Necessary Medicine

by M. K. York

“That sounds hard.”

  “It was.”

  “That’s one of the things I worry about. Finding a way to have a life outside medicine.”

  Eli snorted a little on a laugh. “If you figure it out, let me know. I’ve been trying for a long time.”

  Neil picked up the toothpick that had held his sandwich together, fiddling with it. “Can I—is it all right if I ask what went wrong?”

  Eli blew out a breath. “That’s a big question. I think what it boiled down to for us was just that we both were so involved with our careers, and we were spending less and less time together. Almost looking for excuses not to spend time together, you know? Which is why it can be easier for doctors who have stay-at-home wives, because then at least the wife is usually around when you need somebody to talk to. I don’t even know how women do it. Men usually don’t want to be stay-at-home husbands.”

  “Yeah,” said Neil. “I mean, I would guess that’s going to be less of a problem for me. But I don’t know.”

  “Pete told me this was something you worried about. But there’s no real road map for making it work. Lots of maps to failure. But everybody’s different.”

  They were silent for a couple of minutes over the sandwiches.

  “Pete talks about me?” Neil finally said.

  Eli laughed. “Occasionally. I’m sure you know, but I think he’s proud of you.”

  “No, that can’t be right.” Neil cracked a grin back at him.

  After lunch, Eli went to a talk on cardiothoracic surgical technique, and Neil went off to a session on hepatobiliary surgeries.

  “You want to meet up tonight?” asked Neil.

  Eli shook his head. “My talk’s tomorrow. I need to get back and practice it again.”

  “You’re going to be brilliant.” Neil then had time to wonder if he was being too obvious.

  But Eli didn’t look alarmed; he just smiled warmly and shook his head. “I’ll muddle through.”

  * * *

  Neil made sure to get to the room for Eli’s talk early the next day and snag a front-row seat. He was skipping what looked like a great panel on laparoscopic hernia repair for something that really didn’t have much relevance to his future—most of the surgery he’d do would probably be abdominal, in the end, and transplant patients would probably be managed by a specialized care team, not him—but he didn’t care. It was a chance to sit back and watch Eli without having to justify it to anyone.

  Eli showed up on time, going through the ritual of fiddling with power cords, mics, flash drives. He glanced up shortly before the talk was due to start, eyes searching the crowd, and when he saw Neil, he broke into a smile. It looked almost rueful, and Neil thought he could see Eli swallow.

  Nervous? he mouthed, not sure if Eli would be able to read his lips. Eli shook his head, still smiling, which could go either way.

  And it was just like—Jesus, five years ago, when Neil had been a second-year med student. Eli was still spellbinding, sometimes putting his weight on the podium, other times leaning back to gesture at his PowerPoint slides. He looked absorbed, interested, confident. Neil found himself leaning forward, interested in hearing the case outcomes and conclusion. Eli gave a good talk, even though it was long, pausing sometimes to take a drink of water.

  Neil was watching Eli put his lips to the narrow neck of the water bottle and swallow when it hit him like a lightning bolt, and he almost wanted to get up and leave.

  His mind wouldn’t stop bombarding him with images: what if—And he’d been good, he’d tried to. Eli was an attending, a mentor. Whatever he felt, surely had its fair share of hero worship mixed in, and people got over that if they got around to being friends. He’d never thought about Eli when he was jerking off, or at least he’d tried not to. He’d never—never pictured it like this. But Eli’s lips were full, and he’d watched Eli’s mouth before, the shine of grease or water on his lips as they ate, and suddenly he couldn’t stop wondering what it would be like to kiss him.

  Shit, he thought. Shit. He needed to—he needed to not see Eli the rest of the afternoon, he needed to come up with a reason not to see him tonight. That wouldn’t be hard. Eli would probably want to leave early again for traffic. He knew there was a session on transplantation; he could tell Eli he was going to the talk on abdominal walls.

