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I threw her a stern look, “Let it go, Whit.”
“Fine, I’ll let it go, but, Colt, if this girl you’re not dating is twisting you up like this in a week’s time, what’s she going to do to you in the long run?”
I barked a laugh, “There will be no long run.”
“Why? Did you already break it off?” I stared at her hands while she scrubbed them with the hard bar of soap.
“No, I didn’t break it off. It’s only a four-week thing.” I stuck my arms all the way up to my elbows under the water and rinsed them thoroughly.
“What do you mean, ‘It’s only a four-week thing’? Is she, like, only visiting the city for that long?”
I sighed, maybe if I told Whitney what I was doing, it would make it easier to see it as what I had originally intended it to be: just a challenge to someone who should be getting more out of life.
I picked up the soap to do a second scrub. “I challenged this girl to date one guy for four weeks so that she could see what it was like to be treated like a lady and not used for her body.”
Whitney stared at me like I had two heads, “You what?”
I shrugged, “It sounded good at the time.”
“And now it doesn’t?”
No, it did still sound good, but I didn’t realize when I started this that I would be feeling more or wanting more. “No, it’s just more complicated than I expected it to be.”
“Who is the girl?” Whitney started rinsing her arms.
“No one you know,” I replied as I began to rinse again, and the door opened to the OR.
“Dr. Barnes, the patient just arrived. Did you want to speak to her before you get started?”
“Yeah, I’ll be right there. Can you have Lucy come in for my gloves, please?”
“I’m right here,” Lucy called out as she slipped past the other nurse whose name I couldn’t remember.
Lucy slipped my gloves on, along with Whitney’s. When she finished, I headed into the operating theater.
I took a deep breath before I approached my patient. I needed her to see me calm and in control. In this room, Ember and the drama of our challenge were not allowed. With the door firmly shut on her, I went over to the table.
“Hey, sugar, how are you doing today?” I leaned over the little girl who was my patient. “You aren’t nervous, are you?”
“Hi, Dr. Barnes.” She gave me a huge smile.
“You lost another tooth. When did you do that?” Bethany was a seven-year-old who had accidently pulled a pan off the stove several months ago. The hot oil in the pan had caused second- and third-degree burns along her arm and a second-degree on her leg. This was the second and hopefully last surgery on her arm. The skin was healing nicely, but we wanted to do one more to clean up the area and make sure it would continue to heal and not leave a horrific scar.
“I did, I lost it yesterday. The tooth fairy left me two dollars under my pillow.” Bethany was a bubble of fresh air and so full of energy that every time I saw her, I wanted to find a way to bottle it up so I could keep some on hand in case of an emergency.
“What are you going to spend the money on?” I asked as one of the nurses came over with my gown.
“I’m saving it for a trip to the circus. I’ve never been to the circus, and I want to go see those people who fly through the air. I want to be like them when I grow up.”
“Ah, an acrobat, that sounds like a great thing to do when you grow up. Okay, sweetie, time for a nap. Let’s get this all done so you can be healed to go to the circus when it comes to town.”
As soon as Bethany was under, I glanced up at Whitney, “Remind me to get tickets ordered for her family for her release bag.”
“I figured that was coming,” Whitney winked, and we got started on the surgery.
Two years earlier, I’d had a child in my office that had wanted to ride a horse. She’d said that she had always wanted to ride one, but living in the city, she never had the chance. She’d told me that the only horses she had seen at all were the ones that pulled the carriages around Central Park and the police horses.
It was a simple thing to set up a trip to a dude ranch a few hours outside of the city, and when the girl and her family came to their final appointment, I handed them the gift. The parents had cried, and the child had thrown her arms around my neck. I never forgot that incredible feeling.
