January 12th
This was it. Me pulling away and leaving him feeling embarrassed was it. It was enough to create an irreparable gap between us. Whatever we had was probably all over with that little awkward moment. And if I told him the truth about why, then it was definitely over. Once again it was 7.00pm, an hour from the end of visiting hours and he hadn't showed up. I was sure that he wouldn't show up at all. Alex hadn't been here the whole day either and I was concerned but I knew that wherever she was she probably didn't want to see me as a mess because of Levi. She would just say "I told you so" and then proceed to mock me.
I was increasingly paranoid that the one chance I had to actually, potentially, maybe have a boyfriend I had ruined it, more like Dr Carter had. Speaking of Dr Carter, I hadn't seen him either. I don't think he was in today, or even if he was I was probably unknowingly avoiding him. It was good because it gave me an opportunity to hate him. Okay so here goes my attempt at a pros and mostly cons list about Dr Carter:
Pros
He is intelligent
He is pleasing to the eyes
He shares a liking for sarcasm
He has a cute accent
He appears to be caring
He is single and not much older than me
He is the only reason I'm still at the hospital
He is the only reason I met Alex
He constantly keeps an eye on me
He does spontaneous things like pull me into Janitor's closets
I could go on, but that wasn't the point. I needed to list some cons now.
Cons
He is sometimes condescending with his better than thee attitude
He appears to be really stuck up (probably just him being professional)
He is my doctor (but not for long)
And that is about all I could say that was negative, two of which I was able to reasonably justify as not his fault. Therefore it was one con against ten pros. As much as I tried there was nothing to hate, he was all round smart, charming, compassionate and just this good guy who I would have pursued, aggressively, had he not been my doctor. But there was one thing that served as a massive con, he probably wasn't interested in me. He saw me as his patient like a hundred other patients he dealt with on a daily basis. I wasn't special and I was aware of that but for some reason I built this narrative in my head that I was treated specially or something and because of that I had developed these 'feelings'.
So, finally I had managed to find the one thing that set Dr Carter and Levi apart in my head. One is evidently interested and the other is most likely uninterested. Besides I really did like Levi and we interacted on a friendship level unlike my strictly professional, sometimes questionably, interactions with Dr Carter. I had made up my mind.
Dr Carter disposed in the recesses of my mind, hate land, the home of many things that have been hated by me. Along with vegemite, reality TV, sports classes and these 3 very specific people, there was Dr Carter; the new resident of Hateville. But there right next to Hateville was Crushtown and buried there along with my dead crush for the Jonas Brothers was an epitaph on a fresh gravestone that read 'Lies here, is Dr Carter, dead but never forgotten.'
And that was the current status for my crush on Dr Carter, dead but never forgotten. You know me, I never like to fully close any doors. But right now I had to focus on awakening a new pocket in my brain that had till this point been lying desolate; Love City. Yes, I loved my parents, not so sure anymore, and yes I loved Alex in a different way but they had a place in other regions of my brain. Love City was solely reserved for only the most epic romances I was hopefully to have.
***
Just as I had finished recategorizing Dr Carter in my mind, I saw he who I had not expected to see ever again. Right on cue was Levi. His timing could not have been more perfect. I got up off my bed and hugged him. Although he is never Mr Cheery, he was not his usually confident and charming self. There was definitely something off and it concerned me.
"Hey what's up, you seem upset? Something gone wrong at the bakery, some old lady verbally abuse you?" I tried to lighten the mood but he clearly wasn't in the mood.
"Nah, it's nothing..."
It was clearly not nothing. There was something bothering him but I didn't know if I should be a prodder and ask. Well, I did anyway.
"Tell me Levi, what's wrong?" I insisted. And I could see in his face that something shifted. It looked like he was just barely holding it together. I wanted to tell him that everything was going to be okay and console him but from experience I knew that, consolation and reassurance isn't what you need, especially because I knew that everything isn't always going to be okay.
"It's just that my mum and dad have decided to separate. Like they aren't getting a divorce for crying out loud, they just want to live apart from each other and just see how it goes. I know it sounds stupid that it affects me this much but my whole life I have seen them split and get back together. My dad abusing her, hitting me when he came home from the pub for interfering and then a month later we're all happy family again. I am just sick of them playing with our feelings. Granted I don't live with them anymore but my younger brother Jay does and every time they decide to go ahead and split up he becomes their burden so they call me over under the lie that we are having a family dinner and then deceitfully and slyly bring up conversation about them separating and my brother having to stay with me yet again. Like I love the guy but I don't have the financial stability to pay for my own food and bills let alone another person's. I'm just sick of it. I'm sick of them. All of them."
At this point he was so infuriated that he was almost in tears. I just held his hand in mine and squeezed it tightly.
He returned my gesture by staring at my eyes and then my lips and then back to my eyes and saying, "Right now you are the only constant in my life and I'm so thankful for that, just sitting here with you has already made me so much calmer. I can't see you not being in my life and for that I have to do this."
It was like déjà vu, he shuffled closer and leaned in to briefly kiss my forehead. We paused for a moment and then there was an unsaid mutual agreement. So he proceeded to move his lips down my face till he met my lips. And we kissed, for real this time. When I opened my eyes I saw his face, luminous as ever under the bright light of the hospital ward.
It wasn't a romantic setting, but it didn't have to be because the moment was so much more than just a fleeting teenage romance. That is what I felt and that is what was reciprocated when he kissed me again, only briefly, to say, "You are something else Tamara." With those words he got up and left, may I mention even before visiting hours were finished.
It was 7.59pm exactly and it was a time I would remember forever. Agreeably my younger self would be both ecstatic from the physical human connection and cringing from the cheesy dialogue but I couldn't be happier, or so I thought.
YOU ARE READING
The Diary Of A Chubby Girl
Teen Fiction"The day I was born, stars shot down to earth, planets fell out of alignment, the world stopped revolving and destiny ran for its life." My name is Tamara Eloise Daley but you can call me TED. I like to think that I had this impact on the world, bu...