  His pulse was hammering and his cheeks felt hot. He wondered if he was flushing. Eli was still talking, gesturing, but it felt like listening to him from underwater, blood rushing through his ears.

  He was dreading the end of the talk, for all that it was a unique form of miserable torture to be watching Eli. He’d been looking forward to it, but he hadn’t known his brain was going to turn traitor on him. It was one thing to have nice lunches with him, to talk and laugh, but it was something else completely to be staring at his mouth and wondering what he’d look like on his knees.

  Christ. The thought was like a sucker punch. He bit his tongue, hard.

  The end came, though. Eli said, “I’ve got about ten minutes for questions,” and hands started to shoot up all over the room. One by one, Eli picked them off, always ready with his replies, answering the actual question instead of dragging it to something he’d rather answer, like some of the presenters did. Then the time had elapsed and he was smiling and thanking everyone for coming, and suggesting they stay for the next talk, a colleague of his.

  Neil got up and escaped to the edge of the room. At least he wouldn’t have to say hello to Eli in front of everyone else that way.

  Eli lit up, spotting Neil, and hurriedly finished shaking hands and saying hello to a few more people. He made his way over to Neil.

  “There you are!” he said brightly. “How was it?”

  Neil couldn’t help smiling at him. “It was great.”

  “Thank you. What are you up to next?”

  This was his chance to plot an exit strategy. “I thought I’d go see the talk on abdominal wall reconstruction.”

  “Oh.” Eli looked a little disappointed. Jesus. “That makes sense. I think I’m going to catch the—”

  “Session on transplantation?” Neil knew he sounded too rushed, out of breath.

  Eli just nodded. “Yes.”

  “Yeah, that looked good.”

  “What are you doing after the sessions today?”

  “Oh, you know.” Neil was too aware of how dry his mouth was. “Probably get some dinner, turn in early. It’s been great to get some sleep without the pager going off.”

  “That makes sense. I thought I might stick around and get dinner here tonight. The timing’s going to be bad for getting out ahead of the traffic.”

  Of course it was, because Neil was in Hell. “Oh.”

  “Do you—” Eli hesitated, almost frowning. “Do you want to get dinner with me? I haven’t managed to check out the hotel bar yet.”

  “Sure,” Neil’s mouth said before his brain could catch up.

  There were only two days left of the conference after this. He could survive that.

  Eli’s face softened. “Great.” And shit, it really did sound like a date. He couldn’t stand it, not the way Eli looked at him, not the way his heart was pounding in his chest. If Eli had looked too hard at Neil’s hands, he would have seen them shaking.

  If Mark could have seen him, he thought wildly, Mark would have brought him vodka on the rocks immediately.

  At dinner, he got his complimentary drink of the night, resolving to stick to that. The last thing he needed was to let down his inhibitions. The place was so crowded that Eli ended up finding them a booth barely big enough for them both, and their knees kept brushing. Neil wanted to give up and go directly to sleep upstairs.

  “You want to just split some wings?” asked Eli, raising his voice to be heard over the hubbub.

  “Sure,” Nei
l called back. That bought him a couple of minutes, at least, while Eli got up to go place the order and wait for the wings. He took a few deep breaths and pulled out his phone.

  I’m so screwed, he texted Mark.

  There was no immediate reply. Mark must be busy with actual work. Fuck. Fuck.

  “All right.” Eli slid the wings onto the table. “I survived the full-court press. I’m surprised I didn’t break anything.”

  “You play basketball?” asked Neil, before he could think better of it, and immediately wanted to punch himself in the face when he pictured Eli in a uniform.

  Eli laughed. “Briefly and badly, in high school. Did you?”

  “I’m tall, so. I kind of got conscripted into it.”

  “The fate of many.”

  “You have a team you follow?”

  “Don’t tell anyone, but I still follow the Nets from time to time. I know they’re not in Jersey anymore, but they were my team for too long to let go of them now.” Eli took a bite. “How about you? Do you watch the Blazers?”

