6. Greer
Greer
“Look at these fucking abs!” Stella whistles, fanning herself with her menu and dropping her phone onto the table with a loud clatter.
She’s practically yelling—but that’s her. She hasn’t cared much about what people think, or how much space she’s taken up, since she was a kid.
We grew up in one of those houses where you opened the door tentatively, peered around the corner, and hoped and prayed or crossed your fingers that it would all be okay.
She bloomed in that environment. Unfurled her petals and put down roots and said fuck it to everything else around her.
Stella grew. I shrunk.
My psychiatrist tells me that’s common—kids act out, or they internalize. It wasn’t that Stella acted out, necessarily. But she asserted herself and took up space and did all the things a kid should.
I turned inwards, couldn’t set a boundary to save my life, and tried to be an adult before I was even a child.
“Who are you talking about?” My eyes flick up from my own menu to my sister. She’s still fanning herself, and one heavily ringed finger reaches out and points at her phone.
Stella drops her menu before slumping backwards in her chair dramatically. “Your football star.”
“Cash— what are you talking about?” I say her childhood nickname like that’s going to somehow cut through the theatrics and reach forward, turning her phone to face me, tapping the screen so it lights up again.
It takes me a minute to recognize him—but it’s a photo of Beckett. Shirtless, hat turned backwards, skin bronzed and practically glowing under the summer sun, standing behind the wheel of a boat.
She’s not wrong. Stacks of abdominal and oblique muscles draw ridges and valleys along his torso.
But he’s not my football star.
“He’s not my football star.” I shove the phone across the table and look back down at my menu.
I’m starving. I was too tired to eat after Beckett dropped me off last night, and I’d only suffered approximately two bites of subpar steak before calling it quits at the bar. I was serious about the E. coli.
“Oh, so you just happened to run into him in the hospital elevator, did him a favour, and he just so happened to be waiting to take you for dinner?” Stella slaps her hand down on the table, eyes wide and expectant.
I roll my eyes and take a slow sip of my coffee, looking at all the families crowded around tables, couples huddled close together in booths, and groups of girls indulging in the well-known bottomless mimosa deal boasted by the restaurant.
Stella taps her fingers impatiently.
I give her a flat look. “His brother works at the hospital. It’s not that weird. He’s doing some volunteering there. Something to do with whatever happened last season?”
She snaps her fingers, pausing to take a sip of her own coffee. Wisps of her hair curl around her face and across the nape of her neck, where they’ve escaped the haphazard bun she’s tied it back in.
Siblings don’t always look alike, but sometimes I think looking at Stella is like looking in the mirror, at the reflection of a freer version of me.
She’s light where I’m dark—auburn hair to my deep brown, and jade eyes that reflect all the beautiful things in the world. Same pale complexion we inherited from both of our parents. But according to our father, she takes after our mother. I inherited the dark hair and forest eyes from him.
Stella drops her cup onto the table without a care in the world. It’s on the precipice of tipping over—droplets of coffee fly up over the rim and escape, splattering over her already worn menu.
“Yes, he missed a very, very important kick.” She snaps her fingers again before leaning forward conspiratorially. “I looked it up after you told me that’s who you had dinner with. Do you want to see it on YouTube? TikTok? He’s been the source of some very unfortunate memes and edits since.”
My lips pull back. I can’t imagine anything I want to see less. “No thank you, Stella. I’m not sure why you would want to watch that either—the source of someone’s public humiliation and pain?”
“Doesn’t that all come with the territory of being a public figure?”
I shake my head, taking a measured exhale and look back down at my menu. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve met Beckett—that I know he’s a real, living person who breathes in oxygen and breathes out carbon dioxide and feels things. Not some pixelated stranger who doesn’t really exist for me.
“Does that suddenly make it okay? He’s not a ripe carcass on the side of the road for vultures to pick at. This is what I don’t get about sports,” I mumble, glancing back up at my sister. “It seems unfair to shoulder all your expectations, your hopes and dreams for a team to win a trophy, on one person. Who, at the end of the day, is a person just like you—fallible and capable of making mistakes and, you know, feeling?”
