Disclaimer: Aside from my own characters in this story, everything else related to Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer. If you like my story so far, don't forget to follow, favorite, and/or leave a review!
There was a desk in the corner with piles of paper organized neatly on top. Along one of the walls stood two bookshelves filled with what I could only assume as medical texts and files. It felt strangely too professional. There were no personal items that I could see. No pictures of friends or families, not even the medical degrees that doctors normally had on their walls. It was like the doctor himself was hiding some part of his life. This only added more to my suspicions of him.
I nervously fidgeted on a plush armchair in his office. I didn't belong in here. My eyes kept darting from the clock on the wall to the closed door. Every time I heard footsteps in the hallway, my heart couldn't help but speed up a little. This could very well possibly be the ride to my death and it scared me, but what other option was there at this point?
Glancing back at the clock, I realized it was 11:37. He was nearly ten minutes late. "Probably got caught up with the patients," I told myself, but it wasn't very reassuring. Bringing the thick locks over my shoulder, I started braiding my hair in order to give my fingers something to do other than picking at the skin around my fingernails. Footsteps were coming. They stopped at the door and the handle turned.
"Sorry to keep you waiting; there was some extra paperwork the nurses needed me to fill," Dr. Cullen said in a bitter tone that made me wonder whether the nurses really did need him to fill papers. "I hate having to keep you here any longer, but I'm going to change and then we can get going," he took off the lab coat, revealing his bare arms that I couldn't help but stare at. He had the face and apparently the arms too. The only thing he seemed to lack was a decent tan, but even that wasn't necessary with looks like that.
Diverting my eyes, I mumbled something along the lines of "fine by me" and got back to my hair. Anything to keep my mind from drifting off to Dr. Cullen and what he could have underneath those scrubs… No! I was going to need to stop thinking all together if I wanted to distract myself. Whether I was distracting myself from his looks or my impending death, I wasn't exactly sure anymore. Probably both.
Dr. Cullen– I didn't know where he stood at the moment. He was charming, to say the least, polite, there wasn't anything visibly wrong with him, but there was something about him that set me on edge. He was getting too close. He knew something that I didn't and it scared me. This man could potentially be dangerous and I could be walking straight into a trap if I wasn't careful.
He came back wearing a pair of jeans and a dark purple sweater over a collared shirt. He'd switched his sneakers out for a classier looking pair of Oxford shoes and had a scarf draped around his neck.
"Are you ready to go?"
I nodded and went to pick up the duffel bags.
"Here, let me," Dr. Cullen began grabbing the bags with ease before I could protest and I momentarily stared at him with shock. Those bags weren't exactly the lightest weight to carry around.
As if predicting I would complain, he motioned towards a backpack sitting in one of the chairs, "I know what you're about to say, Miss. Hanson. I will gladly carry your bags if you could grab my backpack. It's a fair trade." Grudgingly, I got the backpack and we made our way to the check-out desk.
"Oh, Dr. Cullen!" the lady at the desk squealed, suddenly patting her hair and smoothing out her clothes furiously. "I thought you'd left already!"
He gave her a somewhat strangled smile and I couldn't help snicker at that, quickly suppressing it into a cough when the blond glared at me.
"Simply helping out a friend here check out." Since when were the two of us friends? How ballsy of him to say that. We've only knew each other for a total of two days! Then again, I was agreeing to get in a car with a stranger, so perhaps he wasn't the only delusional one in this case.
As I filled out the paperwork, trying to provide as little information as possible at the same time, I caught the doctor staring at me out the corner of my eyes. What was so interesting about me right now?
"Staring is rude, Dr. Cullen. I'm sure you should know that from all the women in here ogling at you." It was like he hadn't even realized he was the most gorgeous thing here.
"It would seem I've been caught red handed. My apologies, Miss. Hanson."
Rolling my eyes, I got up and handed back the papers. As we walked towards the exit, I no longer felt as anxious near the doctor as I did before. Perhaps it was the fact that after this, I wouldn't ever have to see this man again.
"Penny for your thoughts?"
"Oh… My thoughts aren't worth that much," I replied, looking up towards the dreary sky. It was drizzling and my light cardigan did nothing to shield me from the cold. There were too many thoughts running through my head right now. Why was he so invasive sometimes?
"Nonsense, Miss. Hanson."
"Why are you so interested in what I'm thinking?" Or just me in general.
He looked at me thoughtfully before replying. "I find that I'm able to read people easily. You, on the other hand, I can't seem to ever figure out what you're thinking. You're… almost an enigma to me, Miss. Hanson. A mystery. There's simply so much hidden behind those blue eyes of yours." He suddenly stopped and furrowed his brows slightly. "Excuse me, I've said too much already."
The doctor pulled out his car keys and pressed a button, unlocking the car. A beep could be heard and I looked around in search of his car. My eyes landed on a Mercedes. "Of course he owns a damn Mercedes." I thought bitterly. We loaded our things in the back and I sat gingerly in the passenger seat, feeling once again out of place. The car, I noted, had a faint sweet, but almost woodsy smell– a peculiar smell impossible not to get attracted to. How had I not smelled it on Dr. Cullen before?
"Are you cold?" I was about to say no, but the even colder air in the car caused me to involuntarily shiver.
