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Which ticked me off.
Three years ago, the accident hadn’t even been that bad.
A man had pulled out in front of me, and I’d swerved to miss him, only to hit the guardrail for my troubles. Hitting that guardrail caused my vehicle to come to an abrupt stop causing my head to then hit the steering wheel. In turn, that caused my brain to rattle back and forth in my skull.
Which then led to swelling of my brain, and eventually the prognosis of prosopagnosia.
Also known as facial blindness.
Eventually, I’d learned to recognize people in different ways. The color of their hair, or the way their hair was styled. Their height and their voice. Hell, I could even tell one such doctor, which was walking toward me, by their walking style.
“Dr. Rose.” I nodded at her as she limped toward me. “How are you today?”
“Pregnant, fat, and ready to be on maternity leave,” she said. “See you tomorrow.”
I snickered as I kept walking, heading toward the board that would show me where my surgeries would take place.
After taking note of all the stuff on the board for me today, which was more than I expected, I headed into my first surgery.
The day went about as expected, and eventually, around two that afternoon, I was able to take a lunch break.
By the end of the day, I’d lost what little patience I’d managed to keep, and was thankful to be going home.
After stopping at the grocery store for a couple of TV dinners, I made my way back home.
When I arrived, it was to see the husky from earlier in my driveway. I didn’t think the dog was nearly as cute as I had thought this morning.
And that mostly had to do with the fact that, for the next two hours, the dog sounded like it was dying.
No joke, I’d gone to bed with it making a god-awful sound, and I’d woken up to a worse one.
Now it was seven in the morning, I’d had the shittiest night’s sleep that I ever had, and I was fuming.
Without much thought, I stormed out of my house, down my front porch steps, and all but marched across my grass toward hers.
I banged on the door and was thankful when Coreline answered instead of the roommate I wouldn’t be able to recognize.
“Your dog sounds like it’s fucking dying,” I growled.
“There are no laws that say you can’t have a dog that makes dying sounds,” she countered, eyes hooded from sleep, and wearing goddamn shorts that looked like they were painted on. “Stop looking at me with those condescending eyes.”
I snapped my gaze back up to her face. “Stop answering the door in your ass shorts and I’ll stop looking.”
“You should look elsewhere,” she countered fiercely. “You’re objectifying me.”
“I’m not objectifying you,” I opposed. “And if you don’t want someone to look, maybe you should wear more.”
I wasn’t firing on all cylinders, or I wouldn’t have repeated myself, only using different words.
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you one of those?”
My brows rose. “What’s that mean?”
“One of those,” she repeated. “The kind of men who think that women have it coming when they dress like hookers.”
“Are you referencing rape?” I asked. “Are you seriously asking me if I would condone raping a woman, in any capacity?”
She wrinkled up her nose but didn’t reply.
I fisted my hands. “I’ve treated rape victims eight times over my career. I’ve performed vaginal surgery on a patient that was raped by a fuckin’ slat of wood. So no, in no uncertain terms, am I ever okay with rape. Whether the woman dresses conservatively, or like a whore after a full night of work. And I honestly dislike you for even thinking those words, let alone voicing them.”
She rolled her eyes. “I can wear what I want. Not to mention, you’re the one banging on my door at barely seven in the morning. I thought something was seriously wrong.”
“Something is seriously wrong,” I responded. “I haven’t had but three hours of sleep, and you let your dog make that noise.” I jerked my thumb at the dog. “As if you don’t care whether he’s keeping anyone else up or not.”
“It’s not actually my dog,” she finally answered. “It’s a dog that lives somewhere else, but I feed him because I feel sorry for him. My roommate thinks that he’s mine because I like to give her a hard time. But in all honesty, he’s not. I usually can’t control him at all. It’s blind luck that he listened to my commands yesterday.”
I sighed. “Did you ever take him to a vet to get scanned?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t want him in my car. He smells like corn nuts and Fritos.”
I snorted. “I have a friend. I’ll see if I can get him to come by and check for a chip.”