“Sports bring people together.” Stella tips her chin up.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I must have missed the episode where you became a football savant.”
She rolls her eyes, plucking my menu from my hands and stacking it on top of her own. “You know what I mean.”
“I do, and bringing people together can be a beautiful thing. I’m just saying, I think it’s unfair he has to suffer because people were disappointed.” I grab my menu back. I wasn’t done. “And speaking of people suffering, if you’re at Dad’s, please don’t forget to check his medication. It can’t run low like it did the other day. If he misses one dose—”
Stella tips her head back, an exaggerated, high-pitched groan escapes her. “It can lead to acute rejection, chronic transplant damage, and ultimately, failure, if the behaviour occurs. I know. It’s almost like I’ve heard this speech before. I might not have a license to practice medicine, but I’m not stupid. I know he can’t miss a dose.”
I pull my head back, blinking at my sister. “I don’t think you’re stupid, Stella—I wasn’t trying to—I just want to make sure it’s the only one he ever needs.”
She cocks her head to the side and chews on the inside of her cheek. Her voice is barely a whisper, and she’s just a shadow of the life spilling from her minutes ago. “I know what it cost you.”
I swallow, biting down on my lips. I hate it. I hate how deflated she looks. I hate that this thing that happened takes up so much space in our lives all these years later. I don’t want to have this conversation—not again, not here. “Stella—”
“Ladies, I’m so sorry.” Our server practically skids to a halt in front of our table, pressing a palm to her chest like she’s out of breath, the other clutching a notepad. She waves it around the crowded restaurant. “As you can see, we’re slammed. Can I get you started with something?”
Stella blinks rapidly, looking between the two of us and back down to her discarded menu. “Oh, sorry. I haven’t even looked. Can you give us a few more minutes?”
The server’s mouth opens and closes for a minute before she gives Stella a hurried nod, practically sprinting to the next table.
“I don’t know what to get,” I say, more to myself, but Stella claps excitedly.
I glance back up at her, and this upturned, sly grin spreads across her face. She looks like the Grinch.
“I think you should order Beckett Davis’s dick for breakfast.”
I narrow my eyes at her before shrugging one shoulder. “I don’t think the nutrient profile in dick is quite enough for a balanced breakfast, but thank you for the suggestion.”
Stella lights up, and her mouth drops open before she tips her head back. Her laugh is this larger-than-life, wonderful thing, and that big, ugly, horrible bit of baggage I can never seem to shake, loosens its knots, and it makes me remember what it was all for.
Beckett stays true to his word, and even though I said business included any time he was feeling particularly lost—Stella said that was my heart bleeding all over the place again—he doesn’t text me until he has a free afternoon to come to the hospital.
He’s punctual—I’ll give him that. Foot resting against one of the pillars in the lobby, arms crossed over his chest, another nondescript hat—navy today—pointed forward on his head and pulled low, still-damp hair curling around his ears and at the nape of his neck.
He kicks off the pillar with a grin when he sees me coming down the stairs, holds out his hand to me. “Afternoon, Dr. Roberts.”
I wrinkle my nose, reaching out to shake his hand. “Beckett. Hello. Is this a thing we do now?”
The grin stays put, and our hands move up and down in space, like we’re strangers who’ve never met. His grip tightens on mine just for a moment before he lets go, shoving both hands into the pockets of his linen shorts. They pull up, revealing an extra inch of muscled thigh. “Just making up for lost handshake time.”
My eyes snap back up to him. “Pardon?”
Beckett angles his head. “The first day we met—when I was with Nathaniel, I held out my hand for you and you just left it there.”
“Oh.” I blink. I hadn’t really thought about it. “I’m sorry. I think I was in my own world that day. I’d just done a harvest on a child. They’re never ... pleasant.”
“I was just joking. I can’t imagine a world where that’s ever enjoyable.” He studies me, and his mouth pulls to the side before he grins again, changing tune, like he can see right through me, and he sees this thing that lives in my chest with my heart behind its bars I try so hard to hide. “How do you take your coffee?”
“Why?” I wrinkle my nose.
Beckett shrugs, and the cotton of his shirt buckles against the trapezius muscles straining there. “I hear doctors drink a lot of coffee. Thought I could bring you one next time I’m here.”
