by Hayes, Liv
“And why The Little Prince?”
Two eyes, like absinthe, seemed to tumble into mine. How was it that such an obvious man could have such beautiful eyes?
“Have you ever felt lonely?” I finally posed, then stopped myself. “I’m sorry if that’s too personal. I totally get it if that’s out-of-bounds.”
A toothsome grin flashed. His gaze lingered for a moment too long. And here I was, worried about having asked him a question.
“Yes,” he said, though the single words cracked with a kind of hesitancy. “You know, there’s a line – may I see the book, if you would?”
He flipped through the pages and began reciting the page where the the prince asks the fox why he won’t play with him, and the fox professes that it is because he has not yet been tamed.
“I love the fox,” I said. “The fox is my favorite.”
“You remind me of a bit of one,” he remarked, his head tilting just slightly. Observing. “You’ve got wide eyes.”
My heart thudded as Dr. Greene placed the book back in my hands. And after a second, only to break the tension, I said:
“Is this going to be my last appointment with you?”
A part of me hoped that he could tell, without my needing to elaborate, that I wanted to see him again. A part of me hoped that he wanted to see me again.
Dr. Greene spun around in his chair, which was nicer than the uncomfortable metal seat I was sitting on, and obviously more fun. Everything is more fun with wheels.
“There’s one more test that I would like done,” he said, then removed a pen, scribbled something down on my chart, and clicked it a few times. Playful, not pensive. “And if you could wait just a moment, there’s something I need to go grab.”
He jumped up, and in two paces was out the door. It took a whole of thirty seconds before he returned, brandishing a device that was both very cool and very frightening. It looked like a bomb.
“That is ugly,” I said, and he laughed.
“The King of Hearts,” he declared. “You’re going to wear this for two weeks, and it’s going to monitor your heart-rate.”
“How does it work?” I asked, staring at the tentacled mess of wires.
“I attach these electrodes to you, and whenever you feel an odd sensation, you hit this button,” he pointed to a very obvious blue button. “And it records your heartbeat. This way I can see if your chest pains are directly correlated to something that the general Cardiac sonogram or x-ray didn’t catch.”
“You’re very thorough,” I said.
“I’m a doctor,” he said. “And I wouldn’t be a very good one if I didn’t do everything in my power to make sure that you’re okay.”
We both smiled. As he moved closer, sliding with a grace that almost seemed deliberate, I wished that I could have said more to him than simple, typical banter. Chit-chat. The only things that were acceptable between two people like us.
When Dr. Greene seated himself again, he rolled his chair over until we were directly face-to-face, and said, hushed as a feather’s touch:
“I need you,” he stopped short, pausing. He appeared, right then, slightly flushed. “I need you to lift your shirt up, Mia.”
My throat tightened, and I swallowed.
“Why?”
He removed several stickers – oh God, the stickers – from a box.
“I need to place these,” he said, clearing his throat a little. “Of course, if you’d prefer, I could call a nurse in to do it instead.”
I shook my head, told him it was fine. As he was programming the King of Hearts, I stood, ambling a little. I tried to calm myself by reading the poster that hung on room’s door, but the text was so small that it only seemed blurred.
He cut a glance over, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Are you sure?” he persisted. “I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”
I nodded, embarrassed.
“Yes,” I told him. I lifted my shirt just above my bra, suddenly very aware that my chest was partly exposed, and it made every nerve stand on end. “I’m sorry if I’m a little shaky.”
His lip curled at the corner, the bit of stubble making his otherwise polished appearance just slightly rugged. Aimee was right – he did look slightly Stark-like.
“You’re fine,” he said. He then placed all the stickers accordingly. His hands didn’t linger. They fell away and onto his lap, his fingers curling. “I promise.”
I pulled my shirt down, feeling sheepish, but neither of us said a word.
We were just a patient and doctor, standing in a room that felt more and more claustrophobic by the second.
Why was this even happening?
I looked at him, partly wanting an answer from him, too. How could he be so obvious? How could he possibly dare? What a careless thing for a doctor.
The other half of me wanted to stand on my toes, wrap my arms around his neck, and press my mouth to his.
Instead, we muddled around in the murky waters for a moment longer, until I smiled – probably looking as awkward as I felt – and said.
“Well, thank you.”
“Of course,” he said, then. When I stood to leave and the book slid from my lap and onto the floor, he knelt to pick it up. “It was a pleasure to see you again.”
“Two weeks,” I said, and he nodded.
“Two weeks,” he said. “And I’ll see you soon, little fox.”
Later in the afternoon, sitting in the library (with the device safely concealed by a particularly baggy sweatshirt), Evan approached me.
“Hey,” he said, sitting himself down. “How have you been?”
“Alright,” I said, nodding towards my laptop. “Just studying.”
“Yeah…” he trailed off. “I guess I was just wondering if you were okay. With the hospital, and Aimee telling me that it might’ve been something with your heart.”
“My heart is fine,” I told him. “But I appreciate the thought.”
