Jocelyn #3
He shrugs. “Or maybe you’re trying to fuck someone else out of your system.”
I laugh without humor and slide off the sofa. My feet hit the floor with a thump. “How do you get someone out of your system
when they’ve encoded themselves into your DNA?”
His eye twitches. “If you ever figure it out, I’d love if you could let me know.”
My body sags. “You, too?”
A quick chin dip is my only answer.
I glance around the beautiful space, now seeing it in a different light. Empty. Lifeless. Lonely.
“I’m sorry I wasted your time,” I whisper.
“You didn’t. I don’t sleep well anyway.” He rubs the back of his neck and shrugs. “What the hell? You want to stay for a drink?”
I chuckle. “Sure. But only if I pour it.”
He smiles, showing his dimples again. “Fair enough.”
Ashton UnknownLastName is a fantastic drinking partner, but my aching head is mad at him the next morning and most of the
day. He let me spill my problems all over his kitchen island, then disclosed some of his own.
The poor dude is heartbroken. I feel for him. Love obviously causes more pain than it prevents.
The only good part about Friday is that Asher has a noon case—a combo with Geoff.
I manipulate my way into being their anesthesiologist, despite Cassie’s—Asher’s?
—continued machinations, and smile as the two surgeons enter the OR.
They’re laughing when they push through the door, and both greet me with dude chin lifts and half smiles.
For Asher, the move is essentially a firm tap of my on button.
I blink a few times to clear the sparkles from my vision.
As usual, Asher holds his patient’s hands as I put her out, then gets to work. He and Geoff shoot the shit through the entire
case, leaving no room for me to interject. They banter with the entire OR.
Except me.
I am shunned.
Until about halfway through, when Geoff looks up. “You look tired, Joss. You get sleep last night?”
I startle at my name, jerking my gaze from the patient’s vitals. “Oh. Um. A little, yeah.”
“Yayoi said you were out late.”
The scrub tech glances at me and singsongs a silly “Ooooh,” but Asher ignores the conversation, concentrating on the surgery.
“Late? Everything is late to Yayoi.” My voice is raspy. Why is my voice raspy when I want it to sound flippant?
Geoff chuckles. “True.” He looks at Asher. “You know how I know I’m old? The thought of a date starting after nine makes me want to curl into a ball and go to sleep.”
All the blood drains from my head.
No.
What is he saying? And why? It wasn’t a date . . .
Damn it, Yayoi.
“You know how I know you’re old?” Asher glances up at Geoff, only his eyes visible through the mask and scrub cap. “Even your
nose hairs are gray.”
The scrub tech titters.
Geoff shakes his head. “We’re the same age, bro.”
“Yeah, but I do it better,” Asher says, eyes crinkling with the smile I can’t see.
I stare hard at the unconcealed portion of Asher’s face, searching for his reaction. I didn’t want him to know about last night, and besides, nothing happened. But I can’t blurt out I didn’t have sex last night to the whole OR.
Or can I?
How long would it take to live that down?
Asher doesn’t look at me. He says nothing at all. Not even at the end when he scrubs out, and I try to catch his eye. He pops
the paper ties of his scrub gown with a smooth yank, ignoring me entirely. Geoff offers me a quick wave and a smile, then
abandons me to my fate. After a chat with the circulator nurse, Asher moves to do the same.
“Doctor Foley,” I say in a panic as his hand flattens on the push plate of the door.
His head turns. His expression is vacant. Lifeless. “Yeah?”
“Do, um . . . I didn’t. That—wasn’t—”
His forehead creases.
I swallow. “You okay with Toradol?”
“Yeah. Toradol’s fine.” He pushes open the door.
“Wait!”
He pauses again, and both the circulator and scrub tech turn to look at me, clearly suspicious.
“I—”
He waits for six seconds while I vacillate, then shakes his head. “Goodbye, Doctor Mattox.”
Goodbye?
Goodbye?
What does he mean, goodbye?
I can’t argue because I can’t breathe—goodbye just crushed my lungs into some sort of torturous lemon press—but even if I could breathe, what would I say? How do I fix
it? He has a date tonight, but maybe I can catch him before it. Maybe he’ll listen. Maybe he’ll understand.
I wait for the text. The call. Anything.
Nothing comes.
I finish my shift and make it to my silent home without so much as a duck pic. The agitation stirs. Ants crawl beneath my
skin, and my nerves vibrate like struck piano wires inside my body. Eventually, I can take it no longer, and I pull out my
phone to text him.
How are the ducks today?
I didn’t see them today sadly
How did you survive??
There’s always tomorrow.
Titty
Sigh. Not the vibe I was going for. And he doesn’t respond, which isn’t promising.
Asher. Do you have a sec? Can we talk?
Can’t. I’m not alone.
Oh? Who you with?
He doesn’t answer, but I know.
It’s Gabriela Acevedo.
Some minor sleuthing in the L&D dictation room after Cassie dropped the bomb earned me the information. Gabriela spread it
everywhere, and she was excited.
Rightfully so. She has no idea the gift the universe has thrown her way.
What if he sleeps with her tonight? What if he melts her mind like he did mine? It isn’t fair of me to be jealous, but the thought of his mouth on another woman is like drawing my finger down the sharpened blade of a knife—a cut so fine and deep, it’s both invisible and excessively bloody.
I fall backward on my sofa and throw my phone to the coffee table. With my eyes shut, I retreat to the hill in my mind and
lay my hand on the familiar trunk of my oak tree. My glass walls are secure about me, dulling this pain.
Asher can do whatever he wants with this girl. Maybe he needs it. Maybe if he falls in love with someone else, our friendship
will reforge. The awkwardness will fade.
This is a good thing. Gabriela can be his girlfriend, and I’ll be—
The girl who sleeps in the next room?
A growl rumbles in my chest, and I jerk away from the couch, stomping toward my bathroom. With a violent twist of the hot
water lever, my shower sprays to life. I strip off my clothes and step in before it has a chance to warm.
The icy jet brings goose bumps to the surface of my skin, but I ignore the discomfort.
A girlfriend won’t let me stay in his house. She won’t let me text him at all hours of the day. She won’t appreciate my evolving
relationship with his mother. And if he loves this girl, he won’t want me there, either. His time, his attention . . . They’ll
belong to her.
It’s as if someone pushed me off a cliff, and my body has broken over serrated glass at the bottom. No matter what happens
with him and Gabriela, I’m going to lose him. Someday, he will find a girl who says yes. He’ll fall in love with someone else.
He’ll leave me behind.
What we had is gone. It was over the moment I said, I can’t.
Suddenly, it’s all too much. These walls are killing my every happiness. They’re barricading me from potential joy. They’re ruining relationships and giving strangers the impression I’m a poser.
It all collides on top of me, brutal and inevitable.
My knees fall to the hard fiberglass floor of my shower, the water now hot enough to scald my naked skin. Tears claw through
everything. Raw, ugly tears. Sobs so deep, they hurt.
I’m standing in a glass box on my lonely hill, staring at the world as it goes by me. I’m screaming. Crying. But no one can
hear me. I thought the walls would save me, that they would protect me, but it’s more torturous hiding in here alone, watching
the things I want drift away, the things I could have if I’d only break the glass. This is a lovely, deceptive prison.
I’m isolated. Shredded to pieces.
Worse, a waterspout appears in this prison beside me, and my respite, my safe space, my entire world . . .
They begin to fill with water.