“That’s not necessary.” I give him a tight smile and gesture towards the elevator bay lining the wall by the stairs. His eyebrows knit, and not for the first time he reminds me of a lost puppy. “Black, though. Just black coffee.”
He nods, taking his hat off and quickly running a hand through his hair, keeping his head ducked the entire time.
I didn’t know him before—but seeing someone who seems like they were almost effervescent, so full of life, reduced to someone who thinks they have to hide—seems impossibly sad to me.
His eyes press closed when he takes a step, otherwise full lips pull taut, and the lines of his jaw clench.
I reach my hand out on instinct, wrapping it around his arm. “Are you okay?”
Beckett shakes his head, and he smiles at me again, but it’s strained. “Coach killed my quads earlier this week. And there’s a new dynamic kickoff formation this season, so Darren, the special teams coordinator, had me for about an hour and a half longer than usual. Skipped the ice bath to get here on time.”
“Why?”
He gives another shake of his head, a bit incredulous. “I didn’t want to be late.”
I widen my eyes at him, finally letting go of his arm. “We could have rescheduled. Your job comes first.”
Beckett tips his head back, exposing the column of his throat, reverberating with his laughter. “How nice of you to call it a job. Nah. I only have a few weeks to please my agent and maybe the masses by showing face. I’m done with the public appearances once regular season starts.”
His hands are still firmly in his pockets, and he tips an elbow towards the elevator bay.
I cross my arms, eyeing him as I follow. “There’s a difference between self-deprecation and negativity. I only tolerate one from my residents, and I’ll only tolerate one from you.”
“Negativity?” He pauses dramatically, clapping a hand to his chest before hitting the button. “Beckett Davis isn’t negative. Beckett Davis is an affable ray of sunshine.”
“Does Beckett Davis always talk in third person? Because I don’t tolerate that either.”
“Nah. I just—” He shoots me a wry look before scrubbing his jaw. “Sometimes I wonder if I was ever a real person, you know? Something beyond all these cookie-cutter adjectives people have stuck to me my whole life.”
“Are you always this philosophical?” I tip my head.
The elevator dings, but it’s practically impossible to hear against the incessant buzzing and chatter of the lobby. This is one of my least favourite areas of the hospital—it’s the loudest, and to me, it’s the most unpredictable.
“No. Beckett Davis is not philosophical.” He cracks another grin, and I can tell this one is real. Lines at the corners of his eyes wrinkle and he gestures for me to go first into the elevator. “Beckett Davis just really, really doesn’t like hospitals.”
I study him when the door slides shut, effectively sealing us in for the next eight floors. The mirrored surfaces of the elevator distort our reflections: Beckett, standing taller than me, but stretched almost impossibly as he angles his head back and stares at the ceiling, breathing in and out carefully.
He rolls his neck and gives me a tight smile. Even though it’s not a physical pain like the one I saw in the lobby, it has me reaching forward and grabbing his wrist again all the same. “Do you really have to do this?”
His eyes cut down to my hand, and I go to take a step back, to let go, when his fingers wrap around my wrist briefly. He gives me another grin that doesn’t meet his eyes. “Yeah, I really, really do.”
“Okay then,” I whisper, offering him a small smile. It’s real, and I mean it, and even though nothing earth-shattering or beautiful and wonderful has happened, I think he could use it. “Then let’s hope I have some football-happy patients for you.”
“Well, that wasn’t a total bust.” Beckett holds his arms out, walking backwards through the lobby doors out onto the sidewalk.
The sun inches lower in the sky behind him, clouds tumbling across the horizon while they turn pink and orange. Dusk settles over everything like a blanket, and the haze of the city seems dull.
But it makes everything look beautiful. It even makes the concrete look pretty.
Beckett looks more alive than he has in hours, like someone plucked whatever weight and baggage he carries around from whatever happened to him and his family in a building not unlike this one from his shoulders and threw it away.
He turned his hat backwards before we came back down and he waited outside the staff locker room for me to grab my bag, and I think that was a good sign.
“No.” I nod in agreement. “Not a total bust. But I think you made more of an impression with the staff than the patients. What did that one guy say?”
