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Kimberly sighs. “I know. But it’s Wanda. And if she gets sick,” she says with a long exhale. I get it. She doesn’t need to finish that sentence. She shakes her head as if the possibility is simply not workable.
I nod. “Exactly. Which is why we’re not talking about it.”
“Aha,” Kimberly says, pointing a finger at my chest. “Avoidance.”
“Nope. Legal compliance.”
Those laws about medical privacy? They’re a good excuse to not discuss what I don’t even want to think about.
Kimberly pats my hand and says goodnight. I head back to my office, answer email for an hour, and then make sure all the doors are locked before I grab my half-eaten magic sandwich and head home.
Home is the apartment above the clinic, the most convenient way to keep me on call for student emergencies that happen through the night.
Those emergencies don’t occur as often as you might think, but I am grateful that when the buzzer rings in the late hours, I don’t have far to travel.
It’s weird that I don’t even have to go outside to get home, but I make a priority of moving through campus every day, either running a few miles before the clinic opens or wandering to the Caf for lunch. I know the benefits of fresh air and human company. If it weren’t a habit to get outside, it might be really easy to turn into one of those people who squints at daylight, backing away from anything but temperature-controlled indoor air.
I unlock the apartment door and turn on the living room light. Hanging my jacket on the hook on the wall, I stretch out on the couch.
Unwrapping the sandwich, I keep my expectations low. Maybe it wasn’t as amazing as it seemed at lunch today—in Sage’s company, anything might seem better than it is on my own. And certainly a few hours in the fridge haven’t improved the sandwich. But as I take a bite, there is no disappointment. At all. It’s still good. Very good.
I pull out my phone and type a text to Sage.
‘I know you’re at work and probably not eating a really great sandwich, but I am not at work and definitely eating a great sandwich, and so thank you.’
I read through for typos, wondering if I sound as foolish as I think I sound, and then I stare at the screen. The text sits there, in its box, ready to send or delete. This is dumb. What am I doing? It’s impossible to call this anything but flirting. And Sage was a student very recently.
My brain reminds me that she’s not a student anymore.
No, I remind my brain. It’s worse, because now she’s my patient. Right? Isn’t that worse? I mean, she was also my patient when she was a student, and maybe that’s what’s got me all worked up about this.
Because isn’t this just a totally inappropriate feeling to be having about a patient? A very young one? Who used to be a student? My brain has nothing for me.
I put the phone down and take another bite of the sandwich. It really is amazing. There’s just so much going on with flavors and textures, and somehow the bread is still good and not at all soggy, and I realize Val is the one who actually made the sandwich, but it all came to me because of Sage. And I’m definitely not considering texting Val to chat about sandwiches.
I want to talk to Sage. I want her to know I’m thinking about her. Even if that thought comes through leftovers.
I pick up the phone again and before my brain can talk me out of it, I send the text.
As the message moves from the typing box to the right side of the screen, I watch for the ellipses that tell me she’s answering.
And I watch for several more bites.
She’s not answering.
I finish the sandwich, and it’s gone too soon even though I chew each bite many, many times to make it last. I’m not staring at the phone. I’m not sitting here on my couch leaning over the coffee table so I can see a text appear.
Oh, wait. I am. This is exactly how pathetic I am today.
I ball up the brown paper wrapper and take it to the kitchen to dump it. Was that a buzz? I run back to the couch. No. Not a text. Back to the kitchen. Throw away the trash. Get a drink of water. Wash hands.
I turn a full circle in my kitchen, checking out the boring white dishes I can see through the glass-fronted cabinets. Good thing I own matching plates, because there’s no hiding a thrift-store haul in here. The whole apartment looks like a Swedish design catalog. It’s not like I’m partial to clean lines and white leather and blond wood, I just picked the easiest way to match everything and stuck with it. It’s clean. I mean, it’s clean because I clean it, but also, there’s not a lot of room for dirt to hide.
But it doesn’t really look like a home. I’ve never considered how little of me is in the space. Honestly, it’s just an extension of the clinic downstairs: easily sanitized, comfortable without encouraging anyone to feel like staying very long. A framed print of a monstera leaf, because I don’t want to collect dust on a fake plant and I’m too aware of the mites and bugs that gather in damp dirt to keep a living plant in my apartment.
I’m not selling it, am I? I do like it here. Even if it’s kind of a blank slate.
But it’s clean. And quiet.
