DOCTOR'S ORDERS

by Bella Grant

  Usually, they came at night when my brain wouldn’t shut off and the night terrors made their appearance. I would wake up from a dead sleep—if I could actually fall asleep— crying and screaming, “No!” until the night nurses came in and the orderlies held me down for another dose of Ativan.

  Even nights where I couldn’t fall asleep, I would still thrash about, yelling how life wasn’t fair. My roommate must have been on some heavy sleep medication because she never made a peep during any of my episodes.

  I wasn’t sure I could handle one in front of him. I started shaking, trying to hold it in. He must have noticed my efforts because the next thing I knew, he sat down on the couch next to me. Those familiar arms pulled me into the warm embrace I had secretly craved since the last one. I accepted it eagerly, clutching at his shirt, my breaths coming out in big gasps as I tried to control the sobs that tumbled out of my opened mouth.

  “Shhh, Fiona, breathe. Deep breaths. You have to control your breathing if you are going to get through this,” he murmured into the crown of my head as he stroked my hair gently, just like my mother used to when I was little.

  I closed my eyes and tried to zone in on the movement of his hand, taking me back to when my mother would rock me and hold me, just as he was doing, rocking both of us gently on the couch. I inhaled and exhaled deeply and was reminded where I was when I smelled the mix of minty soap and hand sanitizer. I was with Josh. In a psychiatric hospital. I was safe. I wasn’t there in that hospital. Josh wasn’t that doctor. I wasn’t near my parents’ covered bodies. Nor was I at the funeral home where I had to explain over and over again why the caskets were closed. Or at the cemetery, where I couldn’t even watch as the caskets descended.

  I was with Josh. Someone who yearned to help me, along with Lisa, my friends, and my co-workers. My dream and my community needed me. First, I needed me. I unclenched my fists from around the fabric of his blue dress shirt. My sobs became deep breaths to which made me light headed. The tears dried on my cheeks, but I kept my face in his shirt, inhaling the scent of him for a little longer.

  His hand wandered down to rub circles over my back, wide circles more like ovals up and down my spine, calming me even more. Once my breathing had steadied, he broke the silence.

  “Fiona, I want you to know I am always here for you, okay? Even if you do ruin half my wardrobe in the process,” he said, and I laughed suddenly, breaking the tension in the room.

  “Are you really bringing that up right now?” I punched him lightly in the chest, my head still resting on the broad, comforting expanse of his chest.

  “Maybe? I wanted to make you laugh. Seems to be working.”

  That was why I loved—wait, loved? That was why I liked Josh. He knew exactly when it was appropriate to make jokes and when it was time to be serious, easing the tension at the right moments. After a few more chuckles, we both sobered.

  “T-that was the first time I have stopped a fit without needing drugs,” I confessed into his shirt, hoping I didn’t come off as weak. It was oddly important to me he didn’t find me weak.

  “I’m happy to hear that, Fiona. You’ve come such a long way in such a short time. I’m glad you’re learning how to handle them without the Ativan” he replied, and I could hear the praise in his voice. He was proud of me as his patient, and maybe even more. Another topic I had meant to get to but didn’t. “As for what you just told me, I am truly sorry something so terrible happen to such wonderful people…”

  The sound of Vickie’s light voice flowed into the room, cutting him off and indicating that his next patient waited outside the door and asking whether we needed anything. I blushed when I realized everyone had probably heard my loud sobs.

  Josh must have guessed what I was thinking because he piped up next to me. “It’s okay, Fiona. Crying is nothing to be ashamed about in a psych hospital. If anything, you should be proud of yourself for the emotional breakthrough you just had. And most of the time, all anyone can hear when nearby is the sounds of us yelling at each other when we play games, if we get that loud. Though Vickie does keep an ear out for me—you know, to make sure I’m okay and not getting stabbed by a patient or something.” He grinned at me, trying to make me forget about my worries.