“That he’d never heard of me,” Beckett answers, his whole face on display and lit up with a smile. “How fucking freeing was that?”
“I wouldn’t know.” I cross my arms. “But I think, maybe, you’ve chosen the wrong career if you find anonymity freeing. I’ve seen you in, like, four commercials since I met you.”
Beckett flexes his fingers before he finally drops his hands, shoving them into the pockets of his linen shorts. “There you go, calling it a career again. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re starting to—wait. Which commercials? I hope Gatorade. I look great in that one.”
“I really couldn’t say.” I lift one shoulder, pursing my lips. It was the Gatorade commercial. I didn’t watch the whole thing, but Stella sent it to me and told me to fast-forward to the one-minute mark where he pours a bucket over himself shirtless.
His eyes go wide, and he shakes his head before tipping it back for a minute. He’s smiling when he looks back at me, and he looks beautiful under the sky, too. “You’d remember if you saw the Gatorade commercial.”
“I don’t know, I see a lot of commercials,” I lie again. I’m not big on TV, I prefer reading.
Beckett leans forward with an exasperated groan. He gives a jerk of his chin, fishing his phone from his pocket. “You’ll never be the same after you see this.” He pauses, pointing at me. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
It all happens at once, the way that most things do when they go horribly wrong.
A car backfires a few blocks over somewhere to my right. Sirens start somewhere to my left. And Beckett steps into my space, thumb hitting the volume button on his phone.
My blood pressure plummets, and the edges of my vision go fuzzy. I feel my heart pressing through my chest against my rib cage. I think it might break it—that organ that’s supposed to keep me alive is going to find those weak, old striations from those old breaks and that other time my ribs were shattered and it’s going to shatter them again and impale itself and I’m going to die outside this hospital.
I hear a lot of things very distinctly—none of them are real and none of them are here. But they’re impossibly loud.
I blink, and I think I’m underwater.
I take a sharp exhale and plant my palm against my sternum. Maybe I can manually palpate my heart when it bursts through my chest.
“No.” I take a step back and give a tiny jerk of my head. I flex my fingers in and out. “I need to catch my streetcar.”
“What?” Beckett looks up, confused. “I’ll drive you. My truck is—”
“No,” I repeat, shaking my head more fervently now. I can’t breathe.
“Greer, are you okay?” He steps forward, and I think he might look concerned, and I think that might look nice and beautiful. But I need to leave.
I shake my head again. “I’m fine. I just need to catch my streetcar. I have—I forgot about an appointment.”
I don’t wait for his answer, and I think he says he’s going to text me, so I hold my hand up over my head in acknowledgement, and I keep walking down the sidewalk but it’s impossibly hard because the water seeps through my scrubs and it feels cold against my skin.
“The water isn’t real,” I whisper, and I focus on the things that are.
The sunset. A bird perched on the streetlight in front of me. The feel of my hand against my scrubs where it presses against my chest. They’re worn. I brought them from home.
I smell metal, but I know that’s not real either.
This sidewalk is real, and it leads me around the side of the hospital, down into the open shipping bay where deliveries are made. I press my back against the concrete wall.
“Please ... please be in here...” I rifle through my purse, fingers slipping on old receipts and the leather of my wallet. But then I feel it. Worn, creased paper smoothed down over a small plastic bottle.
My hand shakes, so I bring the bottle to my mouth and pull the cap off with my teeth.
Tiny pills, covered in dust and chalk from their time living in my purse, roll around the bottom. My fingers still shake, but I fish one out and place it under my tongue.
I drop my head against the wall and close my eyes while it dissolves. The sensation of water inching higher and higher on my legs fades away; I only feel the cotton of my scrubs.
My heart and my breathing slows, and I blink.
I’m here, and I’m not there.
I look back in the open pill bottle, clutched between my hands. There are only a few left, some broken off or chipped away because they’re so old and I haven’t bothered to keep on top of the prescription.
I always say my dad and my sister can’t leave his refills until the last minute, and they’re just tiny pills—1 mg of Lorazepam staring back up at me—but I think they tell me to extend the same courtesy to myself that I do for others.