32. Greer
Greer
Flickering candles in towering vases cast shadows across the white linen, stretching towards all the scattered wineglasses littered across the tables lining the hospital atrium.
I wrinkle my nose.
I don’t know how I was roped into another event—some sort of mixer for incoming and outgoing residents—but the head of the transplant program said I had to go, and he went as far as to make sure my recent award was written in looping cursive underneath the name tag hanging around my neck.
He said it would be inspirational.
I’m not so sure about that.
The edges of the plastic slice at my fingers when I smooth out my dress. Fortunately, it’s one of my own choosing. I was spared my sister’s ministrations for the night, and I was able to wear one of the black cocktail dresses hanging in my closet. I used to like this dress quite a bit—asymmetrical, twisted rope straps, one falling mid-shoulder and the other just at the curve of my neck.
I’d never tell her, but I’m not sure I like it as much as the emerald one.
But that might have had more to do with the company than the gown.
And I would have asked Beckett to come—as a friend—but he’s on a road trip.
He does send me a text with a tongue emoji and what I think is a subpar rendering of a closet, drawn with about as much finesse as a stick figure.
I ignore the way that makes my stomach turn, my thighs clench, and the way my heart stumbles when the ghost of his hands whispers over my calves.
I’m doing my best not to think about Beckett at all as I weave through the tables, because I should probably go sit with the other fellows.
Not even his body touching mine.
Just him. His smile—the one that makes his dimple cut through the dusting of stubble always peppering his face. His laugh—the one where he tips his head back and exposes the column of his throat. The way his hands start moving and his gestures get wider and wider when he’s excited about something.
I’m doing a poor job of it because I’m debating going to the bookstore tomorrow morning—he mentioned in passing he wanted to know more about the military strategies of the Achaemenid Empire—when the table of residents beside me erupts into some sort of excited screaming, with palms slapping on tables.
My heart stumbles, my chest tightens, and there’s a faint tang of metal or blood in my mouth, but I roll my shoulders back and even though I shouldn’t, I do let myself picture Beckett on his knees—the way he nodded softly, eyes only on mine, breathing in and out when I did.
It feels a bit more muffled than it usually would, and I do have my Lorazepam this time, but I don’t think I need it.
I’m not in the car. I’m here.
I blink, and it’s not Beckett there in front of me.
His brother stares at me expectantly from the table making all the noise.
“Dr. Roberts!” Dr. Davis waves a hand, pushing back in his seat. “Thought you might want to know your boyfriend just stopped a 60-yard kick-return.”
“Pardon?” I arch a brow.
Dr. Davis blinks, like he can’t believe what he just did, and makes a noncommittal jerk of his head, while all his friends look back and forth between us like we’re a particularly gripping tennis match.
He points to his phone, propped up against one of the towering vases and clears his throat. “Beck—he, uh. He’s having a good game. Hasn’t been a tackle like that from a kicker in years. Fifty-yard field goal in the first, and uh—”
“I know.” I pull my phone from my purse. “I can get updates from SportsCentre like anyone else. And he’s not my boyfriend.”
“We’re watching live.” He swallows, gesturing uselessly to his phone again. “You could—” He tips his chin to the empty seat beside him. “You could watch with us.”
He runs a palm along his jaw, and it’s a distinctly Beckett gesture. But his eyes are glassy, and a flush rises on his cheeks. My eyebrows knit. “How much have you had to drink?”
“Enough to work up the courage to ask you to sit with me.” He shrugs one shoulder.
All the other residents around the table keep looking back and forth between us, eyes wide and trepidatious.
Dr. Davis gives me an expectant grin, pointing towards the chair again.
“Fine.” I press my fingers to the bridge of my nose and blink at him.
Relief washes over him and I think they all breathe out, too, when he pulls out the chair.
He points between the open bottles of wine on the table as I sit down, and I nod at the white. His eyes light up and he proceeds to dump significantly more wine in the glass than an acceptable pour.
He looks a bit like a puppy, too, when he hands it to me, golden hair flopping everywhere, eyes like his brother’s, and the buttons of his suit jacket undone.
I raise my eyebrows. “Thank you, Dr. Davis.”
“You can call me Nathaniel.” He smiles at me, blinking in this weird sort of hopeful way, like he’s waiting for me to return the sentiment.
I don’t.
“Okay then.” He clears his throat before turning to pour himself more wine. “Anyway, Beck looks great tonight.”
Taking a sip of my wine, I roll my shoulders back into the chair while they all stare at me like they’re waiting for me to erupt. I narrow my eyes and feel like telling them that if they’d all stop being so chaotic and clumsy, sending my nervous system firing all the time, I might not need to yell.
It’s not very hard to grip a retractor.