  I giggled in response and unhinged myself from Josh’s body. I was still blushing when I saw the mess I had made on his shirt yet again. “I feel like you should send me your dry-cleaning bill or attach it to my billing when I get out of here,” I commented, and he laughed.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got extra shirts in my closet here. Sometimes, I accidently fall asleep at my desk and have to look like I went home for the night. Don’t tell anyone, especially Vickie, or I won’t hear the end of it.”

  He stood up, stretched, and held a hand out to the door where we both knew Blaine was on the other side, waiting at Vickie’s desk.

  “This evening, I’ll make my rounds on patients I missed in session. I would like to follow up with you if that’s all right? To make sure you are emotionally stable. We can pick up where left off regarding your parents, tomorrow.”

  I tilted my head. He’d never followed up with me before. Then again, I had never had a big fit before in his office. Crying in his shirt the first time didn’t count. That was nothing compared to the fits that wracked my whole body and made me gasp for air.

  “Of course. I would like that” I nodded and away I went with Blaine to my room. It just so happened to be the same day my roommate was moved to another room. I never did get the reason, but I could assume it was because of my nighttime fits.

  Sighing, I fell onto my bed. I had a few hours before evening and needed to shower and clear my head. Padding into the bathroom, I was thankful I had the room to myself again. Though I knew it wouldn’t last very long, I decided to take advantage of the situation and took a nice, long, hot shower. The water washed away the tears, the smeared lipstick—the only kind of makeup I could have in there—and all my doubts about my relationship with my doctor.

  It felt so good to get it all off my chest, so good to let him know how badly I hurt deep inside. After a week and half, I finally told him what needed to be said out loud and my chest felt lighter. However, I knew these new feelings were something else entirely, something warm and safe yet forbidden all at once.

  I was falling in love with my psychiatrist.

  I laughed out loud, my laugh bouncing off the pale-pink tiled walls. How cliché. I had become a walking cliché. I wondered if my parents would be proud of me. Of course they would be. I was actually falling for a guy who wasn’t after my money and treated me like a human being. I smiled, thinking about how my parents would’ve reacted had they ever met Josh.

  If this was under other circumstances, I could easily picture their reactions when Josh would bid me goodnight after a date. My mother would’ve commented on how cute he was and my father would’ve said how proud he was that I was dating someone worth my time. The age gap wouldn’t even have mattered to them. As long as Josh treated me right and loved me for who I was, they would’ve gladly accept him into our family.

  I rested my forehead on the tile and shut the water off. I had to know what to do with those feelings. Should I ignore them? I should focus on getting better, but the distraction was welcomed. Though in my mind, it wasn’t a distraction as much as an opportunity, and a new path being paved.

  Now I had to decide whether I should grab my basket and my dog, and skip my way down that yellow brick road. To finally move on. To make my parents proud and for them to see their little girl smile again.

  I hoped maybe, just maybe, Josh felt the same and if he did, would he act on it? There was really only one way to find out.

  CHAPTER 11

  “That changed nine months ago when my parents were killed in a car accident and left me behind.”

  Fiona’s sobs, the way her body rocked against mine and how she clung to me, repeatedly flashed through my brain as I tried to follow the conversation happening in
front of me. Thankfully, the patient—Edith—was a regular and wasn’t a crisis case. I saw her every six months to check her blood levels and to give her new scripts. She was an older lady in her late sixties and waited patiently for me to fill out her anti-depressants. She had been a recent widow when she had showed up at my door and was one of the few female patients I had managed to keep. Her depression stemmed from her husband’s death, and I had seen her ever since.

  I handed her the scripts, and she smiled fondly at me.

  “You’re looking good, Edith,” I commented. She seemed happier.

  “Thank you, Dr. Sullivan. The kids are in town, so I’ve been busy with my grandchildren,” she replied. “You know, you’re looking much better these days too.”

  I smirked. “Is that so?” I didn’t even realize I had looked like crap. Leave it to an elderly patient to point it out.

  “Yes, that’s what young love will do to you.” She chuckled, and I had to fight the blush threatening to show up on my cheeks.

