middle East. His father worked as a doctor for the UN and he was assisting on a project.
“Devon? Oh my God, what did he say?”
“He just said he was checking in.”
“Did you text back?”
She shook her head. “No, no way. That is one path I won’t be venturing down ever again with that man. He left me and I don’t think I’ve ever experienced heartbreak quite like that.”
He left the week after our internship ended. Two weeks after that was my accident, and yes, Kelly was left crushed and heartbroken. Then with what happened with me and Lizzie it was just one of those things where everything was going wrong. All at once.
“Are you sure you shouldn’t text back?”
“I’m not going to do that. He just ended it and never really gave me closure. There weren’t even red flags. He was the first guy I actually thought I could be with long term. He didn’t see me like that and I was left feeling like a fool. I don’t know why he felt the need to message me today, after so long. But I’m done with him.”
I sighed and slumped my shoulders. “Well, at least you sound stronger than when he left. That’s a good thing.”
“I feel stronger. It isn’t good to give anyone that much power over you. Anyway, I have to ask about Ryan…” That mischief came back to her eyes. “I sense something brewing. You wouldn’t just change your mind so quickly about a person.”
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