Safiya, Lela, Alyssa, and Harmony have finally made it to their senior year. With two more semester to go what could possible go wrong. A lot, when you have a wedding to plan, MCATs to ace and a homicide to solve. All relationships won't survive but...
Norovirus. Sinus Infection. Strep throat. Gonorrhea. Alyssa had seen them all during her first three weeks at the Hinton Student Clinic on campus. Working at the campus clinic wasn't on her list of college goals. Yes, there was an actual list she written up as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed eighteen year old in her bedroom.
The list was all streaming to one goal—medical school. Last year, before the incident that she tried hard to forget but her body unconsciously remembered, she was on track. Her GPA was impeccably high and she was working around doctors that would one day mentor and teach her during her residency. But now, she no longer had Intern at hospital lab to add to her resume.
Hospital jobs were the occupation most successful pre-med students acquired. Not working for the University clinic. She had nothing against the student clinic. It was a state-of the art building, a short walk down a curved sidewalk adjacent to the student union. It had two floors with four doctors on staff and a bay where students could be seen overnight for low risk illnesses. It even had a triage unit added on due to the mass shooting pandemic sweeping the nation. The aspect frightened some parents but the Dean vowed to the incoming parents' of freshman that it was just a precautionary measure.
Alyssa thought they should have added a team of therapist and made counseling mandatory for new freshmen and high risk students but they didn't ask her opinion.
But the University wasn't the only entity that didn't ask for her voice which was the main reason she was striding down the clinic hallway with an iPad in hand.
"Ivy Morrison. 18. Freshman. Art major." Alyssa read through the information of her upteenth patient of the day. "Insured." She quickly brushed her eyes over the reason for the patient's visit before entering the examination room, "A mistake."
"Hmm," Alyssa sounded to herself then opened the door.
She wasn't a 'flash a bright smile' kind of girl, that was Harmony and Safiya and she didn't believe in faking so she didn't as she walked in the room.
"I'm Alyssa." She rushed her eyes over the small, hunched frame of the patient sitting atop the taupe examination table. "What brings you in today. You just typed in mistake. I don't know how to treat mistake. So..." She closed the door behind her with quick click and walked over to the wall where equipment hung.
"Uh..." Ivy blinked over at Alyssa, straightening her back. "You...you're the doctor?"
"No."
"A nurse?" She shook her head and lowered her sight to her back to her hands once Alyssa turned back to her. "Sorry. I didn't mean to....nothing." She poorly shrugged. "You just look young, is all."
"No offense. I'm not a nurse." Alyssa hooked the stethoscope around her neck, "The clinic only has two nurses. This building cost the university a pretty penny so instead of hiring more nurses with a salary they're training junior and senior level pre-med students to do the basics." She held up a black cuff, "Blood pressure, pulse, temperature and checking symptoms."
"Oh." Ivy nodded she held out her arm at Alyssa's request.
"Pull up your sleeve."
Ivy's full head of loose, disheveled curls twitched, "Can you just take it like this?"
"The cardigan is thin but I need it against the skin for a better reading."
"I don't..." Ivy gasped in a deep breath, pulling her arm back to tightly hug herself. "My blood pressure is fine. I-I...just n-need Plan B...that's all." Once the words slipped past her lips her sight journeyed behind Alyssa's face to settle blankly against the wall. Her eyes began to water and she dropped her head down with a sniff. "I just need to fix a mistake."
"Okay." Alyssa gripped the blood pressure cuff trying to determine the cause of her new patient's erratic behavior. It was late in the day and she'd been to class, her stomach was empty and caving into itself because there was a rush due to gas leak at Henderson Dorms and she missed lunch. "I get it. Unprotected sex happens. In the heat of the moment sometimes condoms are the last thing—"
"You know what..." Ivy hopped off the examination table and grabbed her backpack in one swift movement. "This was a mistake, too." Her blurry eyes meet Alyssa's before she hurried to the door, "I'll just find someone that asks less questions." She yanked the door open and rushed out.
"Wait." Alyssa raced to the hallway only to see the girl's departing frame at the end of the hallway. "It's just blood pressure!" She called out but the girl was already out of earshot.
Alyssa couldn't figure out what or where she went horribly wrong as she walked back in the room. Maybe she should have smile? Or maybe she missed something? A eerily familiar feeling tumbled in the pit of her stomach and she swallowed hard, "Can't be. Not that." She hung the blood pressure cuff back on the wall pushing back her thoughts and grabbing the iPad off the counter.
Will Alyssa be able to move on to the next patient or will her fleeing one nag her?
What do you think is wrong with Ivy?
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
