Everett Ramos is a resident surgeon at Mercy West Hospital in Seattle, Washington. She's on the uphill climb to becoming one of the best orthopedic surgeons in the world, studying alongside her best friends and hoping one day to make a difference...
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HE FINDS her sitting by the window in their bedroom.
She has their emerald green blanket curled around her shoulders, holding the ends together at her chest with one hand, while the other is used as a placeholder for her chin, nose just barely scratching the surface of the glass locking her inside. He leans against the doorframe. She hasn't noticed him yet. She hasn't noticed anything, eyes caught on the stars blearily blinking behind grey clouds, top teeth instinctively chewing on her bottom lip, breaths shallower than usual. At times like these, he wonders if he should leave her alone, even if it is just to make her the cup of hot chocolate that she wanted, when he knows she'll be ravaged by her own guilty thoughts that plague her every waking moment. He knocks gently on the wooden door frame with his free hand so as not to startle her.
She still jumps.
"Hot chocolate for the lady. Extra marshmallows." When Everett smiles, it's genuine, but it's just small, barely lighting up the deep, cocoa coloured irises of her eyes. He hands over the hot chocolate and she sniffs it, letting the steam rise around her face. For a moment, she's obscured, like a watercolour painting that he could wipe away with his fingers and let disappear completely. He'd like it if they could just disappear. If they could take the car, phone in sick, and then leave forever, leaving behind all the pain, all the guilt, all the sympathy just for a chance to have a normal life.
She takes a sip of the hot chocolate and the smile returns, lifting up the corners of her lips. Does she know that her softness makes his body cave in, heart exploding into tiny little needles that prick against his bloodstream and fill up his brain, only able to think about her, to care about her, to want her?
He sits down at her feet and rests his head on her knees. When she starts to run her fingers through his hair, he can't help but think that there's nothing else in his life worth caring about. Not work, not money, not his schizophrenic mother he hasn't seen in forever. Just this woman here, who tugs gently at his scalps and jokes about checking for nits, earning a laugh that shoots straight from his heart. Does she know that she holds the key to his life right in her little palm?
"There's a storm coming," she mentions, almost in passing, so soft he wouldn't even hear it if he wasn't sitting right by her feet. His eyebrows furrow together. The forecast didn't say anything about bad weather.
"I don't think so, babe." He shakes his head and looks back up at her. When she frowns, a little crease appears between her eyebrows. He wants to kiss it and kiss it and kiss it. He wonders if it would disappear if he did that. He wonders so many things about her.
