3
Claire stood on the edge of the outdoor rugby pitch, tablet and clipboard in hand, watching the emerald and endless field that stretched before her. For a moment she felt the familiar rush of purpose that came whenever she stepped onto new grass. She was ready to soak it all in.
The trainers laid out water bottles and resistance bands as the field started coming alive with motion.
Claire noticed players taking laps around, some stretching out their muscles, jumping in place, and getting active.
She made quick eye contact with the team captain, Noah.
He was glancing over while doing some standing stretches in warm up.
Claire felt his piercing dark eyes. She couldn’t help but wonder if she had done something wrong already.
He started running around the pitch with two other teammates.
The three jogged in tandem. His muscles were defined, strong, big.
When he jogged past, there was that flicker.
A quick look that lingered just a second too long.
Not enough for anyone else to catch, but enough for Claire to be uncomfortable. The kind of look that unsettled her.
She tried to focus on her notes, observing the other players, adjusting her pen, pretending to write, doing anything else but feeling that she did something wrong already.
But then there it was again, his eyes and furrowed brow finding her from across the field, even through the mayhem and motion.
She looked away first, of course, as she should.
Still, something about the way he pushed through his next sprint.
Faster, tighter, more precise. It made her pulse quicken.
She told herself it was just the adrenaline of the morning, but when he glanced subtly in her direction, again.
With a light sweat dampening his temples, jaw set with concentration, she knew, just a little bit, that it wasn’t just that. She was unsure of what to do.
That’s when she remembered. It felt like almost yesterday.
It was the smell, mostly, the thing she thought of.
Not blood from the day – but sweat and turf.
The sharp tang of thrill clinging to the air under the sunshine.
She flashbacked to her first job as a young doctor working in Sports Medicine on a rotation with a professional American Football team.
She remembered that she was sporting a set of scrubs in the Los Angeles Harriers colors, green and white. Her long hair was pulled into a topknot. She heard the rumble of the crowd drowned out by yelling coaches.
“MEDIC!” a line backer screamed as he knelt over another player laying flat.
Claire rushed over, medical kit in hand, and knelt beside the downed player, her gloved hands already moving on instinct. “Stay still,” she said, voice steady but firm. The man on the ground was half-conscious, helmet tilted, his breathing shallow against the sound of a restless crowd.
He groaned. “Can’t… move my leg.”
“Don’t try.” She checked his airway, pulse, pupils – routine motions that steadied her even when the rest of the world blurred.
Around her, the field buzzed with white noise: the crowd, the coaches shouting for updates, the flash of cameras.
She blocked it all out, this medical emergency was on live television, any wrong move. ..
The player was built like a statue, all muscle and momentum now frozen in place. His left leg was twisted awkwardly beneath him, grass and dirt streaked up the side of his uniform: #28 – Harriers.
“Jace?!,” one of the staff yelled. “Fuck!”
Claire didn’t look up. “He’ll need stabilizing before we move him.”
She reached for the brace in her kit, tightening it around his knee and leg as gently as possible. He hissed in pain, his hand shooting out to grip her wrist.
“Easy,” she murmured, surprised by the strength still left in him. “You’re okay. I got you.”
He blinked up at her, eyes hazy but sharp enough to register her face. “You’re not our usual doc.”
“I’m filling in as primary,” she said, keeping her tone light and professional.
“Lucky me,” he managed, a pained half-smile tugging at his mouth.
“Try not to flirt while you’re injured, please,” she replied, before she could stop herself.
The corner of his mouth twitched, amused. “Noted.”
By the time medical staff got him onto the stretcher, his grip on her wrist had loosened, but the imprint of it stayed long after he’d been wheeled off the field.
Hours later, in the medical wing beneath the stadium, Claire was charting the player’s vitals when his voice drifted from the recovery table.
“You saved my season,” he said quietly.
Claire didn’t look up from the monitor. “That depends on your X-Ray.”
“Still. That was pretty wild. You kept me calm. That counts for something.”
She exhaled through her nose, allowing the faintest smile. “You were calm because of the morphine.”
He chuckled, then winced as the movement tugged his knee. “Maybe. But I remember your voice more than the pain.”
That caught her off guard. She busied herself with adjusting his IV line, avoiding the weight of his gaze.
“Jason,” he introduced himself.
“Claire,” she replied, not making eye contact.
“Doctor Claire,” he corrected her.
