The Cure

Chapter 2

Nathaniel liked doing the night rounds; the work was more varied, unless it was a weekend – then it was irrepressible waves of students throwing up vodka down their shirts – the nurses were always chipper, and the patients generally slept, so he could catch up on studying.

'Ciao, Nate,' Melissa greeted him with all her usual warmth as she made her way to Paediatrics; he was in the nurses' office, undoing his rucksack, as she poked her friendly face round the door. 'What have you got there?'

He thrust a hand into a paper bag with a childish grin, and pulled out a white bakery box, complete with lavish brown italic writing and a string bow. He pulled out his books and piled them before him, and after a thorough hand-washing, Melissa joined him for apple chaussons, sitting cross-legged on the threadbare blue rolling office chair, grinning just like him through the flaking pastry and making a mess on her cartoon-adorned scrubs.

'Rosie was talking about you again last night,' Melissa said, scooping apple jam off her knee. Nathaniel raised an eyebrow, his mouth full, Adam's apple bobbing as he struggled to swallow.

'Was she?' He covered his mouth with a fist.

'When isn't she, poor girl.'

'Just tell her I've got a girlfriend or something,' he replied, taking a sip of tea to wash the sweet, sugary, buttery mouthful down.

'Can't you?'

'She never speaks to me,' he defended himself hastily, internally groaning as he imagined trying to begin that discussion.

'Probably why she likes you,' Melissa muttered, earning herself a kick to the foot of her chair that sent her sailing into the thin partition wall of the office. After their amusement subsided, Nathaniel cleared his throat.

'So, what did she say?'

'Oh, the usual. That you're going to make a good doctor. A good husband.' Melissa hooted this last, and Nathaniel ducked his head, feeling heat rise to his cheeks, commencing an intent inspection of the remnants of his pastry. 'Not to mention her comments on how she imagines the efficiency of your specimen–'

'Jesus Christ,' Nathaniel groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. 'I'm sorry I asked.'

'I wish you'd just tell her you're not interested if you aren't.'

He pressed his lips into a line. 'I – God, I don't know.' 

It was an insufficient, yet honest response. Nathaniel had made it through the last five years of university with intermittent, normal girlfriends; good-looking, well-dressed, good girls, who had horses back home and smoked to be naughty.

One or two had captured his interest for longer than a few months; but even comfortably brought up in an unfractured family setting, he blanched when the conversation turned to front door keys, and meeting the parents, and weekends away.

So, he generally remained aloof, naturally indifferent, unexpectant, which deterred a good percentage of the admirers and left him with little to have to gently reject.

But Rosie scared him. She was Melissa's roommate, a fiery red head, almost alarmingly good-looking and, until recently, disarmingly forward; a journalist; confident, the kind of girl to fling an arm about the neck as she chattered away; tall, bossy, imposing. Cultured. An unembarrassed and practicing Christian. Well educated. Funny.

But after one or two awkward evenings of arm-flinging and smiling and flirtatious hints, even she had retreated, abashed, against Nathaniel's indifference.

Indifference, he thought ruefully, flicking crumbs from between the pages of his books. That was unfair. He was a man, after all, hewn and hauled together as any other; he wasn't blind. He wasn't numb.