35. Logan
Logan
Oh, fuck no.
After all the shit we’ve been through in the last week, month, five months, I’m not the ‘we’ll talk later’ friend. I’m the ‘I’m driving to the hospital to hunt your ass down and find out what’s wrong’ friend.
And that’s exactly what I do.
Wouldn’t you know it? It’s fucking raining again, and I watch as a car hydroplanes across two lanes of traffic while I’m stuck at a red light, dreading tonight’s shift because it’s going to be busy. Thankfully, rain is a non-factor for the chopper.
I badge into the employee lot, race inside, and text Chase.
Logan
Old physician’s lounge. STAT.
I swipe my employee ID and pace the vacant room. Boston Memorial is so big there are actually three physicians’ lounges. This one is the oldest and has the fewest amenities, but that also makes it the quietest and most peaceful.
Twelve minutes later, I hear the electronic beep and the door swings open.
Chase looks terrible. His eyes are heavily lidded, almost as if he’s high, but that can’t be right. I race over to him and place my hands on the side of his neck.
“Chase, what happened? What’s wrong?”
He looks through me instead of at me.
Shit.
“Are you regretting your breakup with Kendra?” I ask, knowing I’ll call her right now and make her turn around if it’ll put a smile back on Chase’s face.
“No,” he says weakly.
“But you’re not sure?” I ask, seeking clarification, information, hell, anything at this point.
“I DON’T KNOW!” he booms, bringing his hands to his face and falling into the chair next to us.
I’m on my knees in front of him a second later, weaving my arms around his torso. I half expect him to push me off him, but he doesn’t. He hugs my neck and places his cheek on the top of my head as he breathes heavily.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to know,” I tell him, realizing Chase is totally done.
He’s hit his limits for exhaustion, expectations, stress, and demands.
This is what it looks like when a man’s got nothing left to give and has had zero time to process the changes happening in his life.
“Where are you supposed to be right now?” I ask.
Pulling back, Chase quickly wipes his eyes, and I don’t comment.
“I have three patients left to round on before lunch,” he says.
“Okay. Why don’t I come to the floor with you, then we can grab lunch together?” I suggest.
“Because you need to sleep. You work tonight.”
I look out the window as a loud clap of thunder follows a bolt of lightning I didn’t witness.
“It’s just rain. I’ll be fine.”
I’ll be more distracted from worrying about him being home alone than I will be from whatever calls come in tonight, but I don’t tell him that.
I stand and pull him into me, his forehead hitting the bottom of my sternum from our positions. Rubbing his back, I verbalize the plan once more, giving him something concrete to focus on.
“Let’s go take care of those patients and get some calories in you, and you can tell me what happened.”
Thankfully, two of the three patients are asleep when Chase enters their rooms, and he makes quick work of whatever it is he has to do in there.
The third takes a little longer, but is a nice older lady who is smitten with Chase, and I appreciate her for putting a smile on Chase’s face—even if it was because of a totally inappropriate comment about his ass in scrubs.
I guess a perk of being eighty-six is that you can say shit without getting in trouble for it.
By the time we’re making our lunch selections, I’m dying to know what caused Chase to think he has to miss his best friend’s wedding, cancel our trip, and have him breaking down like he did.
“Start talking,” I say around a bite of food.
“Dr. Porter told me I needed to stay in town next week and offer to take call this weekend for missing my spot in the OR this morning.”
“Okay, well, that’s fucking crazy. You guys are allowed to take days off, right? I mean, like legally, you have to have time off,” I argue.
“Technically, yes, but he told me it ‘wasn’t a suggestion,’” Chase says, using air quotes. “I think he means to kick me out of the program if I’m not here.”
“That guy isn’t God, Chase.”
“He kind of is,” Chase rebuts.
Setting my fork down, I look at the man sitting across from me.
“Can I ask you something?” Chase nods slowly. “Let’s skip ahead five, six, maybe even seven years. Where do you see yourself? Where do you live? Who are you with? What are you doing?”
“That’s a lot of somethings,” Chase grumbles.
“Humor me,” I fire back.
Chase looks at his watch. His brows pinch together, and he begins to stand.
“I’ve got to—”
“Two minutes,” I interrupt, my hand darting forward to catch his wrist. “Give me two minutes. Answer the questions.”
We’re drawing stares, so Chase sits back down.
“I don’t know,” says.
“Yes, you do. There are no financial or academic constraints or expectations in this exercise. Just your perfect vision for your future.”
The cafeteria is loud, the lights are bright, and people are constantly walking by our table. For a brief second, I’m not sure Chase is going to be able to focus, but then he closes his eyes and answers my questions.
“I see myself still in Boston. I like it here. Plus, one of the best pediatric oncology centers is right here in town,” he says without hesitation. “Oh,” he says a second later, realizing the words that just left his mouth. “I guess in a perfect world I’d be doing pediatric oncology.”
“Good,” I say encouragingly. “That’s good. Does that have a residency?” I ask, completely ignorant of what the different specialties require.
“Yes, but it’s different,” Chase says. Color is finally returning to his cheeks; his eyes are brighter, and it’s like I’m watching someone pour energy into him.
“If I were to do pediatric surgery, I could continue with the general surgery residency I’m in now, but what I want to do requires a different track altogether.
It’s three years of a pediatric residency without surgery and three years of a pediatric hematology/oncology residency.
It’d be so great, but I’d lose the work I’ve put in since last summer,” he says.
“And dropping out of a residency doesn’t look good.
At all. Especially if I were to drop this residency. ”
Forgetting my surroundings, I reach for his hand.
“Okay, so you lose ten months and start over. No big deal. You’d be doing what you love, what you were meant to do.
What’s the other option? Continue down this road and be miserable for seven more years and all the working years that follow?
And as for your parents’ money, fuck that.
I make enough to keep us afloat, and it isn’t like you make nothing. This seems like a no-brainer, Chase.”
He squeezes my hand.
“Maybe you’re right,” he says before his eyes get that wicked gleam in them.
“What?” I ask.
“Don’t you want to know who I’m with in my perfect world?”
Suddenly, a shadow descends over our table, and a deep, emotionless voice hits my ears.
“Well, I, for one, am dying to know, Dr. Matthews,” Declan Porter says before looking over his shoulder at the rest of Chase’s co-residents. “How about you all?”
I recognize several of them. Sarah’s eyebrows are at her hairline as she stares down at mine and Chase’s hands.
“Fuck,” Chase mutters, ripping his hand from mine as he stands.
“Dr. Porter, I was just—”
“Wasting more of my time,” the man finishes. It sucks that he’s such an asshole because the man is seriously hot.
Standing, I face the impeccably dressed surgeon. I want to hate him for being hard on Chase, but there’s also an undeniable amount of respect for him, knowing he’s the best there is in his field and that he once suffered through everything Chase is going through now…well, maybe not all of it.
“I’m afraid that’s my fault, Dr. Porter. My apologies. I didn’t mean to keep him.”
He arches a brow.
“You didn’t seem all that inclined to let him go, either,” he muses.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him that if I had my way, I’d never let Chase go, but then I remember that Chase isn’t out. Hell, Chase is barely in.
Nodding, I give him a tight smile.
“That’s what friends are for.”
“Mmm,” he hums, and I’m not quite sure what it means.
Aware that all of Chase’s colleagues are watching this interaction, I remove myself from the conversation.
“Well, I’m going to go check in with my teammate and look over the flight logs and approaching weather. Chase, I’ll see you at ho—I’ll see you later.”
As I make my way to the flight locker, a mix of emotions swirls within me. The biggest of them is anxiety, because if Chase is making plans for his future, I damn sure want to be a part of them.