Welcome to County, Dr. Lockhart!
And intern...she took off her coat and changed into scrubs, pull her chocolate hair up in a big pony tail, the stethoscope in a pocket, no, took it out and hanged it around her neck because that was better and it was more accessible that way and opened the door to a new day.
He was nice…he really was. Had a nice smile and his dentist seemed to be doing a great job, lovely blue eyes and she had to admit to herself that she had always been attracted to blue eyes, especially to those she used to wake up next to the last few weeks. And more, she had to admit to herself that indeed he looked very nice and sharp in blue scrubs. Maybe because it matched his eyes...Every now and then she waited for her heart to skip a beat whenever she would see him, when he held her hand and talk with a low, sleepy voice about their future; their future being the next day. She kept wanting to feel shivers down her spine whenever they were breathing the same air, whenever he was close and getting closer.
If she were to ask him to move in with her, she was sure he was going to show up at her door wearing shorts and a funny t-shirt, in the middle of winter, with his toothbrush in one hand and a huge grin on his face, because that was his only baggage and it wouldn't have been fair because her place was crowded and her things were everywhere and would've ended up choking him or worse, he would've ended up borrowing her things, which weren't exactly sharing material. Not to him, at least.
So she didn't. Instead, she played her part very well and felt so good for once not to remember that she wasn't made for this world, for his world, because she felt she wasn't good enough for him. She has had some great guys in the past few years and it she laughed when realized that apparently County was full of great guys, she had a chance to get to know two in particular these last few years, but this guy…this one…his only problem was that he had no problems and it scared her because that meant she had to share and make him her co-pilot, when maybe it would've been easier to share the same pillow with someone who knew by heart every small path of all the nine circles of hell…and back.
She took a deep breath and changed the focus of her thoughts because this was work and she should work and it was busy and the nurses were yelling for a doctor anyway, so she had to ignore the little inner philosophies and move on. To being a doctor.
Yes, she was; she was a doctor and for the first time she was able to admit it to someone who didn't know her, the real her and judged her only by a few pieces of the puzzle randomly assembled; and this time she was proud and said it out loud and it wasn't just for herself, that nurse was there, the nurse she had trouble remembering at first, mainly because there had been so many deliveries that particular Thanksgiving, that she got confused. For the nurse, she had been the one who had taught her to breastfeed; for her, she had been "that single Mom with twin girls in room 11 that seems like she hasn't got a clue about what she's doing here". So she said it and she heard her, loud and clear and she left her there, on the hallway, confused, bedazzled and bewildered and as she turned on her toes she couldn't help but smile and for the first time allowed her entire body to feel the joy because she was envied and she was one of the lucky ones, she wasn't the one left behind, there was someone else there, behind her and that, even if maybe it was wrong, it made her happy. The words still echoed in her mind, and she almost could have seen them, clear and true and meaningful.
"You're a Med student?!!" That could've been her; that could've been her. That could've been her. But instead, that was the nurse from O.B who had already seemed like she figured out her life.
She knew she was being watched, watched like she used to follow doctors with her eyes and not only them, but people who had seemed to be happy or at least at ease with their life, people who had seemed to have been born only to be envied, only to be successful, while she had been using space for nothing. But now, this was her time, so she went on, following the gurney and waiting for someone more appropriate to tell her where she could take her coat off.
The thought lingered a bit on her mind, remembering her other first day here, which happened to be also his first day back after months of writing yet another novel to add to his collection, the one he keeps in his oversized luggage – wondered how he managed to get that through custom…At least she didn't move around so much; dragging things the size of a sky scraper all over the place wasn't quite her ideal Sunday afternoon; or any other day, for that matter.
She did move out from his place, thought. Or their place. From that place she was tight to with a wedding ring. When their apartment got too tiny from all the walls being built inside; the soundproof kind.
She could smelled her on him, and it made her sneeze, because the perfume was cheap and it irritated her senses and so she just turned to her side and stuck her nose deep in the pillow and shut her eyes, and wondered when was the exact point she had stopped caring. But she gave him that; at least he had that. He had comfort and a place to go to be able to forget…about her, about her problems, about her meetings, about her mother, about her cigarettes and about that night when he matched in Chicago and was excited to be an intern so somewhere amid the whole enthusiasm he had asked her to marry him, to which she'd replied "yes". She gave him all that, but had trouble understanding why his hand was up her blouse, searching frantically for the "buttons" he had always thought that by pushing he'd take her there and wondered how he managed to jump from the other side of the cliff right next to her for a few minutes, but at least the force of his grip was explainable. Both with their pyjama tops still on, she was still holding on to him, afraid to let go, afraid to be alone, pretending she didn't notice that her scent was bothering him, that the smell of tobacco on her hair was among the many reasons he just wanted to get over with it.
But now she was an intern and it was all she ever dreamed about, because she always went with the flow, not planning for more than a few weeks ahead and even then, it seemed like too much. But this, this was the only selfish thing she had ever wanted, only for herself, that didn't imply other people, or other people being well just so that could be free, which is a completely different type of selfishness. Now she was an intern and things were going great, because from the outside looking in, she really did have everything, she was considered lucky, to have both a white coat and blue eyes staring at her in the morning.
Without even thinking things through, she had become an expert on avoiding him while at work, because she was flying solo, or wasn't hungry, or had a lot on her hands and lately whenever some too-well-informed-about-her-off-duty-curriculum nurse would wink at her whenever they were charting together, instead of blushing sweetly, like she did in the beginning, or smiling, she frowned and found herself irritated and was even more afraid because this time she knew for sure it was all her fault, because this was the type of guy who'd stick around, this one actually chose her over his plans for a better job, a more solid career and a city which was nothing like the Congo. So, yes, she had no doubts that this time, it was all her fault, although couldn't quite articulate the problem.
With the other guy…that was simple. It didn't stick, as much as he seemed to have wanted it. It just didn't. He wasn't from another country, like the one before who had left her even more confused and uncertain and fed her fears, yet he was from another world, a world she always thought she'd make a fool out of herself if she dared to apply for. So when the manager handed her the papers than needed to be filled, she searched the bag but found nothing to write with so she decided to take those home and return them later, all required fields nicely filled out with capitals, only that somehow, on the way, she had lost them and it had been an one shot sort of chance. And those papers were too fancy for her anyway. She didn't quite feel like writing on some century-old yellow papers, on which some others whose names included roman numbers had written long before her. She had never liked history classes; or roman numbers.