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No, he liked the grittiness of working in a major trauma hospital. An emergency room to where the worst of the worst were airlifted. He liked the challenge of taking a broken body and putting it back together. Like today, he’d worked two code blues and revived both flatline victims. He lived to stare death in the face and snatch a person back from its greedy grip.
He couldn’t get that in a Podunk, Sawtooth, family practice that was already sucking all Melissa’s energy, not to mention her time.
He missed her. The way she looked at him when she wanted his attention but didn’t want to interrupt whatever he was doing. The way she sang to herself in the shower when she thought he couldn’t hear. The way her eyes lit up when their gazes met and he’d wink, letting her know how special she was. The way she melted in his arms when they touched. He missed everything about her.
Rarely did they spend an uninterrupted evening together these days. The phone would ring and Melissa always took the calls. Always rushed to whoever’s rescue. Some nights he never saw her, which made the time he spent on the road useless.
More and more he opted to sleep over at a friend’s apartment when he became engrossed in his research and time slipped away. But once he was home, he was home.
That’s what he liked about the emergency room. He patched ’em up and moved on to the next cubicle. Melissa thought she was supposed to be on twenty-four seven call to her patients’ every whim.
James gripped the steering wheel, wondering why he was getting so worked up. Probably just fatigue. Thirty-six hours with no sleep would do that to a man.
A hot shower, a decent meal, and Melissa, and he’d be good for a few hours before crashing.
Only when he clicked the garage door open, the bay sat empty. No Jeep Cherokee. James sighed, reminding himself exhaustion caused his annoyance.
Had he known he was coming home to an empty house, he would have stayed late with Kristen to review a course syllabus for next semester. She’d taken over an EKG class for a cardiologist who’d retired over the summer and wanted James’s input. He smiled at the thought of the pretty young doctor being so nervous of facing the incoming students. He remembered being just as anxious about his first teaching stint.
He liked Kristen. She was a lot like him. Loved medicine, but still found time to love life, too.
Once upon a time, Melissa had loved life. Memories invaded of them picnicking at Centennial Park. An unexpected spring shower had drenched them. They’d laughed, gathered their things, and, hand in hand and half-oblivious to the raindrops pelting them, had walked back to his apartment. They’d made love for the first time that afternoon. Holding her afterwards, he’d known Melissa was unlike any woman he’d ever known, that she meant more to him than any sane man would ever admit. She still meant that much.
But she’d changed, become engrossed in her work to the point she was only a shadow of the woman he’d fallen for.
Was she unhappy in their relationship? Was that why she’d gone from the dedicated but vibrant woman of two years ago to the workaholic he now lived with?
A shower, salad, and grilled steak later, James nursed a beer while reclining on a lounge chair on the long wooden deck that ran the back length of the house. The sun dipped behind the wooded hills, streaking the sky with hues of pink and orange. Birds chirped in the distance and two squirrels chased each other up a tree. A light breeze broke the heat, ruffling his hair. He could appreciate what Melissa saw in this place where the Tennessee Hills met the Appalachian Mountains, but he preferred the hum of the city.
That’s when he realized just how dissatisfied he’d grown with his and Melissa’s relationship. It seemed to him that he was the one making all the concessions so they could spend time together. On the occasions he arranged time off at the weekends, she had no problem ditching him to see this patient or that.
He admired her dedication, but needed more from the woman in his life than she was giving.
Was it time to cut their ties?
He couldn’t imagine his life without her but, then, she really wasn’t in his life these days. Even their once amazing sex life had fizzled out over the past couple of months to tired gropes in the middle of the night.
But those tired gropes appealed more than wild sex with any other woman.
Which was why he’d been in his relationship with Melissa longer than any other. They’d been together two years that had been in some ways the best of his life, particularly in the beginning when they hadn’t been able to get enough of each other’s company or bodies.
But he and Melissa needed a shake-up.
He was tired of coming last, and if something didn’t change soon he would move on.
The buzz of the garage door opening warned she had finally come home. He glanced at his watch. After eight-thirty.
A couple of minutes later the screen door screeched. He didn’t turn, just kept watching the squirrels playing in the fading sunlight.
He smelled the soft vanilla that always clung to her skin before she stepped into his line of vision. She came up beside him and kissed his forehead.
“Hey,” she said, dropping into the wrought-iron chair next to his, the floral cushion squishing beneath her.
Was it wrong that he wanted her to value their time together? Plain and simple, she took him for granted.
The more he thought about it, moving back to Nashville might be just what the doctor ordered.
“James?”