"I'm taking that as a yes," the doctor laughed and raised the heating in the car. I wasn't dead yet, so this couldn't be too bad. About five minutes into the ride, I changed my mind. This guy was a maniac at driving. We were going at almost 90 miles per hour down the street. We'd either get pulled over or hit something before I would make it to the house.
"I have a question for you."
A smile flashed on his face. "Shoot." That one word sent me back into panic mode. Clutching my arms, I tried to suppress the memories flooding back at me.
"Shoot," He ordered. I was on the stairs, around the corner and out of sight. If he caught me, I'd surely be dead. There was nothing I could do to save the man pleading for his life right now.
"No! P-please! I'm begging you! Just stop already!" the man cried. He was a government official, I believed, a minor one but one that still apparently deserved to die.
A gunshot rang out, and then the victim started screaming again, luckily masking the sound of my gasp. I've lost count of the amount of times he'd been shot.
"Tie him together," he commanded with no remorse at all. His men got the cords out, wrapping the man's wrists to his ankles as he continued to cry out in agony. And then there was more screaming. The sounds of a chainsaw could be heard over the cries. I shut my eyes shut and covered my ears in an attempt to block out all of the noise. They were laughing and laughing as if this was some game.
"Miss. Hanson? Juliet? Juliet, are you alright?" the doctor asked worriedly, looking at me. Gripping the edge of my cardigan, I managed to stop my lips from trembling and give him a faint smile.
"I'm fine. I'm fine. Keep your eyes on the road, doctor. Wouldn't want another accident now, would we?" I laughed shakily.
"Juliet, are you sure you're okay? You look like you'd just seen a ghost."
"Believe me, I'm fine, really! Anyway, do they always do that?"
Dr. Cullen glanced at me again, obviously concerned. "I don't believe I know what you're talking about."
"The women in the hospital, do they always gawk at you? Doesn't it get annoying?" The doctor thankfully moved on from what happened on moments ago, pausing before answering, but I could tell he still wasn't convinced that I was fine.
"I supposed I've gotten used to it… but my kids still do get slightly embarrassed when we're out in public." Kids. He had kids? The man looked so young though!
"I've been told that many times, but I'm older than I look." I gave him an estranged look. Shit, did I really just say what I was thinking out loud? "No worries. Contrary to what you probably believe, I just turned 31 earlier this year." Just when I thought this man could no longer surprise me, he came out with this. "But I thank you for making an old man feel young," he grinned.
"31 really isn't that old…" I mumbled. No, it was only almost a decade older than me. "So all those women still go after you even though you're married?" I blurted out before I could stop it. Who was the invasive one now?
"I'm not married. Which is exactly why those women can't take no for an answer," he chuckled. "I adopted my children, all five of them."
"That's incredible," I remarked, noticing how he got the part where he was single across quite clearly.
"It's much easier than you think considering they're all teenagers. Now, enough about me, I'd like to learn more about you, Miss. Hanson. What really brought you here to Forks?" A breath caught in my throat. He suspected me. He knew I was lying yesterday. My heart began to thunder, making me wonder whether he could hear it too.
"Like I said to Chief Swan yesterday, I just wanted a change in scenery."
"I think we both know that isn't really reason why you came here," he said it so blatantly, a part of me started to believe that he already knew. Was this ride his way of getting me to confess?
"Is this why you offered to drive me home? So you can get information out of me?" I demanded. Hurt and anger was evident in my voice. How could I've easily been fooled like that? I should've listened to my instincts instead for falling for the doctor's charms.
"No," he ran a hand through his thick hair with a sigh. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you that, but you must understand that I didn't ask you to come with me because I wanted information. No, it's not like that at all. Although I'm sure that you are perfectly capable of getting home yourself, I wanted to make sure that you were safe before I had to let you go forever," Dr. Cullen said in a small voice I don't think I've ever heard him use before. His hands gripped the steering wheel so hard I thought he would break it.
There was nothing for me to say. I was, more or less to say, confused beyond belief. What was I supposed to think? One moment I feel like he's going to kidnap and kill me and the next moment he can be as kind and charming as a prince from a fairytale. This wasn't Cinderella, though. Happy endings didn't exist when it came to someone like me. Broken. There was no prince I could or would run off with.
"Please look at me," he spoke again in that soft-spoken voice once we were in my driveway. I diverted my gaze away from the window and towards him. His dark eyes… they looked so sad all of a sudden and full of the pain I remembered from the first day I met him. "I want you to promise me that you'll be careful. Don't be afraid to call me if you ever need help," he slipped me a piece of paper with his number on it into my hand. There was more he wanted to say, but I cut him off before he could say anything else.
"Thanks," I said dryly. I got out of the car and got my stuff out from the back seats. Before I started walking towards the front door, another thought hit me.
"How did you know where I live?" I asked before he left.
His lips curled into a sad smile. "I live next door." And just when I thought I was rid of him.
"I see…" and with that, I walked towards the front door, watching as he drove down the driveway and up in front of the house to my right. Through the thicket of trees, I could see the almost-orange and black house boasted many windows. It was fairly large compared to the simple one-story home I'd rented. Why did it matter so much that he was better off than I was?
Looking at the phone number in my hand, I tore the paper to shreds and watched the little pieces fly away in the wind.
