Lily's Temptation Vol. 1

by Michaels, C. C.

  I slowly open the door to Mrs. Fritz’s room, taking care not to make a sound. I see she is sleeping and feel a twinge of regret for endeavoring to introduce myself at the expense of her rest. But she looks different while she sleeps, like she could just float out of the room and into space. I’m standing over her, trying to convince myself that my visit is strictly professional and in no way an attempt to get closer to Maddox. Oh, God, what if I wake her and the fright shocks her system? Could I do that? No, there is no study I know of that suggests startling someone will induce an aneurism. But what if I give her a heart attack? Again, I tell myself that that kind of thing won’t happen, but I keep replaying clips from movies in my head where people keel over, and then die.

  With this new-found paranoia, I turn for the door, taking extra care not to be heard. I stalk back towards the door when something stops me dead. I notice something weird about the room. I notice there isn’t a sound emanating anywhere. It is perfectly quiet, and aside from my breathing, I hear nothing. Until a beeping sound shreds through the air, sounding off like a drill instructor shattering the silence and in a flash, nurses pour into the room, shouldering me aside and trying ardently to stabilize Mrs. Fritz. She is convulsing in the bed like a trout on land. The sound of her body thrashing against the bed comes in percussions of arms and legs smacking against cold white sheets. I want to move, to do something, but I feel ashamed to the point that my feet rush me out of the room. I duck my chin to my chest, gasp for air and reach for the stability of the wall, which seems to elude me. I stumble on further, and by the time I look up, I see Maddox meeting my tears with concern.

  “I left her,” I say without any strength in my voice. How embarrassing: I rush into his room after a fake check-up with a convulsing patient.

  Maddox rises in his bed his, breathing deepens and the look of fear I saw on his face earlier rushes back. He grabs the call button thumbing it as I stand in front of him. He’s probably in a daze from the pain medication and can’t recognize me. A nurse’s voice comes in over the speaker. “Are you alright, sir?”

  Maddox’s expression is too much to bear; I walk with my head down, toward the door. I’ve just rushed into the room with no explanation. My hand grips the cold lever when Maddox shouts, “Doctor.” His voice stops me. It rings through the room filling every square inch with a vibrato soaked in concern.

  The nurse’s voice squawks through the intercom. “Sir, do you need assistance?”

  “No, I’m fine, everything is fine.” Maddox waves me over to his bedside. “I’m gonna be okay now.”

  My mind begins to vacillate between my secret desire to submit to Maddox’s and my concern for Mrs. Fritz. The dilemma tears me in two directions. One personal, the other professional. My choice is unflattering, but I want to stay in the room—in front of a man who just saw me lose it. But I can’t shake this impetuous longing to run out.

  My feet seem to know my heart better than I do and make the decision for me as I move toward Maddox, who is now fully upright in his bed. I start talking, hoping that my words will drown out any thoughts allying to overthrow my mental state. I say the usual autopilot stuff, which is an amalgamation of scholastic-babble and long-winded medical jargon that loosely applies to Maddox.

  Taking his hand in mine, his face tense, his eyes darting from our hands to my eyes, I think of a medically-significant application for holding his hand.

  “I need you to squeeze me,” I say blankly. Maddox shifts his eyes left and right, and a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth while I stand beside his bed. His aqua eyes sparkle at me as his hand begins to sweat in mine, and then I realize he’s probably thinking sexual thoughts about me. Not that I would mind that. If I am being honest with myself, I would be guilty of the same thing. I continue masking my thoughts. “Squeeze my hand, Maddox. I need to determine if there is any abnormality.” He must wonder why I just stumbled into his room like a crazy woman, so I pretend I need to check his condition as my cover.

  “Oh, right, sorry.” His eyes shut hard. “How’s that?” Maddox is straining his forearm to clasp my hand. His muscles tighten and his veins crisscross over lean arms. As he clenches my hand, I trace the veins with my eyes until I notice he stops, awaiting some input. I am doing it again. Gawking at his fine body like a teenager.

  “Okay.” I realize my cheeks must look like they are on fire right about now. I clear my throat and try to regain my composure. I refuse to let a drunken street brawler knock me off my focus. I have a job to do in this hospital, so I resume the examination. “Now follow my finger.” His eyes roll slowly and on point with my finger and he hesitates each time his eyes meet mine. I raise my finger up and down. “Keep your head still.” His eyes roll up, then down with my finger, but his gaze wobbles off course, sizing me up whenever he deviates from the path. And each time he does, my blood zings through my veins with a jolt.

  “Sorry. I’m having a hard time concentrating.”

  “Just follow my finger,” I repeat to him.

  “It’s just...you’re so beautiful,” he says, which brings me to a halt. “Wow. Sorry, that was subtle.” Maddox says with sarcasm.

  I blink, caught off guard, and search for something to say to bring us back on topic, but before I can form a coherent sentence, my thoughts are jumbled in my brain, forced to retreat to the corners of my mind while my stomach does a somersault in reaction to the words, “You’re so beautiful.” I am instantly reduced to acting like a giggling schoolgirl. Thankfully, I manage to keep my adolescent response on the inside.

