10. Alex
CHAPTER 10
Alex
“ S o, is the pain localized at the center of your lower back or more to one side?” asked Sophie, her eyes flittering from her notes to the plinth in the middle of the room.
Everywhere except for my face.
“Center mostly,” I answered, somewhat impatiently, since we had far more important things to discuss than my pain.
Sophie was pregnant. The baby was mine—the odds were good—so why was she keeping up this charade when we should be discussing what it meant? What the future would look like?
“Any sharp pain radiating down the legs?”
“No,” I said, willing Sophie to look at me, to tell me the truth. But she kept her head down and her body turned away from me, as if guarding herself, protecting a secret when it wasn’t hers to keep.
“Pins and needles in your legs or feet?” she asked, scribbling something unintelligible.
“And have you experienced any functional limitations as a result of the pain?”
“None,” I replied, omitting the fact that I’d struggled to get into the car this morning, practically hobbled across the hospital parking lot, and leaned heavily against the railing of the elevator. The pain had dropped from an eight out of ten on the VAS pain scale to a three at best when I’d heard Sophie’s voice—and then vanished completely when I’d learned she was pregnant. I was buzzing with adrenaline.
“And do you have any pain when coughing or sneezing—”
“Sophie, can you just stop for a second?” I said, sliding off the edge of the plinth.
“Please. We need to talk about this.”
She tilted her head in my direction, her brows faintly pulled together, her tongue running over her teeth. “We really don’t. I can very easily not talk about it.”
There was a faint smudge of mascara beneath her right eye, as if she had broken out in tears this morning and hadn’t managed to get all the makeup off her cheeks.
“We do,” I said adamantly, trying to push the image of Sophie crying out of my mind.
I was never good at seeing people cry, especially those I knew well. Vicki rarely cried, and when she did, it would shatter me to pieces. You’d think I was used to it. Witnessing tears in the hospital was like seeing a dog in a park—common, not easy to see but not excruciating either, as if I’d built up a defense, gotten used to it the same way a butcher got used to the smell of raw meat. Yet for some reason, I knew that seeing Sophie vulnerable and broken would affect me a lot more than I’d like. Hell of a lot more.
“If you’re pregnant and it’s mine,” I continued, “we need to talk about it. You can’t keep this from me, it’s not fair, we’re in this—”
“Fine.” She scowled and stood up, dropping her pen to the small table that stood against the wall. “Let’s talk about it then. Let’s talk about the fact that we didn’t use a condom, Alex.” Her gray eyes grew darker, like a storm cloud. “It’s like the one and only rule before sex. Use a condom. You’re a fricking doctor, Alex. We were in your room. You know exactly what happens if people don’t use protection.”
“We were both absorbed in the moment,” I said, not willing to take all the blame. It took two people to sleep together. Two people to completely ignore the seriousness of unprotected sex. It wasn’t just my fault, it was both of ours.
Sophie snickered and looked away, folding her arms over her chest. “I can’t believe I was so stupid.” She uncrossed her arms and moved her fingers to her cheeks, clawing at them, leaving pink streaks. “I should never have gone to that stupid seminar. If only Vicki hadn’t—”
“Sophie!” Vicki called suddenly from somewhere in the hallway, her voice like a cold hand sending a shiver right down my spine. “Which treatment room are you in?”
Sophie’s shoulders stiffened. Her eyes widened as she glanced toward the closed door, and the color leached from her face. She quickly flicked her gaze to me, her desperation so clearly painted that I could feel it radiate across the small room.
“Please don’t say anything, Alex,” she pleaded. “Not about the pregnancy, or that we know each other. Vicki can’t know. Not yet. Just promise me you won’t say anything.”
At least we agreed on something. If Vicki found out I’d gotten someone she knew, someone she worked with on a daily basis, pregnant, she’d lose it completely.
It didn’t matter that we were separated. It didn’t matter that Vicki didn’t even want children. She’d somehow convince herself that I had done it out of spite to get back at her. And the aftermath wouldn’t be pretty. Vicki was quick to anger and slow to forgive, her temper flaring up like wildfire and taking ages to smolder. Sophie would be in the direct line of fire if Vicki found out.
“I won’t.”
The door suddenly flew open. Vicki walked in at the exact same moment my mouth went dry and my heart jumped into my throat, forming a lump I couldn’t swallow down no matter how hard I tried.
She was dressed in her usual blue scrubs and cream Crocs with two sunflower Jibbitz stuck on top of each. Her hair was up in a messy yet somehow professional-looking bun, and she wore the same bright yellow smiley face watch I’d bought for her two years ago. It was meant to be ironic. She’d been in the worst of moods that week, and the watch had seemed like a fun joke at the time. One she had appreciated. Vicki may be quick to anger but she had a great sense of humor.
“Oh.” She looked surprised. “I thought you’d be face down on the bed with Sophie inflicting pain on you.”
“We’re getting there.” Sophie smiled, her voice quavering slightly as she fidgeted with the hem of her scrub top. She stepped toward the plinth—toward me—and immediately moved back, nearly stumbling into her chair. “Just getting through the subjective questions.”