  “Sometimes, yeah.”

  They didn’t talk much as they got to work attacking the pile of wings. It was nice, having the space of silence, except when he looked up at Eli’s face to see him concentrating on sucking a piece of meat off a bone, cheeks hollowing, and he had to look down at his own chicken again in a hurry.

  When they were finishing up, Eli tilted his beer up and took the last drink of it, tipping it up to get the last bit out. Neil dug his nails into his thigh under the table. This was awful. He hadn’t felt like this since his early twenties, this slow burn of desire that everything Eli did only made worse.

  Eli set down the bottle and sighed. “I suppose I should get going soon.” He sounded wistful.

  “I don’t envy you. The hotel wasn’t cheap, but I think it was a good call.”

  “Well, and with four residents in a room, it can’t be that bad.”

  “It’s really not. And they’re pretty quiet, I barely notice them.”

  “Who are you rooming with? Anyone I know?”

  “Let’s see, Josh—I think it’s Josh?”

  “Senior resident?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, I think I know who he is.”

  “And the other guys, one’s a first-year and one’s a third-year. He’s from Kristi’s cohort.”

  “I can’t believe she’s already a third-year.”

  “I know, I remember when she was a brand-new intern. Wet behind the ears.”

  “I think she’s doing all right, though. Am I right? I’m not over in Surgery much.”

  “Yeah, she’s learned a lot. I’m always happy to see her on my team. And not just because she’s funny.”

  “Is she—this is none of my business.” Eli shook his head a little, ruefully.

  Neil propped his elbows up on the table, folding his arms carefully to avoid knocking into the plates. “Nothing ever is, that’s what makes it interesting.”

  “Is she seeing Mark?”

  “Not that I know of. I think he’d tell me. I know about most of his other relationships. Mistakes. Whatever you want to call them.”

  Eli laughed softly, picking at the label on his beer bottle. “I have to admit, for a while there I wasn’t sure if you and Mark were—”

  “Oh, no. We just made friends early enough that by the time we realized we should have other friends it was kind of too late.” Neil snorted. “Now we’re stuck with each other’s sorry asses whenever we have enough free time to pretend to socialize.”

  Eli chuckled out loud at that. “I know what you mean. I think that’s how I ended up friends with Pete. He was pretty much responsible for me coming to Kingsland, you know.”

  “He said they decided to recruit you when you were, uh, I think he said ‘on the market.’”

  “That’s Pete being nice. I was looking for a way out of McGill, and he talked the administration into offering me the spot here.”

  “How did you two get to be friends, anyway? He’s not in your department at all.”

  “You aren’t in mine,” Eli pointed out, “but I think we’re friends.”

  It was a terrible moment of sudden vulnerability. Neil swallowed past the lump in his throat and said, “Good point.”

  Eli gave him a real smile, warm and rich and molten, and Neil wanted to crawl under the table and die. Or—no. Safer to stick to dying.

  Neil faked a yawn. “Wow, I’m getting tired.”

  “Yeah.” Eli checked his watch. “Traffic should be thinning out a little by now, I hope.”

  “Well, have a good trip back.” Neil stood, giving Eli a gentle slap on the shoulder as he passed. “I’ll probably see you around tomorrow.”

  “Probably,” said Eli, watching him with a sudden sharpness to his eyes.

  * * *

  The day after that they barely had any time for lunch—the conference was starting to wrap up, people leaving early to get back to their practices. The restaurants were emptier, but they ended up just getting sandwiches from the café again. This time, though, they sat outside to eat. The air was chilly from the wind, but it was sunny.

  They didn’t talk much. Maybe Eli was catching Neil’s mood.

  Toward the end of his sandwich, Eli said, “You know, I came to San Francisco once on a trip back when I still in high school.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It was nice. It was—don’t get me wrong, I love Jersey, but I was so impressed by the Golden Gate Bridge, and we went out and saw Alcatraz. The whole place was just really cool.”