  “Thank you,” is all I muster which, in my experience, only facilitates the awkward silence.

  “I didn’t mean to say that. I’m sorry I made this weird.”

  “It’s fine.” This time my voice is stoic and removed, like a passing hello.

  “Do all of your patients make asses of themselves when they meet you?” Again he implements the boyish sarcasm, searching for a way to alleviate the tension we are swimming in. And again, I fall for it and it works, as I am helplessly drawn to him by his charm. I muse for a brief moment about what it would be like to lean close to him now, just to breathe him in, just to see what being close to him would feel like. But I refrain.

  “Let’s focus on you. You were in a fight and suffered damage to the back of your head, specifically the occipital lobe. You might need a CAT scan.” Maddox blinks at me, looks down and nods. Hopefully, this will kill any college boy romance notions he has of chatting me up long enough for me to finish and leave.

  But feeling the tension surge back on my side, I blurt out a response. “This isn’t the first time you have met me.” I must stop letting silence dictate my interactions with people. Maddox raises his head, a smile creeps across his face, intrigued at the thought that we met before, probably churning the gears to come up with another pithy pickup line.

  “When you were admitted, you were...” I try to think of a polite way to say, ‘You were drunk, Maddox, and you kicked my friend, Jack, in the face,’ but before I have time to rearrange the words and delicately place them in order, Maddox tenses up and pushes himself upright. His hands ball up into fists at his sides.

  “I acted like a fucking fool.” The statement is so brazen and self-loathing that the tide of tension is now a rip current.

  Looking to the ceiling and shaking his head, Maddox exhales while closing his eyes and my heart pings a little louder with-- what’s that? A pang of sympathy. Oh, God, I’m letting his good looks and charm cause me to feel something for him. It’s an awkward situation, having feelings for my patient. How am I to behave? Mandel is the perfect model of --well, let’s see, the anti-Christ? No, but maybe the perfect model of heartlessness as it applies to patient-doctor relationships. I don’t want to be like Mandel, uncaring and cold, but how do I show that I am concerned about a patient’s health without crossing the line?

  “I’m sorry. I know it probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but I’m sorry. I’ll make things right with Jack,”
he indicates with a warm smile.

  “Please don’t. We only ask that you concentrate on rest, that’s all.” My beeper shakes in its case, hopefully loud enough so Maddox can hear and I can lie about having to go to another patient. Maddox starts talking, but it’s not directed to me.

  “I promised her I was done with this shit,” he mumbles.

  Who is he talking to? The tension has mutated at this point and his mood changes. I really don’t want to get stuck patting Maddox on the back while he has a meltdown. It would just be another step into his web, another way to pull me over that fine line which divides personal from professional. And I still don’t know much about him, like what kind of a life he leads that brings him into an emergency room reeking of alcohol and bleeding from a fight. Logic tells me to leave good enough alone and not give him too much attention, but every time I look into his eyes, something tempting happens inside of me that makes me fear I am dangerously close to crossing the line with Maddox. My realization makes me nervous, and I stammer, “I, I have to go, but the nurses will stop in to check on you periodically.”

  “Lily, umm, Doctor,” his voice is wafts over me like a summer breeze. “If it’s not too much trouble, could you tell the nurse, uh...”

  “Jack.”

  “Yes, tell Jack I am sorry. I never meant to hurt anybody, least of all a guy who’s trying to save my life. Can you tell him that?” His voice is static when he apologizes. Like he has practiced the tone over years of saying, “I’m sorry.” His voice is impossibly warm, though; it rings in a normal cadence, but somehow sounds deeply rich and unique.

  He lowers his voice in such a way it vibrates off of everything, and it rushes a shiver up my spine. There is something in his voice; a tone, an energy, that shoots across the room and into my bones. It feels like silk on my skin, moving goose bumps up and down my arm. What is with this guy? Even his voice charms me as I feel his apology ring in my ears.

  As I reach the door, Maddox lies back in his bed and covers his face with his hands, letting out another deep exhalation. I turn the lever to the door when Maddox says, “Wait, I remember you.” He crosses his hands in his lap, leans forward and says, “You asked me some questions. I remember that, but...” He laughs and looks out the window. “I honestly thought you were a dream, a beautiful dream.”

  I tuck my chin to my chest, blushing from his compliment, and walk out the door.

  Chapter 3

  Jack is helping me place an IV on a patient. His hands move swiftly, taking care as he inserts the needle in the man’s arm. His movements seem like one singular action. I don’t know how many times I have had to rely on Jack to help me with the seemingly perpetual tasks I have yet to master. He is always smiling. It makes it easier to ask for help and I always come to him when I need any. When my mind goes blank from trying to remember every detail, Jack is there, guiding me. Good old Jack. He’s always on an even keel, one of the “good guys” in life; safe, and yet a little on the boring side.