He pressed his hands to the table, exhaling heavily, and as I tried my best to maintain eye contact without looking as if I were giving him blatant Bitch Face, I realized what a contrast he was in comparison to Dr. Greene. Dr. Greene wore ties, and tailored dress-pants, and shoes with price-tags that were less than humble. His body had the build of someone older, with strong, defined limbs and broad shoulders. His face was covered with the slightest hint of stubble, his smile deceivingly boyish.
But Evan wore graphic Tshirts and American Eagle jeans, and his face was clean shaven. He wore maybe too much Axe, and a cheap watch that contrasted only with the iPhone that his mother had gifted him for Christmas.
He looked like a boy, I realized. A boy I had loved at one point, sure. But as he sat across from me, studying my face with those same azure-blue eyes that I had, at one time, swam in – I felt absolutely nothing. I wasn’t resentful. But I didn’t miss him, either. I felt nothing but nothing.
Little fox.
“Well, is there anything else?” I asked him. “Did you need something?”
I guess a part of me was expecting the typical: for him to ask for me back, for there to be some mild melodrama that erupted in the UCF library. Whispered blows and quiet rage.
But no, he just shook his head, and took a deep breath, and scooted his chair back.
“No, I guess,” he muttered. “Anyway, I’ll stop bugging you. Good luck with your studying and everything.”
“Thanks,” I said. “You too.”
Chapter 6
ALEX
I was standing on autopilot, nearly blinded by the sunlight that streamed through the windows and fixed on the sight of a patient that I could have sworn by every written God was Mia, when I felt a tap on my shoulder.
“Dr. Greene,” I heard the familiar chirp belonging to one of our newer nurses. “I’m not sure what this says. Your writing is terrible.”
Breaking away, I glanced down at the form.
“Heparin,” I told her. “An anticoag
ulant. Is this for Mr. Moulton?”
“Yes.”
“Tell him two times daily,” I said, fixing my eyes back on the doorway. “And tell him that he better start laying off red meat if he doesn’t want to end up back here. But what am I saying? They all end up back here.”
She scurried away, and the patient finally turned, solidifying my spectacular fucking disappointment. This one was older – and pretty enough, I suppose – but not Mia.
Taking a pen from my lab-coat pocket, I turned and trudged down the hallways, incessantly clicking the stupid ball-point utensil. I needed to keep my hands busy. I needed to keep my thoughts less so.
But I hadn’t come in two weeks, which was starting to smart at this point. And it all felt completely ridiculous – why on this expansive, green Earth would I bar myself from one of man’s most simplest and primitive pleasures? And why would I sit around waiting for a patient that was never going to be mine?
My little fox. My sweet, doe-eyed little fox.
I straightened my tie, exhaled loudly, and moved right along.
At the end of the afternoon, before making my way to the office, I had lunch with Dr. Weisman at this hole-in-the-wall restaurant around the corner.
“You took a girl home,” he said, leery. “So how are you feeling after having the chance to blow off some steam?”
I bit into a piece of summer squash, swallowed, and wiped my mouth.
“I actually didn’t blow off any steam,” I told him. “She fell asleep, and I put my blue balls to bed.”
He laughed. I chuckled, too.
“Are you going to see her again?”
“No,” I said quickly. “I didn’t even think I was going to take her home.”
I watched him for the better part of a minute as he cut into his steak-tip salad, then added:
“How was the student?”
“Student?”
“Yeah,” I said. “From the other day. The one you were meeting with for coffee, to talk about whatever it was you had planned to talk about.”
Weisman took a bite, swallowed, then glanced around. As if someone were watching the two of us. As if I were some kind of confidant that he could trust. And sure, he could. I didn’t particularly like Weisman, but he was company.
Was that pathetic? Maybe.
“I fucked her in the back-seat of her little Mini Cooper. My joints still ache,” he said. “Elaine is taking the kids to Naples this weekend, to visit her mother. I think I might have her over.”
“That sounds like one of the worst ideas you’ve had in awhile, Nick,” I told him. “She’s a co-ed. How old is she? Nineteen, twenty?”
“And you’ve never snuck a look at one of your pretty young patients?” he quipped. “You know, Grace told me about that girl of yours – I don’t know, I guess she was dealing with anxiety, chest pains – and how she’d walked in to the sight of you ogling the floor as if a giant hole had opened up, and you were about to get swallowed.”
“I’m not sure why,” I mused. “I see younger patients all the time. This isn’t a novelty.”
I began picking at a paper napkin, feeling Dr. Weisman’s wandering eye watching me carefully. The key: appear nonchalant.
“She also added that you’d taken it upon yourself to remove her EKG line,” he said, this time more softly. “Why not let a nurse do it? God knows I’ve never known you to get your pretty hands dirty.”
“She wanted to leave,” I said, my skin prickling. “I was expediting the process. You know how limited our nurse staff is. She could have been waiting around for a decade before someone wandered in to take care of her.”
I tilted my glass of wheat-colored ale back, taking a sip. When I set the glass down, Weisman was smiling.
“Well,” he said. “I guess that goes to show what a kind, concerned doctor you are, Dr. Greene.”
I threw a crumpled fifty on the white tablecloth, and pretended to seem amused. If the first step was to play it off as if you could give literally zero shits, the second rule is to play along. People never suspect those who give them nothing to pick at.
