As I stood at the entrance of the building, I just couldn't bring myself to go in. The hospital was a five story building. My determination was waning. How was I supposed to find him if I didn't even know his real name?
I went through my mental checklist once more. I knew what I was going to say, so I wouldn't freeze up like last time. I wasn't going to get whacked in any region of my head. I'd finally ask Dr. McDreamy out.
I made sure to practice extra hard yesterday. I had to push myself if I ever wanted Westley to let me have a day off. My muscles still sort of ached, but it was worth it. If I could actually pull this off, I'm pretty sure my soul would separate from my body and float up to heaven.
I stepped through the automatic sliding doors. Man, I really hoped he remembered who I was. He recognized me last time, so that was a good sign. I stepped up to the reception desk.
"Hello, how may I help you?" the secretary asked as I came up.
"Hi, I'm looking for someone," I said.
She smiled. "Alright, if you could tell me the name of the patient, I can look up the room number for you."
"He's not a patient, he's a doctor..." I blanked. What name was I supposed to use? Jones?! Williams?! "I can't remember his name. He's um...he's tall. Blond. He wears glasses. He's got beautiful blue eyes..." The last part definitely wasn't meant to come out."
The secretary got a dreamy look on her face. "You must be thinking of Dr. Jones."
That was one of his names. I'm not quite sure how I felt about this lady's reaction. I guess there was some competition to fight off.
"Can I ask why you're here to visit?" she asked next.
"I'd like to ask him some questions..." One question in particular. Would he please fall in love with me and be my boyfriend and take me on dates...
"Alright. His office is on the third floor. Take a left at the elevator, and it's five doors down on the right. I'll page him to let you know you've come to see him," the secretary said.
"Okay, thank you!"
I was nearly jittery with excitement. I'd get to see him again. The elevator didn't seem to move fast enough. When the doors opened, I booked it to the left and then to the right when I got to the fifth door.
I wiped my hands on my pants. I clenched and unclenched my fist before I knocked on the door.
"Come in," a muffled voice said from behind the door.
I twisted the door knob and was met with darkness. I squinted my eyes. The blinds on the window were drawn closed, allowing only an outline of a desk and chair to be shown in the little room. Someone might have been sitting in it. I really couldn't tell.
My hand blindly searched for a light switch and flicked it up when it found purchase.
The man in the chair hissed loudly. He had been leaning back in the chair and quickly used his arm to cover his face. "Jeez! Could you warn a guy a guy next time?"
"Sorry..." There was something about the situation that seemed really off. His mannerisms were not what I had expected. Why was he sitting in a dark room anyway? Didn't he know I was coming?
The doctor rubbed his eyes behind his glasses. "Right, you wanted to interview me or something?"
"Interview?" I repeated.
He moved his hands away from his face and looked at me. I don't know which of us were more surprised. He looked very, very similar to Dr. McDreamy, but just not so dreamy. His hair was blond but cut shorter or maybe just stylized a different way than I remembered. His eyes were most definitely blue, but more like a summer sky on a clear day rather than a field of wild flowers. It was hard to point out the differences, but he was most definitely not my sexy doctor.
"You don't look like a journalist..." he said.
Where did he get the idea that I was a journalist? I shook the ridiculous idea out of my head. "Why would I be here to interview you?"
"'Cause I'm the youngest chief resident in this hospital's history..." he boasted. "If you're not a journalist, what are you?"
I crossed my arms across my chest. He was just a little irritating. "I'm a professional MMA fighter..."
"Shit!" He exclaimed. He leaped up from his chair and held up his arms defensively. "Look just tell Yao to calm down. I'll get him his money soon. It's not like he needs to hire thugs to..."
I shook my head. "What are you talking about?" I was just going to ignore the part where he called me a thug. "Look, you're not even the guy I'm looking for..."