  “You caught me, Edith,” I told her and stood up to walk her out.

  “She’s a lucky girl to have caught your interest, Dr. Sullivan,” she said softly.

  I smiled. This lady was something else. “Edith, next time I see you, I want to talk about weaning you off your meds, okay? I think you’re ready. Take care.” She nodded happily as she left my office.

  Was I that obvious? I plopped down into my office chair and looked out the window. The sun was making its descent, dusting the sky with many hues of purple and pink. The day had been so eventful, so full of Fiona, I almost wanted to pull the sun back up, to have more time to figure out what I should do next.

  I didn’t often follow up with patients on a same-day basis. My schedule was usually too packed to do so. There were the few emergencies when a patient had a panic attack in my office, but generally, I would let the doctor on rounds follow up with them and send me the progress notes.

  This would be a first in a long time, and I wondered if anyone would be suspicious on the matter. I knew Vickie wouldn’t question me. She never did, even when I surprised her last week by canceling my afternoon. She really was the best secretary.

  I picked up the stress ball from desk, one a drug rep had dropped off. Some new anti-anxiety medication’s brand was smacked across the center of the bright orange ball. I leaned back in my chair and threw the ball up into the air. Catch. Release. Catch. Release.

  “Looks like the Doctor of the Year has his hands full.”

  I caught the ball and turned my attention to my open office door where my colleague and friend leaned against the doorframe, his lab coat slung over his shoulder.

  “Good afternoon to you too, Danny. Long time no see.” I continued to throw the ball in the air.

  Dr. Dan Sampson took that as his invitation and shut the door behind him, planting himself right down on the couch.

  “I’ve been busy and have a few new ones. Though none of them are as cute as the one you have in here on a daily basis,” he replied, raising his eyebrow at me.

  “Nice glasses you got there. New prescription? You getting blinder in your old age?” I dodged. His black-rimmed glasses threw off the surfer look he had going, and I called him out on it to throw him off my scent.

  “Ah, so you’re attached to this one. I would be too, though it depends on how crazy she is between the sheets, if you know what I mean,” he replied coolly, winking at me.

  Danny freaking Sampson. Always so crude. It surprised me how he even had a caseload of patient sometimes.

  “She’s simply my patient, Danny,” I explained and threw the ball at him. He caught it, of course. Him and his damn reflexes. He should have played baseball, I thought.

  “Just a patient? You canceled a whole afternoon of patients for her.” He laughed and threw the ball back.

  “How do you know about that?” I whipped it back harder. The bastard still caught it.

  “Really? You’re that clueless about what’s going on around you? Now I know that girl means a lot more to you,” he said. “Vickie had me see a few of your patients that day. Some of them demanded to be seen, I guess. I dictated the notes. They should be in your files on the server, man.”

  When he threw the ball back, I barely caught it, focused on pulling up my files on my computer. I scrolled down the notes, and there was Dan’s name at the bottom instead of mine. Now it made sense why I hadn’t had as many early-morning sessions the following day.

  “Shit,” I muttered to myself. My head had been in the clouds since Fiona’s arrival. I was constantly on top of my game when it came to my client’s notes, never letting even a missed word slip by. It hadn’t dawned on me until that moment how lately, I had signed off on things I had merely glanced at without a second thought.

  “Looks like I hit the nail right on the head.” Dan stood up. “Anyways, whatever you got going on with her, I’m not here to chastise you. It’s refreshing to see you so scrambled like this—like the Dr. Sullivan is actually a human underneath that lab coat.” He smirked.

  “Yeah, but if Robert catches wind of this, he’s gonna flip a lid and I lose my job. Fuck, I need to focus.” I groaned and ran my fingers up and down my face in frustration.

  “Psh, Robert is more focused on the new nurse’s ass lately, though he thinks I don’t notice when his eyes linger. His poor wife.”

  I laughed at the image of Mrs. Dean hitting bald, stout Robert over the head repeatedly with a rolled-up newspaper.

