So nice to get reviews and know you are all still reading my dribbles of stories! Enjoy!
I remember this feeling, like the first day of school after the summer break, excited, anxious, wondering which of my friends would still be there, and who had moved on, with everything so familiar and yet so new. Walking in the door to the smell of freshly sharpened pencils, and anticipation. That moment when everything was still the same, before it wasn't.
I wonder where you are right now. Are you in the locker room where we ended what might have been, changing into your uniform? Are you looking in the mirror over the sink and brushing your teeth and locking up your heart before you go out into the world? And are you ever thinking about me?
"Hey Doctor Stewart!" Rodney met me at the door to my lab. MY LAB! "Welcome back boss!" He smiled.
"Hello Rodney!" I smiled back, "It's good to see you! And please, it's still just Holly." I replied, as I stepped onto the elevator with him.
"Ok, whatever you say, Boss!" He grinned, "I guess I can ride up with you before I have to go down to the lab" he said, pressing the button for the fifth floor.
I almost forgot my new office would be upstairs, instead of the cramped little cubbyhole with a cluttered desk and too many file cabinets I used to occupy, across the hall from the morgue walk in, and stuffed between the break room and one of the autopsy theaters.
"I just want you to know that we were all hoping it would be you to get this." He blurted out, before blushing and averting his gaze to the floor.
I don't know why, but his confession gave me a tiny jolt, a happy little spark that filled my chest and warmed my belly and made my spine stand just a little bit taller.
"Oh," I breathed out when I found that I could speak with out being unexpectedly emotional, "Thanks Rodney!"
"So I guess I'll see you downstairs." He said as the doors opened.
I remember that early morning institutional smell of day old floor wax, and wood polish, and fresh coffee and anticipation, and the soft buzz of the fluorescent lights overhead. I remember my very first day here in this building, fresh from my pathology residency at Harvard University's teaching hospital in Boston, and six months of working on DNA recovery and forensic reconstruction in Bosnia on an international peace keeping mission to sort out mass graves and return victim's remains to their families that had been cut short due to continuing unrest. I remember Dr. DuPonte telling me it was that mission and my paper on preserving and extracting DNA from deterioration genetic material that had been exposed to extreme weather conditions, which had impressed him and put me at the top of his list of candidates, in spite of my age. I can remember how that first day felt, before I met you, before my heart broke, before I ran. And now I stand here with my hand on the well worn doorknob, taking one more deep breath before opening a new chapter of my life, remembering it all for one more moment before everything changes.