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“You’re… unexpected,” he declared. “Alright. Give me a chart,” he said, waving toward the stack I was looking at.
“You’re actually going to work?”
“No, I just need some scratchy toilet paper. Yes, I am going to work.”
“I’m torn between giving you a low-grade fever as a reward, or a suspicious anal rash as punishment,” I said as I looked at the options.
“Somehow, I know which one this is,” he said, smirking as I slapped the anal rash folder into his chest.
“You can get an easy case if you go half the day without saying something sexist,” I offered, taking the chart for the little boys, and making my way in.
Thankfully, for the next two-and-a-half hours of catching up on patients, my mind didn’t have time or space to wander. There was too much to do. Too many ways to suggest inexpensive treatment options to come up with. Too much eyeing Dr. Christian Laurier to make sure he was still working.
Amazingly enough, he was.
Which meant we cleared the waiting room in half the time it would have taken just me a good chunk of the day alone.
“What?” Dr. Laurier said when I came into my office after the rush to get five minutes alone to chug some electrolytes and an Excedrin for the pounding pain behind my eyes. Maybe scarf down an energy bar too, only to find him sitting in my chair again.
“You’re still here?” I asked, moving behind the desk to yank open the drawer for my medicine.
“You’re taking Excedrin? After you took a blow to the head like that? Why didn’t they prescribe you something stronger?”
“Becausetheydidn’t see me. I went home after fishing a bullet out of my nurse.”
“I ate them,” he said as I rummaged around, sure I had at least three energy bars stashed away for busy days when I wouldn’t have time to eat a proper meal.
“You ate my energy bars?” I asked, not sure why those words had me close to tears, but they did.
It had just all been… too much.
Work which never ended.
Money problems.
The break-in.
The robbery.
My shot nurse.
Doing emergency surgery in subprime conditions.
My migraine.
And, yes, of course, Seeley’s appearance in my life once again. Just when I could say I’d almost forgotten about him.
Alright. Fine. If I were being truly honest, I probably could have dealt with all the other things if it weren’t for that pesky last one.
Work, money issues, migraines, shady characters, and even emergency surgeries weren’t exactly rare occurrences for me.
But the one person from my past who truly had the potential to get a rise out of me showing up? Yeah, that was the problem.
Seeley.
Seeley was the problem.
In fact, I distinctly remember someone warning me about that many, many years ago.
