Chapter 8 #3
He chuckled. “Are you saying you don’t miss this?” He pointed at himself and smirked.
I rolled my eyes, but something in the way his mouth tilted softened the frustration coiled in my chest. Dannie here—in Malaysia—was a different creature. The usual cold, composed exterior he wore back in Hong Kong was gone, stripped away like a heavy coat.
Here, the sunlight made him warmer. The air made him freer.
And I realized, with a biting pressure bloomed beneath my ribs, that the serious man I’d known before was just another mask—something he wore for survival, for his family, for the image he needed to keep.
Underneath that, there was this version of him: cheeky, bright, and alive.
The nurse peeked through the privacy curtain before stepping in, her crisp uniform whispering as she moved. She said something in Malay, her tone brisk and efficient. When I apologized for not understanding, she switched to English without missing a beat.
“Your results look okay.” Her delivery was quick, no extra commentary.
“Let me check your temperature.” She replaced the thermometer’s cap with practiced precision, then slipped it gently into Dannie’s ear.
“Thirty-eight point five,” she murmured, jotting it down before wrapping a blood pressure cuff around his arm.
The machine beeped once and began to inflate.
I watched every movement, the way her fingers pressed the device, the quiet hum of the monitor, the sterile sharpness in the air mingling with the faint citrus of her lotion. It reminded me how much medical centers felt the same everywhere—clean, cold, and oddly comforting.
“Can I take a look at the chart?” I demanded, extending a hand toward the folder tucked under her arm.
Her expression hardened instantly. “No.” She hugged the documentation to her upper body, the single syllable clipped and final.
“Why not?” I pushed, frowning. Stephanie’s warning echoed through me about how these facilities liked to keep things… controlled.
Profitable.
“It’s for doctors and nurses only,” she replied curtly. “You wouldn’t understand the technical terms.”
Then, almost possessively, she placed the chart on the bed, pressing it down with one firm hand—guarding it like it contained state secrets.
I cleared my throat, straightening to my full height. “How convenient,” I announced proudly, “I’m a doctor myself.”
The nurse’s expression flickered, clearly not expecting that. Her brows pinched together as she pushed her glasses higher up the bridge of her nose, studying my face like she was trying to decide whether to believe me.
“What kind of doctor?” she snapped, her tone clipped, almost defensive.
“One qualified enough to read whatever notes you’ve got in that file,” I replied, letting the firmness settle into every word. Unless the record contained some rare tropical disease I’d never encountered—which, frankly, was unlikely—I had every right to look.
Before she could say anything else, I reached out and snatched the notes from her arm. My movements were sharper than I intended, but adrenaline had already taken over. The paper felt warm from where she’d been holding it, the edges soft from overuse.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” I muttered under my breath as I flipped it open. “You going to charge me for reading?”
My eyes scanned the messy handwriting, the clinical shorthand and numbers jumping out like coded messages. Then I froze.
“Oh no…” The words escaped before I could stop them. A gasp followed, sudden and audible, echoing faintly in the clinical air of the room.
It all clicked at once—the clammy skin, the drowsiness, the sudden collapse. The confusion. The temperature that wasn’t just a simple fever.
Dannie wasn’t just allergic. He was diabetic.
The realization hit me like a jolt of electricity, burning through the fog in my mind. My pulse hammered in my ears. How had I missed it? The symptoms had been there, staring me in the face, but I’d been blinded—by assumption, by distraction, by him.
His strength, the way his muscles tensed beneath his shirt, the energy he carried even when exhausted—it didn’t fit the picture I’d unconsciously built of what a diabetic patient should look like. And because it didn’t fit, I hadn’t seen it.
The report confirmed what my gut was now screaming: Dannie’s episode earlier hadn’t been from the seafood, or the alcohol, or even the supposed allergy. It had been a hypoglycemic reaction—a dangerous drop in glucose levels.
He could have died.
He could have suffered brain damage if we hadn’t gotten him here in time.
A tightness crept up my throat, the bright, chemical air suddenly too dense to breathe. My fingers trembled as I clutched the paperwork, trying to steady my thoughts.
For a heartbeat, all I could hear was the faint hum of the fluorescent lights above us and the rhythmic beep from the next bed.
Then I turned to look at him—his lips slightly parted, his lashes resting against his cheek, his hand still resting on the blanket. He seemed so peaceful. So alive.
But he shouldn’t have been.