But I think of my sister—of Beckett—and I exhale, pointing to the phone. “Your brother always looks great.”
A beautiful smile must be an inherited Davis family trait, because Nathaniel lights up like the sun. “He does, doesn’t he?” He studies me for a minute, a crease scoring between his brows. “Are you sure you two aren’t—”
I cut him off with a flat look. “Just watch the game, Nathaniel.”
“Won’t we get into trouble for this?” Nathaniel leans forward, hands gripping the edge of the exam table, crinkling the paper lining it.
I point to the IV pole and saline bag. “You’re the one who drank a bottle and a half of wine to themselves. Would you rather be cripplingly hungover tomorrow?”
“But they won. Beckett kicked a 65-yard field goal. That’s two yards away from the record. I needed to celebrate.” He scrubs his face before giving me a hopeless look, eyes wide and glassy. “Aren’t we stealing?”
“Calm down.” I grab the saline and flash the date at him. “They’re at the end of their twenty-eight-day life cycle. They’re medical waste tomorrow.”
Nathaniel blinks, like he’s still unsure. I widen my eyes at him as I rip open the bag with the butterfly clip. “Don’t worry. I’ll take the fallout of any nonexistent trouble.”
He nods, watching me in silence as I hang the bag and prep the needle and tubing. “Arm,” I instruct.
He holds it out obediently, and he hesitates, his next words wavering. “Our parents—they don’t see him. They just see Sarah, and they see me because they associate me with the people who saved her. But I see him. Sarah sees him. We just don’t know how to be around him.” He pauses as I tap at his arm, looking for a vein, and wipe it down with an alcohol swab. I watch him swallow in my periphery. “You see him.”
I do see him , I think. And I feel a bit like telling Nathaniel that he needs to do a better job of showing Beckett the love he deserves. But I pause, tip of the needle poised to press into his vein, and I look up at him. He looks a bit like a lost child—golden hair falling every which way, tie abandoned and buttons of his shirt undone. “He loves you both very, very much. And he just wants you to love him, too.”
He shakes his head, a detectable slump to his shoulders. “How do you even start to thank someone who’s given you what he’s given me? He sacrificed his childhood so I could have one. My dad didn’t teach me to ride a bike. Beckett did. He paid my rent when I was in school, so I didn’t have to worry. I didn’t have to work summers so I could just study for the MCAT. He’s paid for everything Sarah’s ever needed. He used to wash her wigs for her, and he learned how to braid hair. He bought our parents’ house because they’d mortgaged it so many times because they were always on leave from work. Thank you seems inadequate. How do I even—”
“You just do, Nathaniel. You say the words and you follow them with action. Your brother deserves that, at the very least.”
He deserves the world. He deserves more than someone like me can ever give him, even though there’s this tiny part of me blooming, sprouting in and amongst the empty space that says maybe we can be whole for him without carving ourselves away.
But I think all of those things wilt when I remember I was with my dad in a room not unlike this one in the not-so-distant past.
One corner of his mouth kicks up. “You’re not being mean to me. Why are you so scary at work?”
“There was a reason you wanted to go into pediatric oncology, right?”
He nods.
I smile, angling the needle down. “There’s a reason for everything I do, too.”
He winces at the pinch, and I think, my words. “Beck never said anything.”
I shrug one shoulder, pushing down on the needle before releasing it and connecting the line to the IV bag. “I can’t imagine he would have.”
Nathaniel looks down at his arm, before holding it up to me with a triumphant grin. “Hey, not even a drop of blood. You’re good.”
I raise my eyebrows. “I know.”
He stares at me, the set of his jaw so like his brother’s it’s alarming, his next words low. “He started keeping his phone on.”
“What?” I wrinkle my nose.
“He used to keep his phone off at home. Sarah and I—we aren’t stupid. We know he puts himself under this immense pressure to be everything to everyone all the time because he had to be when we were younger and it’s all he’s ever known. He’d turn his phone off when he was at home, and he’d joke about it, saying nothing was that urgent or serious. I think he just wanted to be ... free, for a little while. But he started leaving it on after he met you.” Nathaniel gives his head a small shake. “He might be your friend, but you’re not his.”
I don’t know if he’s really mine either , I think. And that’s what I’m afraid of.
Because whatever this is keeps landing us—me, my heart and my brain—in rooms like this one.
But I give Nathaniel a flat look and tap the bag of saline.
“Let the IV run until it’s empty. Eat and drink something when you get home and take two Advil tomorrow morning.” I grab my bag from where I abandoned it on the chair in the corner of the exam room, my heels clicking against the tile floor, but I look back at him before I leave, fingers tapping against the doorframe. “You can call me Greer.”