Fowl Play (Tuft Swallow)

32. Kodi

CHAPTER 32

Brian walked me to the clinic after breakfast, but the playful energy we’d had all morning evaporated the second my mom showed up at the diner.

I don’t hate my mom. Truly. She’s a fine woman, and for the most part was pretty good at raising me. But since my injury, she and my dad both have treated me like I’m fragile. Like one wrong look or comment will cause me to crumble before their very eyes.

I left home as soon as I could afford to, simply so I wouldn’t have to see their pitying looks anymore. Every time I came down the stairs, or walked into the kitchen for a snack, or looked through the mail, it was always, “How are you, dear? Are you feeling okay?”

Every. Single. Time.

I couldn’t exist in their presence without being reminded of how I’d broken once. And I knew that, as long as I was home, I’d never truly be able to get past it.

When I first moved, mom called every day. So I stopped answering. Then she’d text. First twice a day, then five times a week, until finally she just checked in occasionally and invited me to Sunday dinner.

I don’t never text her back. I keep her updated. Visit once a month or so. But I have an adult life of my own now. I don’t need her and dad checking in everyday. I’m doing just fine.

I glance at my phone as I put it away in my bag, and check the ongoing text conversation with mom to see when the last time I responded was. I realize I haven’t since before Brian and I announced our relationship to the world with our kiss at the match over two weeks ago.

Guilt pokes at my stomach, mixing with the ham and eggs and hollandaise. Has it really been that long?

It feels at once like we’ve just met and like I’ve known him forever. Butterflies join the cocktail of emotions in my stomach as visions from last night flash through my head, interspersed with the awkward frustration leftover from our hug when he dropped me off at the office.

“Miss Gander, could you come to my office for a moment, please?” Dr. Cratchet calls from down the hall. I sigh, plopping my phone back into my purse on the hook, and smooth the nonexistent wrinkles from my pants before heading over.

“Yes, sir?”

“I can’t help but notice that things are getting rather intimate between you and the spine cracker.” He levels a look at me over his steepled fingers and half-moon glasses. “That was him at the door earlier, was it not?”

I’m getting real sick of this.

I hold back a frustrated noise as I meet his eyes, not even sure what he wants me to say or what he’s trying to glean from this interaction. It’s creepy that he’s this obsessed with my social life, right? It isn’t just me that would think that?

“Yes.” I leave out the “sir” out of spite. He doesn’t notice, looking out the window, presumably deep in thought.

“And how much longer do you wager he’ll continue to be a thorn in our sides?”

I want to tell him to go fuck himself. Seriously. This weird little game he’s been playing has been going on long enough. What is with this guy? How is he so threatened by a man who can’t even prescribe medicine? Someone who isn’t even direct competition?

I wonder if he’s so worried because having a competent professional in town to actually help people with their chronic pain might make all the Tuft Swallowers realize what a hack this man is.

In that moment, as I bite my tongue in Dr. Cratchet’s office, holding back all of these thoughts from tumbling forward, it’s like a fog is lifted from my head. Somehow, for the past three years I’ve worked here, I’ve given my boss a pass for all his disgusting behavior. His gross ineptitude. His weird, creepy comments and cold, grabby fingers. Now that I’m seeing him for what he is–for what he’s always been–I can’t take it anymore.

When I was at my absolute lowest, I came to Dr. Cratchet for help, and he gave me nothing but pills. I thought I was doomed to live a life of pain and suffering, until Brian came along and showed me that I might actually have a shot at playing sports again.

And he wants to run Brian out of town?

Over my dead body.

“Honestly, sir?” I begin, just as sweet as honey. “Forever.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I don’t think he’ll leave. In fact, I hope he doesn’t.”

The look of absolute shock on my boss’s gnarly face fills me with more satisfaction than I’ll ever admit. What a goddamn narcissist.

He actually believed I’d spy on a competitor for him?

I may not be able to convince my mother that I can take care of myself. My cornhole team might think that I’m out of my mind. I may be losing my best friend because she thinks she knows me better than I know myself, but you know what?

They’re all wrong. I’m not crazy. I’m not weak. I’m strong, dammit, and I’ve put up with enough. I’ve settled for years of incompetence from everyone I ever asked for help, and now I’ve finally found someone who can give me what I need. I’m not about to let the shittiest boss on the planet take that from me because he’s an insecure little baby.

“What has gotten into you, Miss Gander?” he sputters, rising from his chair and waving at me threateningly with his liver-spotted hands. His glasses start to steam as his eyes bug out of his head. “We had a plan! A mission! You were to be my man on the inside, to use your injury to spy–”

“That’s just it, sir,” I interrupt him. “I’m not comfortable using my injury to spy on a medical professional. I’ve never wanted to use my injury as an excuse! I don’t want to be some injured little flower anymore, to take pity on or advantage of. I never did, nor would I ever, agree to spy for you. You just assumed I had, because you walk all over me. But I’m done, sir. I didn’t go to Dr. Gosling to be your ‘man on the inside.’ I went to see a competent professional to help me with my chronic pain. And you know what?”

I step forward, tapping my finger on his walnut desk to emphasize every word as I look him dead in his rheumy eyes, knowing that these will be the ones that hurt him the most.

“He’s a damn good doctor.”

Cratchet’s mouth gapes open and closed like a fish, and I realize for the first time that I’m actually taller than him. In my two-inch boots, standing tall across his desk, I practically tower over this pathetic old man.

“In fact, I wish this town had more practicing professionals like him.”

Stepping back to the threshold of the hallway, I stop briefly to address him one last time.

“I’m going to go back to the office and do my real job. The one that I’m paid twenty-two dollars an hour to do. I am going to greet your patients, check them in, file their paperwork, and handle all of the necessary responsibilities to make sure your floundering practice doesn’t fall apart under your gross ineptitude. And you’re going to let me do my job, in peace, because deep down you know that this place would absolutely crumble without me. And because if you don’t, I’ll report your little espionage scheme to the Clinic board.”

And with that, I turn on my heel, march back to my office, and make myself a goddamn cup of coffee.

The rest of the day might be the best one I’ve ever worked at the Tuft Swallow Clinic. Dr. Cratchet steers clear of me, avoiding the office like a leper colony, as I run everything like clockwork. At lunchtime, I hear him shuffle past my door, the sleigh bells ringing as he slides through the entryway without saying goodbye, and he slips back in without me even noticing twenty minutes later. We dodge each other all day, the only communication passing between us the patient charts he slides into my mailbox.

At 5:00, I turn off all the lights and lock up, the boss nowhere in sight.

Good, I think to myself. I don’t want to hear his dumb fake transatlantic accent anyway.

I reach for my phone, which has been sitting comfortably on my desk the entire morning, to text Lily.

I’m still not over her conspiring with Brian to “loosen me up” after our argument at practice. It was a shitty thing to do behind my back, even if it did lead to one of the best nights of my life, and it’s hard to feel like I can just let our friendship pick up where it left off.

Me

Hey. We need to talk.