  Despite this, I think about him when I have trivial problems like which candy bar to pick from the vending machine. When I arrive at the parking lot, I try to find his car so I can park next to him. He told me a story of how when he was in middle school he wanted to play the trumpet in the band and had practiced religiously for weeks leading up to a recital. When the night finally came, he stood up, preparing to dazzle his parents and peers. The rest of the band hushed their instruments in anticipation of Jack’s solo, but in pure terror, he forgot the piece he had been practicing. The band was confused and stopped playing, too. He told me, “Everyone just stopped playing, and it was so quiet I could actually hear sweat form on my forehead.”

  Jack decided in that moment he wasn’t going to be the next Louis Armstrong and quit music lessons the next day.

  Jack is checking Mr. Dimitri’s chart again, running a pen down each bit of information to ensure no mistakes have been made. I watch him secretly out of the corner of my eye. He is good-looking enough, nothing that would make the front cover of a men’s fashion magazine, but pleasant looking, with soft brown hair that curls up slightly in the ends where it’s longer, and simple brown eyes. When he works like this, Jack cannot be bothered. He won’t give his attention to anything else. He doesn’t notice me when I walk past him in a hurry, making my heels drive into the ground in order to get his attention, to wave to him. I have found myself wondering what it would be like to kiss Jack, to run my fingers through those curls as we embrace. Then I laugh at the thought of him kissing me over and over, with the kind of thorough attention he gives to charts. I also speculate as to how it would compare to doing the same thing with my brute, the fighter patient.

  I shake my head to clear my thoughts. This has been happening entirely too much lately, dreamy thoughts of guys. Jack has always been here right in front of my face. I guess I shouldn’t be so picky. I mean, I don’t have any time to socialize, let alone date. A resident’s life is one of pure dedication to work, and we all have to steal brief, flirtatious moments when we can as our torturous schedule saps every ounce of a social life from us. But Jack is the closest thing to perfect in this place, and he’s here where I have to be for the majority of my day and sometimes night. It’s no wonder that my perceptions of available dating prospects is filtered through the environment of the hospital. But ever since the night the brawny Maddox was rolled into the ER, cussing up a storm and kicking Jack in the nose, the notion of dating and the desire to be with someone has erupted like a forest fire.

  Jack is probably the most perfect dating material in my life right now. He’s the kind of guy who shows up half an hour prior to his shifts, makes coffee runs, and finds time to help me when I’m feeling overwhelmed. All very good traits for relationship material, but I need to know more about Jack.

  Besides, anything that would get Maddox off my mind would be a great relief. Maddox seems like the kind of guy who could say anything to please a woman, a playboy type. He looks like nothing but heartache and trouble, all rolled up in a really nice, muscular package. I should just stop thinking about him and focus on a safe bet, like Jack. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. Plus, there’s the whole unethical side of my little crush: doctors can’t date patients. If I were to give in to Maddox, I would be risking my career.

  I thud off down the hallway, more determined than ever to get Maddox out of my mind. I see Eleanora talking to Ms. Margaret outside her doorway, and I slow my pace. I need to pick her brain about Jack. She is standing with her hands clasped together. I walk up to her, telling her I need clarification of a prescription, while poking my pen to the clipboard. The subterfuge pays off. Ms. Margaret says goodbye and returns to her room.

  “How long have you known Jack?” I ask in a steadfast and firm way.

  “Long enough to know a few things about him.” She says this in a half-surprised way, but her tone belies her true attitude. She says it with the kind of confidence and repetition that suggests she knows exactly where this conversation is leading. She continues before I can speak.

  “Look, Lily, Jack is a good man. He’s young, but he’s not too bold and he’s not stupid either.” She points a finger at me. “He treats people well.”

  “What sort of person is he, though? I feel like I never have time to get to know people in this place.”

  “Jack is a safe bet,” Eleanora says with less vigor than before, like her voice let out and became flat. She takes me by the elbow and walks me down the hall out of earshot. We pass Jack on the way, still consumed in his routine. I scrutinize his every move as we pass, trying to look at him in a new light, trying to attach a hot, flirtatious meaning to his every move.

  “What do you mean, safe bet?” I whisper.

  “You know, he is a nice guy.”

  Ew, that sounds so...vanilla. Eleanora changed Jack from good to nice, and with this, I felt a dense heat begin to turn in my stomach. Saying a guy is “nice” is the equivalent of setting up your overweight girlfriend with a date and telling the gu
y she has a “nice personality.” “Nice” is code for there’s something wrong with them.

  The “maybe’s” come flying through my head: maybe Jack is nice but is he a womanizer? Don’t think so. There would have been gossip and talk all over the nurse’s station. Does he gamble? Is he the kind of person who fails so much he takes to obsessing over the minutiae in order to compensate? My head fills with hypothetical problems. Maybe he thinks he’s a failure that everything he touches falls apart and that’s the reason he devotes so much time to perfecting things. And now I am basically insinuating to Eleanora that I’m interested in him.

  I try to save myself by acting nonchalant. “That’s true, he is a nice guy. He always helps me. I just want to make sure he does it because I’m a resident. You know, I just want to keep our relationship professional.”

  I feign a smile at Eleanora, feeling the heat boil in my gut. I can’t hear myself talk like this anymore. As soon as Eleanora finishes her sentence I am killing this conversation.