Chapter 23
AIDEN
The numbers blurred on the screen. I rubbed at my eyes, the beginning of a headache thumping at my temples.
I’d been sleeping too little lately—thanks to Knight feeling much better—and the research I was doing was mentally taxing. Tabs and fields and numbers and commonality factors to eliminate.
I rolled my head with a tired sigh.
“Having fun, huh?” Foley asked with a grin.
“You know it.” I pushed back my chair. “I’m going to take a break and hydrate. I have a headache that won’t quit.”
“Here.” He pulled a small bottle of Tylenol out of his jacket pocket and held it up. “I never leave home without it.”
“Thanks.” I took the bottle and popped the lid off to shake out two tablets. “You get a lot of headaches at work?”
“Not so much anymore,” he said. “The first few times I did longer surgeries, though?” He whistled low. “Maintaining that intense focus for six to eight to ten hours is no joke.”
I nodded. “You’re a real pro in there. I guess Dr. Rose has been a good mentor?”
“Yeah, she’s great,” he said. “She doesn’t have the ego of a lot of the big docs. It’s why I came here.”
I smiled tiredly. “Yeah, me too.”
“Plus, you’ve got family here, right?” Foley said, surprising me. I didn’t think he paid much attention to people. He was standoffish—sometimes even rude—but I’d discovered he was mostly just single-minded about surgery.
“A brother, yeah. But I wanted Baltimore or Cleveland.”
He snorted. “Yeah, who wouldn’t? You think you got the chops for those programs?”
My chest tightened. “You think I don’t?”
“Well, you’ve got the focus,” he said, gesturing to my computer. “All this research will be good training for that. But I don’t know if you have the drive.”
“Why would you say that?” I asked, a little offended. I’d taken a research year because I was driven to accept only the best residency.
“Don’t take it the wrong way. I’m not saying you don’t care.” His mouth twisted. “I just think maybe you care about the wrong things.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, you want a prestigious residency. I feel that. I really do. But you couldn’t have kept me out of an OR for a year.
That would be fucking painful. I crave that shit, you know?
It’s like the biggest hit of dopamine to open up a body and repair it.
To save a life when nobody else can. To solve the problem.
” He blew out a breath. “I’m an addict, man.
You can’t be truly great in this field if you’re not. ”
I swallowed. “I didn’t want to stay out of the OR.”
He pointed at me. “See, that’s it right there. You’d like to be in an OR, but you don’t need to be. You and me? We’re not the same.”
“No,” I said quietly. “I guess we’re not.”
I tossed the Tylenol bottle back to him. “Thanks for this. I’m going to take a break.”
I strode out of the research lab, stomach twisting with an unease I couldn’t really understand.
So Foley was some sort of thrill-seeking surgeon.
It didn’t mean every surgeon felt that way.
It didn’t mean I couldn’t still be great.
And once I was in a residency, regularly operating, I might still catch that bug, right?
I’d assisted a few times in my student rotations up in Maple Grove, though. I’d been excited for a chance to learn, but I wouldn’t say I was craving another hit when I moved on to other areas of study. Maybe Foley was just weird.
I went to the staff room to grab my phone and then headed for the cafeteria to get a late lunch. Low blood sugar might have contributed to my headache.
Once I was seated with a turkey sandwich and a bottle of water, I swallowed down the Tylenol and checked my phone notifications.
I had a missed call from Flynn last night while I was in the shower with Knight, getting clean and dirty all at once.
I was trying to be better about staying in touch, so I hit the Call button.
He answered on the second ring. “Hey, Aiden. You didn’t have to call me from work. I was just checking in.”
“I’m on a break,” I said. “What’s up?”
“Oh, well, nothing much. Thought maybe you’d like to join us for dinner sometime soon.”
“Sure.”
There was a beat of silence.
“Flynn?”
He cleared his throat. “Um, also, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Everything with Knight. He mentioned you were a little shaken up by it.”
“He did, huh?”
I was going to have to gut that man later.
“He’s just concerned for you, Angel.”
“Okay, bad enough I could never get him to stop calling me that. You really can’t do it.”
Flynn laughed. “Sorry. I just can’t get over you two being together.”
“It’s not serious,” I said, though the words sounded unconvincing, even to me. “You know I’ve got to leave at the end of the year.”
“Do you, though?” Flynn asked. “Maybe you could get into the surgical residency here. If Dr. Rose is as good as you say she is…”
“She is.”
“Well, couldn’t you get everything you need here? We’d love to have you around.”
I chewed my lip. “Maybe.” I thought of Foley’s assessment of me. Did Dr. Rose feel the same? “I don’t know if they’d want me.”
“Of course they would!”