It was a wonder Vicki couldn't smell the nerves coming off Sophie. Usually, she had a great nose for picking up on people's anxiety—not to mention their secrets. A nose was as sharp as a bloodhound's.
“If you could please use those miracle hands of yours, Soph. I need him out of my house. I can’t do another night with him ordering me around from the couch.” She laughed loudly and then checked her watch, completely oblivious to Sophie’s eyes doubling in size even when I didn’t think they could go any wider.
"Order you around?" I frowned, doing my best to keep things light, to keep Vicki ignorant of whatever was going on between me and Sophie. "The only thing I asked you to get me was salt. Your spaghetti bolognese needed salt.”
“My spaghetti was perfectly seasoned, thank you,” puffed Vicki, and turned to Sophie, waiting expectantly for an answer.
“I’ll do my best,” muttered Sophie, glancing at the floor, making it way too obvious that something was going on.
Sophie was a terrible liar. She had mentioned it before, at the seminar, when I’d bumped into her in the corridor. Then, I hadn’t actually believed her, but the longer I watched her body tense up, her face scrunching with the effort of not making eye contact, the clearer it became that we were doomed.
Luckily, Vicki remained completely nonplussed.
Even then, my throat stayed clogged and whatever appetite I had this morning was gone. It would take just a look, a word, a twitch for Vicki to suspect something. It was as if we were walking on eggshells with big clunky boots.
“You know,” Vicki said, stepping to the chair Sophie had sat on earlier and settling into it, crossing one leg over the other. “I was thinking about the joint symposium this morning on the way here, and I completely forgot to ask you about it last night, Alex. You were there, weren’t you? I remember Sam mentioning you were going a while back.”
“I was,” I said with a single nod, not liking where this was going—not even one bit.
“Then you two must’ve met?” she raised a single suspicious eyebrow, and I knew the relief had come prematurely. I knew that eyebrow arch well. Next up was the bloodhound nose, and she was bound to sniff out the truth.
Blood suddenly rushed up my neck and my heart began to beat violently, all the relief from earlier seeped out of me like a burst balloon losing valuable air.
“We were in different groups,” came Sophie suddenly, as if the idea had just popped into her head. “We met briefly at one of the talks. I think it was Advances in Joint Replacement . . . ”
She looked at me, a big fat please help me, broadcasted in those storm cloud eyes.
“You called me out for talking too loudly.”
Sophie pulled a face, shook her head, and leaned back against the wall. “You were being disruptive. I was just trying to hear what Prof Ventiko was saying in case Vicki quizzed me when I got back.”
For the shortest of moments, we both held our breaths, waiting to see if the lie—which was fairly believable in my opinion—had done enough to melt Vicki’s suspicion away.
When Vicki burst out laughing, I once more experienced that airy relief, a relief I actually embraced this time, of a secret kept safe—a secret I didn’t even understand fully yet.
“I would never quiz you,” said Vicki, her big, bright blue eyes capable of making anyone believe whatever she said. Unlike Sophie, Vicki could lie like it was second nature. She had done it for two of the three years we’d been together—lying about not being ready for kids, promising me she just needed more time to get her career where she wanted it to be. It never, not even once, occurred to me that she had no intention of having kids at all, and she was secretly hoping I would grow tired of waiting and stop asking.
Sophie made a face. “Yeah right. You quizzed me after that palsy seminar last month.”
Vicky chuckled. “Who doesn’t love a good quiz—”
The woman with the brown hair from earlier suddenly appeared at the door. “Vicki. There’s a phone call for you. Dr. Kampel about a patient with an ORIF.”
“I can go if you need me to,” volunteered Sophie, pushing herself off the wall, eager to get away. Considering everything, I didn’t blame her, yet the last thing I wanted was for her to run off and disappear.
“No, no,” said Vicki, standing up. “You treat Alex. I’ll go check on the patient.” She headed to the door and stopped when she reached it. Turning around, Vicki gripped the handle, and I caught sight of the tan indent on her ring finger that was still visible. I had no idea what she’d done with that ring. The only thing that made sense was that she had either kept it or sold it to buy a whole new living room set. The latter probably. “By the way, Alex. I’ve called some movers to help with the couch and coffee table. I’ve given them your address.”
I nodded. “Send that box of tennis rackets and whatever you don’t want along with the couch. I’ll sort through it this week.”
She smiled. “Will do.”
After Vicki disappeared into the hallway, Sophie and I both eyed the door, listening to Vicki’s footsteps dim to nothing.
Sophie was the first to talk. She ran her fingers through her hair, and then straightened her scrub top, although it couldn’t get any straighter. “Look, Alex. I don’t know what I’m going to do just yet. I have no idea. I’m basically just trying to keep my head above water today and . . . ” Her voice trailed off. She chewed on her bottom lip, glancing down to the floor before flicking her gaze up to meet mine, her eyes less stormy, as if the sun was breaking through the clouds. “I just need some time to figure things out and when I do, I will call you, alright? I promise. But that’s as much as I want to talk to you about this right now . . . Let me have a look at your back.”
“Alright,” I said, believing she’d do what she promised, just as a twinge of pain settled in the center of my lower back. It looked like the adrenaline had finally worn off.