  Eli looked lost in thought, and Neil gave it a moment before he said, “Did you have a good time?”

  “Yes.” Eli looked back down at his sandwich. “We went by the Castro. It was—it was the most flamboyant place I’d ever seen. I could hardly believe it. I mean, there were places in Jersey, but not like that.”

  “There’s nowhere quite like it,” Neil agreed. Which places? Did you go to them?

  “Have you been out there since you moved here?”

  “Once or twice. I mean to do Halloween every year and then I miss it.”

  “Always working?”

  “Or sleeping.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Eli went back to his sandwich. Neil managed to avoid dinner with him that night. The sick, burning sensation in the pit of his stomach helped.

  * * *

  The last day of the conference only ran until noon. Eli texted Neil when he got there, checking to make sure he was still giving Neil a ride back.

  If you’re not sick of me yet, Neil wrote and immediately wanted to retract it.

  Eli just texted back a smiley face. It was enough to make Neil put a hand over his eyes, sighing. He checked out of his room before going to the last talk, making sure to snag a cup of coffee first.

  Eli was headed to a session on vascular surgery, and Neil wavered between a session on esophageal surgery and one on work-life balance before finally deciding on the work-life balance session.

  “Hi, thanks for coming,” said the presenter, and then they had two hours of panelists talking about the different viewpoints—whether new surgeons were wusses (said the older doctors) or whether older surgeons were insane (said the younger doctors). It got heated at points, and Neil couldn’t help wishing he’d gone to the other session instead.

  Afterward, Eli texted him to meet up out front, beneath the huge rounded glass facade of the convention center.

  He spotted Eli in the crowd from a distance, and for a moment he couldn’t make his feet carry him any closer. It was too cruel; Eli was so handsome, and kind, and good. And not meant for him.

  He took a deep breath, and tightening his grip on the strap of his bag, he made himself march over there. Eli gave his usual luminous sm
ile as he saw Neil, and said, “Hi,” before turning to head for the parking garage.

  “Was the session this morning good?” asked Eli. Neil sighed and shook his head, and told him about the bickering back-and-forth. Eli rolled his eyes.

  “That’s pretty typical. Guys who trained in my generation and earlier still think having any kind of work-life balance is like admitting you’re a quitter.”

  “Of course those are all the people who are my bosses.”

  “At least you’ve got Pete? And Dr. Pearn isn’t as bad as some.”

  “Yeah. You know, when I started the mentoring program, I had no idea Pete was going to be so great.”

  “Well, I knew.” Eli smiled at him. “I had to give him some guff about it, though. I don’t know if he’s a good influence.”

  “I don’t know if I need any more good influences. I feel like I’m getting influenced constantly.”

  “Oh, we’re over here,” said Eli, touching his elbow for a split second while pointing out his car. Neil felt a hot flush come over his cheeks, but thank God, Eli was looking at the car, already making a beeline for it. Neil followed, and by the time he was loading his bag into the trunk, he thought any color must have faded.

  He climbed in, and Eli turned on the stereo as soon as they were underway. It was his mix again. He started to hum along to the first song. Eli wasn’t singing along; he was peering out the window, deftly weaving into the traffic that was already piling up around the convention center.

  “We could be a while getting out of here,” said Eli.

  “Yeah. Let me know if you want me to change the disc over.”

  Eli shook his head, still looking out at the other cars instead of at Neil. “It’s fine.”

  He sang a line from the song—about unrequited something or other—and he noticed Eli stiffen a little in his seat. He stopped immediately.

  The ride back was a lot quieter than the ride out had been. It had been a long almost-week for Neil, and Eli had been doing this drive twice a day; Neil was contemplating going back to his usual rounds and call, not getting the sweet blocks of sleep he’d been getting used to. The shrill screech of his pager, waiting for him.