Ah, the unyielding faith of big brothers.
“I’ve worked hard on this plan,” I said. “I should probably stick to it. I’ll be here for the year, but I’ll have to move on when it’s done.”
“Right. Okay.” He sighed. “So, listen, about what happened to Knight—”
“Flynn, I’m fine. Really. I saw that kind of thing in my ER rotations in Maple Grove all the time. If every split lip triggered me, I couldn’t do my job.”
“Well, that’s different, right? Those are strangers, and Knight is…not.”
“I was a little worried about him getting jumped again,” I admitted. “But he said the assholes wouldn’t be back for a while. Hopefully, we can find some sort of solution before then.”
“Yeah, hopefully,” he echoed, not sounding all that convinced. “Take care of him, okay? But take care of yourself, too. Seeing violence…I don’t care what you say, it has to bring up some memories.”
Maybe a few. The boot-shaped bruise on Knight’s ribs came to mind. My father loved to kick me. He’d stay away from my face—too revealing—and punch me in the gut, then kick me while I was down.
I regularly wore bruises on my torso and ass. All areas covered by clothes.
“I’m fine,” I said, working to keep my voice cheerful. “Don’t worry about me. But, uh, I should get back to work.”
“Come over soon,” Flynn said. “We’ll grab dinner. Bring Knight, too. I want to see you two together being all coupley.”
“It’s not—”
“Serious,” he said. “I know, I know. Indulge me, anyway. I never got to meet any of your other boyfriends.”
Missing out on Tyler was no great loss. At least Knight would never hold my brother’s past against him. Or judge mine.
“All right. I’ll see what we can do.”
It wasn’t until I hung up that I realized I’d let Flynn get away with calling Knight my boyfriend. Even if we’d been serious, that word would seem all wrong for describing Knight.
He wasn’t a boyfriend.
That was too small a word. Too simple and mundane. He was my fire, maybe. A blazing hot sun to orbit. He was intensity and care and joy shining on me, chasing away my shadows.
My stomach turned at the thought of his bruises. They were nearly gone, and yet, they haunted me. What if it happened again? What if it was even worse? I wasn’t Flynn. I couldn’t protect him. Couldn’t save him the way Flynn had saved me, even if I wanted to. And I did. I would. In a heartbeat.
I was just too damn weak. Like that kid my father pummeled. Small and worthless and—
I froze. What the hell was I doing? I wasn’t weak. Wasn’t worthless. Those were my father’s words. That was the internalized hate that had swallowed me as a teen. But he wasn’t here. He couldn’t hate me.
Only I could do that.
You’re dead. I refuse to give you power over me.
Maybe Knight’s assault had gotten to me more than I realized. Because I hadn’t heard my father’s voice whispering in my head for a long time. I’d worked long and hard to silence it, done years of therapy, focused on my achievements, on hitting my goals. If I was perfect, then he couldn’t hurt me.
But that had never been true, had it? It was just another toxic coping mechanism. I wasn’t perfect. Couldn’t be. And even if I was, it wouldn’t keep bad things from happening.
I threw away the rest of my meal, no longer hungry, and headed back to the lab to bury myself in work. Anything to get out of my spiraling thoughts.
I got another hour of research in before Foley passed through.
“We’ve got a laser angioplasty,” Foley said. “Want to observe?”
I glanced at the wall clock. “I’ve got a shift at the clinic tonight.”
His eyebrow arched. “Ah, well. You’ve got your priorities, I guess.”
“It’s not that I’m not interested, but—”
He waved a hand. “You don’t have the fire, Dr. Donovan. It’s okay. Maybe you’ll do okay in general surgery or primary care, right?”
I clenched my jaw, annoyed. I had the freaking fire. I could be a great surgeon. I would be.
I used the phone at the nurse’s station to call over to the clinic.
“Elkhorn County Medical Clinic, how may I help you?”
“Hey, Liliana, it’s Aiden.”
“Aiden! Dr. Meadows was just singing your praises over here.”
“Oh? That’s nice.” At least somebody was impressed with me. “How busy are you guys, because there’s a surgery here, and I—”
“Not again,” Liliana interrupted. “Damn it.”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Larry Schumacher. He’s a no-show for his appointment. He never picked up the prescription we sent to the pharmacy either. I checked.”
“He mentioned his truck was giving him trouble the last time I talked to him,” I said. “Have you called him?”
“Yeah. No answer.”
“Where does he live? Maybe we should check on him.”
“I can’t get away. We’re slammed.”
And I was supposed to be observing a laser angioplasty. Of course, I’d seen one before. And I wasn’t actually a resident, but a researcher.
“I’ll go,” I said. “Give me the address.”