Defy Desire

Chapter 28 - Maia

'...she had 1.5mg of Gentamicin throughout and was given local anaesthetic for analgesia,' I reiterated. 'Any queries?'

The recovery nurse shook her head and thanked me as I paced out of the bay. It was my third handover of the day after Rachel had forced me into scrubbing in for the whole list. I was tired and stressed and couldn't help but think it was payback for messing up in recovery last week then taking off home. She hadn't seemed sympathetic at all when I had turned up this morning after being off sick; she simply didn't acknowledge it and continued with our day as normal.

I didn't feel like it was fair of her to pin every surgery on me, usually we would take turns, but she had said it would be a good learning experience. It was patronising, as if I was a first year trying this for the first time. I knew the pressures of scrubbing in already, I didn't need her harsh learning techniques to try and teach me the hard way. I knew she was just being a bitch, but I wouldn't bite, I just had to take it. I didn't have the energy in me to argue. I felt like finding Tom and jumping down his throat for basically forcing me to come in today; I could have been at home now relaxing, even though I knew I wouldn't have been very relaxed being there alone.

I stopped being so self-absorbed and pushed my problems out of my head and glanced at the clock, wondering where Tom was. It was around 1pm now and his meeting would be long over. I hadn't seen him around at all, even though I'd only managed to get one quick coffee break between patients and still hadn't had lunch. I hadn't planned to meet him anywhere specific after he'd offered to meet me outside of work for lunch, so I planned on playing it by ear and see if I could spot him around. I was anxious about how the meeting had went. I was wondering how he was right now; whether he was angry and stressed or if he was calm and relieved.

I pushed back through the doors of the O.R where the team were clearing up and approached one of the practitioners.

'Has Dr. Payne decided to take a lunch break?' I asked her.

'Yeah, he's gone,' she told me.

I nodded and moved to the trolleys to wipe them down. At least we were all able to take a break now and I could try and find Tom and see how things had went, then it was back here for two more on the list before my day was done. This really did feel forever away.

'Don't worry about that...' Rachel's voice came from behind me. 'Go get your lunch, you've worked hard.'

Part of me wanted to roll my eyes at her understatement. I didn't reply, I simply nodded and walked away. If she wanted to play cold shoulder with me then I wouldn't be kissing her arse. I wasn't in the mood for anymore shit right now.

I washed my hands and headed out the doors and down the corridor. I prayed Tom would be pacing through so I could stop and talk to him quickly while it was quiet; I knew the coffee room would be too packed to talk. I didn't spot him around anywhere and ended up at the coffee room which, as I'd expected, was rammed. I glanced around for him but he wasn't around anywhere. I could see Nate, Ava and Jodie all together at a table at the back and I felt my face heat up at the sight of them, bringing the memories back from the night out. I couldn't bring myself to stay in here, I'd be sitting alone and risking the chance of one of them trying to speak to me; I wasn't ready for it.

I backed out of the room and headed down the corridor, glancing in offices and checking the stockrooms for Tom. I moved up the main corridor, glancing into the theatre doors to see if he was in surgery but couldn't recognise him in any of them.

I then strolled down to the library where I knew he sometimes escaped to and made my way through the aisles to see if he was hiding out anywhere. No sign of him again.