Once more Dr Zoe Hanna found herself staring down to the bottom of a wine bottle, wondering where the 750mls of fluid had evaporated to and reaching for her phone. The time glows in little green numerals from the corner of the screen. 3:37am. And the date, 27/03/2013. Already. 25 days since he had driven off to find a new life. Leaving her with his emergency department. It would always be his emergency department, to her anyway, even when the name Nick Jordan was dust on the wind in everyone else's mind. Even if she was clinical lead for the next twenty years, god forbid, and the new name plate on the door of his office started to rust around the screws, it would still be his department. She realised now that in making her Trauma Lead he had been preparing her for this moment, the moment in which she would take over. But he had assumed, she had assumed too, that there would have been more time. That's why she didn't tell him, she always thought they had more time. The operation that she had signed the consent form for was supposed to give him more than five years of life. He had lived four of them. He'd probably die over in America, in a private hospital, alone. Or maybe not alone, maybe he'd find himself a pretty blonde girl half his age with an annoying american twang to nurse him on his sickbed. That would be just like Nick, out with a bang. She wondered if the prospect of his death hung over him like it occupied her mind. As a doctor she should have been able to let go, but even know with the whole of the Atlantic ocean and several hundred miles of landmass separating them, she still felt the attachment. She had never regretted her selfishness, not even for a single second, because a Nick on the other side of the world, a Nick that had hated her, was better than no Nick. Always.
She looked at the clock on her phone again, 3:39am. Her drunken mind struggled to take away the five hours to make the time in Michigan. 10:39pm. Evening Surgery, perhaps writing up some patient notes, maybe he had gone to concert, who knows. Maybe he was staring into the bottom of a wine bottle too. Or he could be asleep, something that Zoe doubted, Nick had never been very good at sleeping. He always went to sleep after her and woke before her, although that could have been because of the tumour. Not for the first time Zoe wondered what could have been if there hadn't been a random mutation somewhere in one of the cells of his brain causing a malignant tumour to form in the cranium. Zoe stood up, and then tripped over her own feet, hitting her head on the table before managing to catch her fall with clumsily outstretched hands. She stood up wearily, she had been going in search of more alcohol, but perhaps that wasn't such a good idea. She sighed, sitting back down. Her phone in her hand. What's happened, Zoe? Why are you so upset? Come on, can't be that bad. What have you done now? He had always cared, just never enough. Not for her. She still had her phone in her hand. She knew the number off by heart. Your perfume. Zoe: something like a cross between a girls' locker room and a fried breakfast. Hard to forget. And before her sluggishly alcohol-full mind could catch up with what her fingers was doing she was pressing the green call button. And it was ringing. Not that it would hurt. Just one message to see how he was doing. That was polite, after all. "You've reached Nick Jordan's phone. I am currently unavailable but please feel free to leave a message and I will try to get back to you" His voice. It was so distant, and yet so familiar that Zoe almost forgot to speak. "Hi Nick. It's me. Zoe." She hoped that he would miss the fact that her words were slurring into one another. He probably wouldn't. Nick Jordan missed nothing. "I was just wondering how you were getting on in America. I mean, the departments just not the same without you, well it is the same, patients, paramedics, porters, nurses, doctors, well nearly all the doctors. Just not you. I miss you. I mean, I don't like being without you. No, that sounds worse. I feel your absence. I- I wish we had- Oh, I promised myself I wouldn't do this. I should hang up. Because this is embarrassing. I just miss you. I've always missed you, even when you were there. Did I just say that? I guess- I'm going to hang up. Definitely this time." And her thumb hovered over the red button at the bottom of her screen saying end call. But she knew that she wouldn't call again. Not after this. And she knew that Nick wouldn't come back, not for her, not for anything, too many memories. She couldn't let him die in a strange country without him knowing. It would just take three little words, it should be easy enough to say them, every time she thought of him they popped into her head. Like a bad penny. A bad memory that she couldn't get rid off. Although it was hard to feel bad about loving Nick. "Nick, I need to say something. Before I go. I should have said it before. Oh, too many times and I nearly did. I love you. I've always loved you. There. At least you know. Goodbye Nick Jordan. Goodbye. I'm sorry. I should be sorry. But I'm not. Bye. Bye." Tears had filled her then she pressed the button. Before she said something else that she would wake up regretting in the morning. She dropped the phone on the ground. It bounced, probably breaking. She'd find it in the morning. She let her hand rest in her hand and her mind slip into the unconscious bliss that she had been seeking when she opened the wine bottle a couple of hours earlier.
It was a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair...
as always reviews make me smile unlike Nick/Zoe which just makes me cry