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No one even glances our way on the way to the elevator because what hospital isn’t full of doctors wheeling patients around?
Even though we’re alone in the elevator as it crawls down, neither of us speaks. As long as I’m in this hospital, I’m not safe. Somehow Dr. Trevor seems to recognize that as well because along with the silence that fills the space, is a tension that dances over my skin and tightens my lips.
A million years later, the elevator hits the ground floor and the doors slide open. Two orderlies in white scrubs wait alongside a hospital bed where a woman with bright red hair has a machine breathing for her.
An orderly nods at Dr. Trevor and I’m guessing Dr. Trevor nods back before he wheels me out into the long white hallway. On my right, glass double doors with a large sign point the way to the hospital entrance. A baby’s shrill scream, a woman crying, and a myriad of other snorts, coughs, groans, and gasps echo down the hallway.ER waiting room must be down there.
Dr. Trevor wheels me to the left.
Frowning, I half turn in a seat as uncomfortable as my bed was.
“Trust me,” he murmurs in a voice so low that I nearly miss it.
Since I can hardly tell him that I don’t trust him when he’s saved me from a fate I don’t even want to imagine, I keep my mouth shut and see what other clever ideas this doctor has.
With the ER waiting room behind us, we silently pass a series of empty consulting rooms, closed doors, and hallways leading to different hospital wings.
Minutes later, Dr. Trevor wheels me into an empty office. “Wait here, I won’t be long.”
My lips part. Before I can speak, he leans closer and stares me right in the eye. “A minute, that’s it. I just need to grab something. I’ll be back. I promise.”
His sober brown eyes do their work in silencing my doubt, so I nod. “Okay.”
I count down the seconds. Or maybe it’s the rapid thumping of my heart that I count. In an empty room full of the same hospital stink that’s probably burrowed deep into my pores, there’s little else to do.
At sixty-five seconds, I rise from the wheelchair.
He’s probably gone to get security or the cops. You know that, Saige. Trust only leads to more pain.
Two steps from the closed door, it swings open. Dr. Trevor slips inside and nudges the door closed behind him, a black bundle cradled in his arms.
“You came back.” It’s all I can think to say as I try to work out what he has in his hands.
“I told you I would.” He unravels the balled-up fabric to reveal a long black wool jacket. His coat.That’swhat he went to get? Hiscoat.
When I say nothing else, he moves toward me, already holding the coat open. “Here, put this on. We’ll get further than we would if people aren’t stopping to demand why a doctor is sprinting down the hallway with a patient in a hospital gown.”
How is he able to think at a time like this?
I keep my eyes on his face as he helps me into his jacket, a soft, warm thing with a wide collar and two deep pockets that hits me just below my knees. It smells faintly of the same cologne from before.
Although my sides twinge when I lift my arms, the pain isn’t bad. Manageable.
As Dr. Trevor turns to the door, I know I can’t go any further until I ask him a question that’s haunted me since I first woke up after the car crash.
“Why are you helping me?” My question halts him, and he turns back to me, studying me for several seconds in silence.
He lifts a hand toward me.
I recoil, certain now is when he shows me the bad side he’s been so careful to hide from me all along. That I was wrong to believe he’s one of the good ones at all because there are no good ones anywhere. Just like happily ever afters, they don’t exist.
Although he stretches a hand toward my face, his fingers stop short of touching my cheek. It hovers for a few seconds before he lowers it.
“Because you’re the reason I chose medicine.” His voice is soft, but his gaze intense.
“Me?”
He shakes his head. “Notjustyou. People who need help. That’s who I mean.”
