Adam:
He knew Dr. Amir's schedule. He knew they would be on rounds right now. He did not know that he would have dragged Lucy and her colleagues into a corner to teach them. He noticed her as soon as he entered the ward. He almost felt as if he were pulled to this ward, even as his intern had told him the ward above was full, so they had to transfer the patient to this one.
Lucy looked like an angel.
She was standing by the window, the sun streaming right onto her white coat, illuminating her like some creature of the light. Her hands clasped in front of her, mask plastered to her face as it normally was and staring intently at Dr. Amir.
What he wouldn't give to have her stare at him like that...again.
He knew she did not see him. Showed no sign of recognition as all her attention was focused on the man in front of her. If he was a bit jealous of Dr. Amir right now, so be it. Nothing he could do about it. He told the intern to close the curtain because the glare was actually right in his eye and the patient did need his privacy to remove his shorts. He glanced at Lucy once more but she still had not seen him.
He felt like a coward. He was literally hiding from the woman he wanted. So scared to even approach her, but all the while wanting to be near her.
When he did not hear anything on the outside of the curtain over the sound of the spirits of his juniors dying after not being able to answer his seventh question, he stepped out of the cubicle. She must have left. He was quickly proven wrong when he saw them in the corner of his eye, coming back. He focused on the patient in front of him and what the intern was saying. Sudden silence where she was. Did she leave now? Where the hell was she? Why couldn't he have been born with eyes at the back of his head?
After grilling his junior residents a bit more, he turned to his right and there she was. Walking... away from him, not toward him. Walking toward another doctor. The old intern. While he asked the junior another question, he took her in. Her hair scooped up into that surprisingly sexy bun that showed a little of her neck, the elegant fanning of her neck with her hand and her ripping off the mask when she came out of the curtain was almost too much for him.
She went to stand behind the intern who apparently did not even notice as she approached him. That quietness she had about her had even unnerved him sometimes, he remembered. She cocked her head to one side, assessing what he was doing, the movement almost...predatory. She suddenly looked down and spoke. He turned, obvious surprise on his face when she tipped her head up toward him. She stood close to him...too close...and went on her tippy toes to almost whisper to him about something.
Adam gripped the pen in his pocket so hard his nails bit into his palms.
She laughed and touched the intern's arm. Adam could have sworn he felt steam coming out of his ears. What the hell was wrong with him? He looked to see her put her mask back on and slip behind the curtain. He had not even realized that his other hand was pressing against his chest. He told the intern to repeat what she said because he sure as hell did not hear a word she said for the two minutes she was talking.
He glanced over to where Lucy had been and marked the curtain. He suddenly got a call and took it as he motioned for his group to walk out of the ward. They only had two patients here. He had exhausted his teaching and could tell by the tears lining the eyes of the youngest junior doctor that they could not take anymore grilling. She would be fine.
He walked slowly, pretending that the call was distracting him. He stopped right next to the cubicle she was in. He would have known she was there even if he had not seen her go in. He just knew it. Somewhere deep in him, his unconscious mind knew her, tangled with her unconscious somehow. And somehow manifested into his consciousness as an almost tangible bond between them. That had to be the only explanation.
He wanted to feel her. Touch her. Hold her. He could not very well reach through the curtain and grab her. Not when he had unintentionally met Dr. Amir's eyes over the curtain, who now eyed him suspiciously. He braced a hand on his hip and swung his elbow through the curtain, desperate for her to just graze against him, as she had done once all those months ago. But he felt nothing. No feel of her. He sighed and left with his group. The emptiness in his heart growing more and more with every step he took away from her.
Lucy:
This book is called "The Subtle art of not giving a F*ck". Forgoing studying for the rest of the night, Lucy flopped onto her belly on her bed and lost herself in the book. She had that book in her TBR (to be read) arsenal, but had never pulled it out (being distracted by sexy Fae men, dragons, witches and all). From chuckling at the number of times he dropped the F bomb to re-evaluating her entire life, this book had Lucy on a serious rollercoaster of emotions.
"The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering"
That line truly blew her mind.
She had always believed that what she wanted was "lack of suffering". It was why she was so terrified of bearing children. But avoiding suffering meant that you were indeed afraid of it and therefore still suffering by avoiding it.
"Pain in an inextricable thread in the fabric of life; to tear it out is impossible without unraveling everything else with it".
So that meant that pain was...necessary?
"If you're able to not give a f*ck about the pain, you become unstoppable".
But if you are in pain...how do you not care about it? Shouldn't you try to stop the source of the pain? Shouldn't that be the goal?
"Not giving a f*ck does not mean being indifferent; it means being comfortable with being different."
Ah! So that meant she needed to get comfortable with being in pain...wait, what?
"To not give a f*ck means to not care about adversity in the face of your goals; to not give a f*ck about adversity, you must first care about something more important than adversity"
Ok, the picture was becoming a bit clearer now. So, you want the thing so badly that you don't even care about the pain you are inevitably going to go through.
"When we believe it's not ok for things to suck sometimes, for us to be inadequate sometimes, we unconsciously start blaming ourselves"
Been there.
"This book will not teach you how to gain or achieve, but how to lose and let go. Essentially, how to suffer well"
Oh shit. There was a wrong way to suffer? Well what the hell was the right way?
"Happiness comes from solving problems: finding the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving."
So that was what happiness was. Choosing what you wanted to suffer for. Who you want to suffer for. Unlike a lot of people in this world, she was able to choose her suffering. So what did she want to suffer for?
That night, that was what she pondered when she put on her 'warrior' music. Music that made her feel powerful and indestructible. She grabbed two of her blades and began slicing unseen opponents to pieces. She twirled and sliced and stabbed until she was panting. Sometimes the blade hit the closet. Sometimes she deliberately scraped the blade along the wall for the satisfying sound it made. Sometimes she run it along her skin to remind her how vulnerable she really was.
She opened her closet to reveal her punching bag and imagined the face of the flat mate she hated, on that bag. And beat the living shit out of it. She growled at the bag and slammed her foot into the bag over and over and over again. Until she was sure she could not manage another kick. Then grabbed her knives again.
After two hours, with her panting and sweat drenched, she felt something settle deep in her soul. She finally went to shower an wash the bitch's guts off of her.
Even after her workout session, the question lingered in her mind:
What did she want to suffer for?
