That earns a faint smile from Melissa despite herself.
Frank looks between the two of us, eyes sharp. “You two are exhausting, by the way.”
Melissa blinks. “Excuse me?”
“You think I don’t see it?” he says. “The hovering. The synchronized concern. The way you both tense when the other does.”
I clear my throat.
“Relax,” he interrupts. “I’m dying, not blind.”
Diane shakes her head, amused. “He told me the same thing. Said he knew we were getting engaged before I did.”
“Never wrong,” Frank says proudly.
I sigh. “This isn’t about us.”
“No,” he agrees. “But you are both here, and that’s not nothing.” He looks back at me, expression softening. “You’re doing everything you can.”
“I need to do more,” I say.
“That’s the problem,” he replies gently. “You don’t know how to stop.”
Diane stands, smoothing the blanket over Frank’s legs. “We trust you,” she says to me quietly. “Both of us.”
I nod once. “I’ll be back later.”
Frank grins. “I’ll be right here. Try not to brood too much.”
“No promises.”
Later in my office, I sit at my desk and open my laptop. I tell myself I’ll simply take another look. That’s the lie I start with.
One more pass through Frank’s labs. One more review of his scans. One more hour, tops. Just enough to make sure there isn’t something small I overlooked this morning because I was distracted or tired or too emotionally close to the case.
I’ve learned to distrust myself when it comes to patients like Frank.
The hospital empties out around me without my noticing. Shift change comes and goes. The overhead lights dim slightly, the halls settling into that hollow quiet that only exists late at night. I shut my office door and spread Frank’s file across the desk like I’m laying out a body for examination.
Labs first.
I scroll slowly, deliberately, forcing myself not to skim. White count. Hemoglobin. Platelets. Inflammatory markers. I compare today’s numbers to last week’s, then the week before that.
Down.
Still down.
Worse than yesterday.
I pull up imaging next, enlarging the scans, studying them like if I stare long enough, the answers might rearrange themselves into good news.
They don’t.
I jot notes anyway. Not because they’re useful, but because stopping feels worse. I cross-reference treatment protocols, reopen studies I already know by heart, scan through clinical trials that Frank doesn’t qualify for and never will.
I tell myself I’m being thorough, but what I’m really doing is bargaining. If I find something, anything, I don’t have to accept what this means yet.
Hours pass.