“And that’s why there’s always a hot cup of coffee waiting for me,” I grinned, slid into my Porsche, and waved him off. “Take care, you terrific bastard.”
At quarter to four, I was practically trembling. So much so, that Rebecca, one of the CNAs, even poked around the corner to ask:
“Are you sick or something, Dr. Greene?”
“Hm?” I mumbled. I was seated behind my desk, which was substantially empty and void of things like family photos, because I had not yet achieved a family. Looking past her, I lazily stared at the diplomas that hung across the cranberry-colored walls. My greatest achievements. “No, I’m not sick. Why?”
“I don’t know,” she muddled around for a second longer. “You look sick. I was going to offer to reschedule your patients if you wanted to go home and rest.”
“I’m fine,” I snapped, maybe a little too quickly, because her face immediately softened. “I’m fine, Rebecca. I’m sorry that I snapped. It’s been a long day.”
“That’s alright, Dr. Greene,” she said in a voice that told me it wasn’t really alright. But off she went, and I felt, all said, like crap. I’d have to make it up to her somehow. One of those fruit arrangements, maybe. Or macaroons. Rebecca liked macaroons.
I leaned back in my chair, swiveled, then stared at the ceiling. While the lights in every other part of the office were the same, intrusive fluorescent ones that you would expect, I had commanded softer, evanescent lights in my office. It put a greater ease on the patient’s shoulders, I found. People respond better to softer settings. They seem safer.
Eventually I went dipping in and out of the patients rooms, shaking hands, smiling politely, scribbling orders and prescriptions. One patient was dealing with a severe case of heart arrhythmia, but still insisted on running marathons. Another was dealing with a mysterious case of heart failure. Her husband had passed away almost seven months prior. She still wore her wedding band.
You can’t help everyone.
When they were wrapped up, I went back into my office and waited. I watched a YouTube video of a duckling falling asleep. I tapped my fingers against the keyboard, typing jumbled text across a blank Word document. I held down the M key, watching it shoot across the screen.
When Rebecca finally stepped into the doorway, the anticipation nearly killed me.
“Mia Holloway is here,” Rebecca said. She then held up the King of Hearts, and I could have strangled something. I had wanted to remove it myself, and now, all bets were off. “Here. For when you read the results.”
She set it down on my desk, and I nodded.
“Thank you,” I said, standing. Sighing. Always sighing, it seemed. “I’ll see to her now.”
I moved slow as a serpent down the halls, hands in pockets, trying to cool myself down. When I reached the door, removing the manilla folder and taking a deep breath, I realized there was no point. I’d tangle back up the moment I saw her.
So I knocked: one, two, three, and opened the door.
“Miss Holloway,” I said. I did this on purpose, feeling playful. “How are you?”
“Do doctors always start off with such formalities?” she asked.
My grin split widely, maybe more than I had even wanted it to.
“The best doctors, Miss Holloway, have mastered the art of small-talk.”
I sat down on the wheeled chair, tilted my head to the side, and simply studied her for a moment. Her hair fell in loose waves down to her breasts, dark as her sepia-colored eyes. I couldn’t tell if she was wearing anything on her lips or cheeks, but there was a natural bite to them both. She sat with her knees buckled, her toes pointed straight as a dart.
And when I sat down, that dart shot straight through me.
A friendly tip from your neighborhood observer of the human carnivore: where the body is pointed, the heart is pointed, too.
“You didn’t bring any reading
material,” I noted. “Waiting rooms are so dull.”
“I forgot The Little Prince at home.”
“Where is home?” I inquired, leaning in. “You said you were in school. Are you on campus?”
“I have my own apartment, slightly off campus,” she answered. “And I am. UCF. I’m studying English.”
When she started to turn a shade darker, I asked: “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I guess it just feels silly, saying out loud that I’m studying English, when you’ve obviously spent years and years submerged in the sciences.”
She was so sweet about it. Her eyes darted to the ground. Her knuckles went white as she laced her fingers together. I wanted to reach out and brush a finger down her cheek.
“If it’s something you love,” I said. “Then it’s never silly, Mia.”
She smiled. Our eyes locked. My heart, for the briefest moment, sprouted wings.
“Will you be able to read my test results now?” she asked, which only managed to sink me back into reality, and the sole reason that we were once again face-to-face. I was her doctor. “Oddly, everything seemed fine these past two weeks, to be honest.”
“No occurrences of chest pains, tightness?”
“Maybe twice,” she said. “But other than that, no.”
I picked up her file, jotted the note down, then stood, offering a hand.
“Come with me,” I told her. “We’ll tie this up in my office.”
I felt the delicateness of her shoulder as I brushed a hand across it; it was small, round, much like a sparrow’s skull.
Safely tucked away in my office, I closed the door, locked it (a usual practice, I swear), and offered her a chair. Her eyes darted around quickly, immediately grabbing, I’m sure, for glimpses of who I was.
When we were both settled, she glanced at me, her expression unreadable, and said:
“You don’t have many photos,” her voice cracked, like whiskey over ice. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
I shook my head.