  “Though you know you could always transfer her to me and then you could fuck her,” he said nonchalantly and I scoffed in response.

  “Danny, I can’t just transfer her to someone when we just got to the root of why she is here. Besides, she’s even mentioned it herself that she wouldn’t feel comfortable opening up to anyone else and it took a little over a week for her to open up to me.” I explained hoping he would get the gist to my dilemma.

  He simply slung his coat back over his shoulder and sauntered over to the door, clearly unimpressed by my explanation. “Being in love looks good on you, Josh. Maybe you should give it a chance. Who knows, this could be the one. Even if it is does violate the doctor-patient agreement, I’ll keep your dirty little secret.” He smirked. “See ya around, Dr. Sullivan.”

  I watched him leave with the confidence of a quarterback who had just won the Super Bowl. I wasn’t envious of Danny even if I wanted to be. He was older, brasher, and even though his mouth may have earned him a few write-ups, he was still a favorite among not only the patients but also the staff. He enjoyed the single life better than I ever had and was one of the few I could confide in. It looked good on him but it wasn’t the lifestyle for me.

  I had to admit, Danny had a point. If I was that obvious, and my work was slipping, I needed to figure out if I should give this an actual shot or not—before our practice administrator noticed my recent fuck-ups, or worse, before I let Fiona slip through my fingers.

  The doctor-patient agreement had been in the back of my mind since the first time I held her. Everyone on the staff at Langley Porter was strictly forbidden to engage in a romantic affair with a patient as well as a colleague. It was unethical in our line of work, even if we had witnessed Dr. Rosenberg become smitten with his secretary. However, with a patient, it was hard to look the other way sometimes.

  Yet we understood the human brain better than anyone. We were psychiatrists and therapists, for crying out loud. We understood people couldn’t help their feelings. Our brains love being in love and enjoy the antioxidants high from all the butterflies going crazy in the stomach. We all also understood, though, why it was dangerous to get into a relationship with a patient or a colleague.

  Patients were a huge no-no, and if caught, a doctor could be fired on the spot, or even worse, sued and kissing their physician’s license goodbye. A relationship with a patient was always painted with the same brush: regardless of who started what, the doctor was in the wrong. Some doctors tried to bypass this altogethe
r and just transferred the patient to another but even that could get complicated with the patient refusing to be transferred or the transfer being unsuccessful. In Fiona’s case, she didn’t want to be transferred, though she didn’t exactly know how much I was feeling for her and who knows maybe if I did let it seep out more than I already have, she would ask for one.

  Yet even with all that information gnawing at me every time I saw Fiona, I had failed to pull away from her like I needed to. She was vulnerable and at the lowest point in her life so far. Anything I did to progress our personal relationship further, would be considered taking advantage of her and failing as her doctor. Which was what I needed to be for her, first and foremost. I had to shove down any forbidden feelings that bubbled up, regardless of how we both felt for each other. Her well-being was top priority and by damn would I let her go in the middle of our sessions over some crush I had on her.

  So what if Danny had just given me the green light, he wouldn’t be the one scrutinized. It was my career on the line, not his. I got up and walked out of my office with that attitude in mind. I would stop this before it was too late. I didn’t want to lead Fiona on. She was too good for that.

  I strolled down the hallways, saying hi to the passing nurses and some patients who knew me. I reached her room within minutes. Her opened door greeted me, so I stepped inside, closing the door behind me for patient privacy.

  I glanced around the room and noted that only Fiona’s name was on the nurse’s whiteboard. Then my eyes landed on her, and any previous self-declarations I had about overstepping my boundaries as a doctor went right out the window. Morals and rules be damned. For there she was, sitting innocently on her bed, her long, bare legs stretched out in front of her, her ankles crossed and feet bare as well. She wore a yellow sundress and her nose was buried in a paperback. Her hair was down in natural waves, freshly washed and all to one side. Her eyes so focused into whatever she was reading and it killed me how gorgeous she was, simply sitting there. Heat stirred in my belly as my eyes continued to roam her long and lean figure.