Lucy's feet were killing her. She had been standing for three hours straight in this furnace of a ward, when her consultant came in and started teaching her and her colleagues. He wanted his explanations in detail and down to a molecular level. Lucy did not have it in her to dig that deep into those ancient medical pools she built all of two years ago. Nor did she have it in her to care about that. Not when sweat trickled down her back and the humid air that she breathed in and out of her mask, made her feel like she was suffocating.
She started praying, asking God to make this man stop talking so she could leave and go to the oasis that was the student lounge so that she could bask in the coolness of the AC.
As she normally did when she found it impossible to care, she began daydreaming. Just a little before the consultant came, she saw a familiar face sort of sneak up on them during rounds to whisper to one of the senior doctors. When Lucy looked closer, she was startled to find that it was Dr Evans, the artist previously known as...
...the new Dr. Fineman.
Why was she here? She was not even on this team! Lucy refused to make eye contact with her, even when she felt her staring daggers at her. Apparently she got what she needed and left. Lucy loosed a sigh of relief.
As she listened to the consultant babble on a about the nuances of how to "dissect pain of the acute abdomen", she began to wonder why Dr Evans and Dr Fineman never began a relationship
She was gorgeous in every sense of the word. She had a waist that made Lucy question how she breathed. Lucy did not know if it were even possible for her own ribs to bend that way. Even today when she first glanced at her, she noticed her beautiful features were as astounding as she remembered them to be. An outer beauty that matched her intellect...though those insides were questionable.
Then a thought hit her so hard, so cruelly, she thought she would start keel over. Maybe they had began a relationship. Maybe that was why he was at this hospital. And why they were, in fact, on the same team... again. Yes, through the skill that every girl is born with; stalking, she had found out which firm Adam was on...and putting two and two together, knew that he was on the same firm with Dr. Evans.
She felt the wicked blade of reality slice clean through her. He never wanted her no matter how much Lucy wanted him...he already had a woman. Giving Dr. Evans the lanyard the same day Lucy gave it to him, should have been a clear indicator to her. Yet, she had created a delusional world where Dr. Fineman actually had feelings for her.
She resigned to that final conclusion and forced herself to pay attention to what the consultant was saying...and not to the fact that he was one of those to spray it instead of just say it.
She cringed beneath her mask as the saliva shot right onto Monique's sleeve and saw her colleague fight the urge to run to wipe it off.
She suddenly heard a familiar baritone sing into her ears and froze. It was as if she summoned him by thinking about him for too long. Because he was suddenly there. Right next to the patient they were discussing. Beetle juice much? He was standing maybe all of two feet away from her! Had he seen her? Her heart slammed into her throat and her palms started sweating. She felt the blush creep to her cheeks and her mind fogged so badly that she could not even hear what the consultant was saying.
This was ridiculous! How could he still have this effect on her when it has been so long since she had seen him! Sure, she saw him in the clinic last week, but for only three seconds! She tried her best not to look in his direction. Tried to not notice his powder blue shirt, black pants, matching his black mask and his hair combed back perfectly. He looked every inch of him, a consultant. At least what she could see in her peripheral vision.
Maybe that was why her heart refused to obey her and calm down. In the corner of her eye, she saw him motion for the intern to pull the curtain down, effectively obscuring him from her view. Good. She needed some semblance of a barrier between them.
Had he seen her? Did she imagine the fleeting glance he threw in her direction then quickly turn back to the patient? She desperately hoped not, especially as her consultant was entirely too perceptive for his own good.
Suddenly the consultant got a call and had to leave since his car since apparently blocking another doctor's own. The same doctor that stood too close to her and never stopped calling her. The same doctor that annoyed the hell out of her just by existing. The same doctor she wanted to punch in the throat whenever she saw him.
Lucy and her colleagues took advantage of his absence and all but ran to the small room where the nurses sat. There was AC in that room. As Lucy got her bag and took a swig of water from it like an alcoholic fresh out of rehab, she saw his reflection in the glass door in front of her. He could not see her. No-one could see what she was looking at. No one could see her take in every inch of him from that distance. Same terrible posture, same lanky limbs, same mouthwatering, lean frame. The contrasting dark hair and pale skin that still haunted her dreams were as striking as she remembered. How many times had she imagined that mouth on her neck, that very body hovering over her own, those dark eyes raking over her as they once did. She stared and stared. And yearned.
She just kept staring at that authoritative body language, at that confidence and swagger consultancy brought with it. She loved it for him. He even looked well rested and she actually did want to go over and say "hi" to him. But she was scared to approach him when he was in that 'boss' mode. Would he embarrass her or would she embarrass herself, via him? She did not want to find out. So she let out a disappointed sigh and walked over to her colleagues. Her legs were aching so she sat down.
After a few minutes in the blissful AC, the consultant returned and teased them about running to the sanctuary of the AC while he was out. Still carefully avoiding looking in Adam's direction, she laughed with her consultant and her colleagues. She wondered if Adam even knew she was there...or cared.
Lucy's consultant ushered them toward a lady with breast cancer and asked them to perform an examination. She could hear Adam's voice. No matter how she tried to block the marvelous sound out, it seeped into her mind the way an aroma of food surrounded you and clung to your nostrils...especially when you were starving.
They had pulled the curtains down for the privacy of the patient. Lucy looked through the curtains and saw her intern. That wonderful older gentleman she loved talking to. He was so calm that she found it therapeutic to talk to him. She suddenly remembered a question she wanted to ask him. As the consultant was on the phone with yet, another consultant, she walked out of the curtain and removed her mask. It was so hard to breathe in that infernal thing. She walked to her intern and tapped him on the arm. She asked him if the female patient he was tending to was in the same motorcycle accident that the male patient with similar wounds was in, since they arrived at the hospital at the same time.
He bent his head to hers and confessed that he had no idea and was only sent to set up an IV access. This was why she liked him. His simple honesty and gentleness with her. Even on rounds he would speak softly to her, unlike the others that barked orders or questions at her. It was what made her stand closer to him on rounds. She felt safer when he was around.
So the touched his arm and thanked him for his honesty as she walked back to the breast cancer patient. After explaining the examination process to her and her colleagues, Lucy noticed the consultant looking over the curtain, to where Adam's posse stood. She wondered what he was seeing, since she herself was too short to see over the curtain.
Too fast for her to track, Adam and his team were suddenly just outside of their curtain. Lucy gasped quietly and turned her head toward the sound of his voice. He was literally a few inches away from her. She could feel the tug of his body through the curtain. Her skin got hot and her heart ached. She wanted to reach out and touch him. How inappropriate would that be?
Even if she had the courage to do so (which she did not), her consultant was watching her like a hawk and she could not just leave the patient's cubicle again. There was suddenly a sweep of something through the curtain. Something like...an elbow? Was it Adam's? She avoided it so that it would not hit her and the filthy curtain would not touch her bare skin. Even the doctors wore gloves to touch these curtains, to protect themselves from the millions of infection-causing organisms living there. When she heard his voice retreat, she felt her heart crack a little. He had been so close. Yet, she did understood that she had no right to approach the man that she now knew did not want her. Never wanted her to begin with. The man who was probably in a relationship with another woman.
The man who still made her throat dry and her knees weak with only his presence.
