medicine {h.s.}

CHAPTER EIGHT

october.

Hands tangle in my hair.

Fingers lace around my throat.

Sweat sticks two bodies together.

Breathless pants mix as to become one.

Limbs are so finely intertwined, it is impossible to find where one stops and the next starts. Where one body stops, and the next starts.

I breathe in the intoxicating scent of his peppermint breath. I'd never cared for mint, but something about the way that he kisses me, trailing his tongue down my body or wrapping it around my own—leaving overwhelming hints of peppermint wherever he goes... I'm a goner. I never stood a chance.

I'd never imagined we would end up here. The first time was the last time, or so I had said. Sex and work don't mix. Foster had been the first to correct me, and he was quick to do so. He anticipated my doubts. Romance and work don't mix. Romance is when feelings are involved. Feelings are when people get hurt, and that is when the work environment is affected. He had told me after our first night together—leaning over my body and I could smell the peppermint. He smelled like Christmas—or, what I had always wanted Christmas to be—and I know he was a gift to me.

I don't believe in much in this world. A lot of good an all-powerful God can do while there are people starving and rich shoving their greedy faces. In spite of it all, I believe in karma. He is my karma: the reward for weathering all the bad to end up at this good. He has no intentions of catching feelings for me, or so he says. Adrian is coming up at a crucial point in his career. Halfway through his fellowship now, he is about to enter the phase of his career where he has choices. Hospitals will be fighting over him. The world will become his oyster, quite literally. Soon, everyone will know how good and talented Adrian Foster is. Soon, everyone will want him around as much as we do. While Adrian likes it here at Seattle Medical Center enough, he's been very transparent in that he is in the market for a move. Growing up, he was an army brat. He never really had a home, and he doesn't necessarily enjoy the idea of tying himself down definitively to one hospital for the rest of eternity. Essentially: he doesn't have any intention of locking himself to this hospital because of me.

Fortunately, I didn't really care. In this sense, I suppose the both of us found each other at the most essential time. There are plenty of precautionary tales that warn against interns being too sexually adventurous. Specifically the women. There's no shortage of behind-the-scenes hospital horror stories in which the woman intern gets pregnant and has to choose her family or her career—intern year is hard enough as is. Add a child into the mix, and it really does become a choice for one or the other. We've all seen the shows, heard the stories. Frequently, hospital life is dramatized for the entertainment of the audience. Tragically, that is one of the aspects that isn't a joke, despite how sexist these ideals are. I mean, we've all seen the bright-eyed intern fall in love with the rugged superior.

Another fortunate thing about our situation: I've never been bright-eyed, and Adrian is certainly not anywhere close to being considered "rugged." Adrian laughed when I told him that.

So our arrangement was born: sex. Hot, steamy, non-committal sex.

Unfortunately, beginning my trauma rotation has royally fucked with the rhythm that we had established. On nights where we were both out of the hospital, we found the perfect way to sneak him in and out of the house without Ruth or Monty seeing—though, there is no guarantee that they don't hear anything. They've yet to mention anything to me about it, but I know I am certainly not to be considered "quiet in bed."

Trauma is one of the most actively populated specialities. Living in a city is one of the reasons, I believe. Things happen no matter where you are in the world, but in a city, there are just more people around for things to happen to. Because of this, there's typically a correlation with there being better hospitals here rather than in the suburbs. So, not only do we get the flow of patients living in the city, we also get the patients living in the immediate vicinity, too. Without a doubt: my days in trauma are long, and I spend more time at the hospital than I care to admit. So, any time that Adrian pages me 739 in the middle of the day I experience something of an immediate pick me up.