She didn’t respond to him, instead, she said softly, “You should rest. Your body will need it.”
“And you?” he asked.
Claire blinked at him, “What about me?”
“Where will you be?”
“I’ll be around.” Claire gestured to the call button on his medical bed. “Call if you need someone.”
“Ok,” Jason said looking at the big red button.
With a professional smile, Claire turned on the heels of her feet to leave. Her pager beeped on her scrub waist. It lit up with TRMA BAY1 across the little green screen.
She turned to face the man far too cheerful, for someone recovering from an almost career ending injury.
“I’m JK,” he said to her with a grin.
Claire backed out into the hallway to get a very much needed cup of coffee. Her pager beeped again. TRMA BAY1.
She picked up the black phone affixed to the wall.
“Hi, doctor?”
Claire leaned against the cement wall, already suspicious. “Hello.”
“I have a medical concern.”
She cocked her head, “Mm-hmm.”
“I’m dying… of boredom.”
Claire smirked at him but didn’t respond immediately. “Are you experiencing chest pain, shortness of breath, dizziness, or anything remotely resembling an actual emergency?” she asked.
He paused. “No,” he admitted.
“Then congratulations,” she replied dryly. “You are medically stable.”
“But–”
“You pressed the call button.”
“Yes.”
“For boredom…”
“Yes.”
Clarie pinched the bridge of her nose, fighting a smile.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” she said. “But if I walk into that room and you’re not actively dying…”
“You’ll what?”
There was a beat of silence.
“I’ll figure it out later,” Claire replied.
Jason laughed with a confident lilt.
Claire hung up the phone and shook her head as she pushed away from the wall.
Some patients needed medicine.
Some patients needed supervision.
And some, apparently, needed to be reminded that the call button was not a social hotline.
He grinned again, lazy and fearless despite the injury, as she opened the door to the room.
“I will have to leave if someone else needs me,” Claire said to Jason.
“Understood,” Jason nodded dramatically.
“No flirting.”
“None whatsoever,” he side eyed her and smirked.
She pulled over a chair and took out a red deck of playing cards.
“I think we are going to get along fine, Doctor Claire.”
Los Angeles had already decided it would be hot that day.
Claire walked east along Olive Street, coffee warming her palm, the Kaiser Permanente rising ahead of her in pale concrete and glass. To Claire, the building felt efficient, impersonal, yet dependable and familiar.
She slowed at the newsstand on Olive and 3rd out of habit more than intention.
The vendor was arranging stacks of papers, the morning headlines shouting politics, traffic, wildfire warnings.
She paid for the Los Angeles Times, barely glancing at anything else, her mind already shifting into clinical mode.
She knew that as a young doctor, fresh out of residency, she would get assigned the bulk of the work in the long day ahead, but she was happy to oblige.
The tabloids screamed in red and black just inches from her hand.
She didn’t see them.
Didn’t see Jason’s face blown up across glossy paper.Didn’t see his familiar grin, careless and dazzling.Didn’t see the headline curling above him:
NFL Golden Boy Caught in Ibiza Tryst!
Didn’t see the woman straddling his lap on the sunlit deck of a yacht, long-limbed and laughing, identified in bold type as model: Christy Madelston.
Claire folded her paper under her arm and kept walking.
Inside the hospital, the air shifted instantly. It was cool, sterile, buzzing with purpose. She changed into scrubs, tied her hair back, got her everyday carry, and slipped her phone and bag into her locker like she always did.
She worked.
Hours blurred into one another with rounds, consultations, charting. She stitched a forearm laceration, assessed a concussion, argued politely with a patient who didn’t “trust his nurse”. Her hands moved with practiced certainty, her voice calm, reassuring. She was good at this.
It wasn’t until her break that the world caught up with her.
She sat on a metal chair in the staff lounge, peeled an orange slowly, and finally opened her bag to find the contents of the Los Angeles Times she bought on the way into the hospital and her cell phone.
The screen lit up.
Missed calls.So many missed calls.
Jason.Her mother.Friends from LA.Her father.Jason again.Friends from London. Unknown numbers.Voicemails stacked one after another.
Texts bloomed across the screen in rapid succession.
Have you seen this??Claire please call meIt’s not what it looks likeYou need to answerI swear to God it’s nothing
Her stomach dropped. It was that sudden, hollow plunge, like missing a step in the dark.