"Oh sweet!" The chief resident reclined back in his chair. "Let's start over over. Hello chick-who's-not-here-to-kick-my-ass, I'm Dr. Alfred Jones, chief resident. How may I help you?"
I exhaled. So, Jones wasn't my doctor's name. "My name is Jules. I'm looking for this doctor who looks remarkably a lot like you but is most definitely not you. A few days ago, he was working in an ambulance at..."
At the word ambulance, Dr. Jones' eyes lit up with understanding. "Oh? Oh?! Right, I know exactly who you're looking for." He took out his phone and pressed a few buttons. "So, why do you want to beat him up? He's actually a pretty nice guy."
Before I could deny his claim, the door behind me suddenly opened up. "Alfred, I swear, if you even try to make me... Jules?!"
I whipped my head around to find Dr. McDreamy standing behind me. My breath caught in my throat. God, he was just so beautiful.
"What are you doing here?" he asked with a laugh that sounded like songbirds. "Is your face okay? I'm really sorry about last time..."
"What did you do, Mattie?" Dr. Jones questioned.
"I accidentally hit her in the face with a door," he explained.
Dr. Jones laughed. "Dude, you have more balls than I thought! No wonder she's going to beat you up!"
Dr. Jones continual insistence of my purpose here brought me back to reality. "I didn't come to beat anyone up. What's going on here? Why were you wearing his nametag?" I confronted the most gorgeous man in the world.
"Miss Bielschmidt, the man you were looking for is the one and only Dr. Matthew Williams," Dr. Jones answered instead. "He's my clone."
"We're not clones, but we are twins," Dr. Williams corrected. "I'm really sorry about this, Jules. Alfred here was too lazy to go on ambulance duty, so I've covered for him a couple of times. That's why I was wearing his nametag."
"I wasn't lazy, I just had better stuff to do," Alfred defended.
Something still didn't add up. "If you're twins, how come you have different last names?"
Matthew sighed. "It's a long story..."
"With a surprisingly simple explanation," Dr. Jones finished for him. "When our step-dad adopted us, I took his last name, and Matthew kept our Mom's. It confuses a lot of people considering how much we look alike."
"Again, Jules, I'm really sorry for the confusion, but I'm glad we could straighten things out. If there's nothing else, I'll just let you two..." Dr. Williams started to open the door again.
"W-wait, Dr. Williams, I wanted to see you!" I blurted out to keep him from going.
Dr. Williams paused and looked genuinely surprised.
"Do you have a minute?" I asked.
Dr. Williams cleared his throat. "Y-yeah, I've got a few seconds."
"Bow-chika-wow-wow," Dr. Jones said under his breath.
"Don't you have patients to check up on?" Dr. Williams snapped.
"Yep." Dr. Jones got up and adjusted his white coat. He walked past his brother to get out the door of his office, leaving us alone for the time being.
"So, um, sorry about my brother. He can be unprofessional, but he's a good do..."
"I wanted to thank you for helping me," I interrupted before I lost the nerve. "And I also wanted to know if you'd want to go...get coffee with me."
Dr. Williams' face went pink. "Oh? Well...um... I'm flattered, but..."
I feared the worst. "You have someone already, don't you?"
"No, no," he insisted. "It's just I don't usually have time to go out..."
"It doesn't have to be right now," I said quickly, my hope renewed. "Whenever you want! Here." I grabbed a pen from Dr. Jones desk. I forgot to grab a piece of paper, so I grabbed Dr. Williams hand instead. It was so soft and perfect, and I scrawled my cellphone number all over it. "Here's my number. Call me anytime, Dr. Williams."
"O-okay." He sounded more confused than anything.
I clicked the pen closed and held his hand for just a bit more. I looked at his eyes just one last time. "Awesome. Call me," I demanded.
With that, I left the office and ran towards the elevator. My heart was beating faster than after I finished a match. If I was already this worked up, I might as well just go to the gym and practice. It didn't matter if I was still sore, I needed to burn off all this extra excitement before I really did explode.