Love & Lidocaine

Chapter 1

“Iquit.”

I stood in the center of the world’s most dysfunctional circus, otherwise known as Sunshine Dentistry, and declared my resignation like I was on a dramatic reality show. And if I were being completely honest, it felt like I was starring in one.

The crying child in Exam Room Four? Supporting cast. The guy with a freshly extracted molar and blood dripping down his chin? Background extra. Vicky, in her neck brace, swiveling like a robot? Absolute scene-stealer.

“Hope, sweetie, you’re not quitting.”

Vicky didn’t even make eye contact as she spun in her wheeled throne toward the printer. The neck brace rendered her completely immobile from the shoulders up, so every movement required a full-body rotation.

Swivel.

Swivel.

To my left, someone high on nitrous oxide accidentally knocked over a dental assistant, and to my right, a woman shrieked at her child, “Let the doctor fix your tooth, or I’ll yank it out myself!”

“This place is cursed,” I muttered.

“You’re being dramatic, Hope,” Vicky deadpanned.

“No, I’m being sane, which is more than I can say for anyone else here.” I yanked at the Velcro collar of my lab coat, desperate to free myself of the itchy material and also my current situation. “Please tell my father I won’t be back.”

Vicky let out a long, exaggerated sigh and swiveled toward Amber, the other front desk manager, and her second cousin.

Their family grimace had to be genetic because Amber hadn’t smiled the whole time I’d worked here.

Vicky only did it once, and it was when Amber accidentally slipped on a plastic patient bib that had fallen onto the floor.

I was still 80% sure Vicky faked the whole “snowmobiling accident,” because someone so miserable couldn’t possibly enjoy outdoor recreation, right? The mental image of Vicky smiling on a snowmobile was almost too much for my brain to compute.

“Amber, call Dr. Elmswood,” Vicky said, obviously not listening to a single thing I had just uttered.

Amber reached for the phone.

Of course, they were tattling. Of course. Nobody ever took me seriously. Not when I’d grown up running through these same halls with pigtails and braces.

I glanced at the time: 2:28 p.m.

Emily would be in the parking lot in two minutes.

“Tell him I said goodbye. For good,” I said, shoving my phone back into my scrub pocket.

Vicky blinked, and Amber beside her appeared stunned. They seemed to realize I wasn’t kidding in the slightest. And boy, did it feel good to stand up for myself after all this time. So much so I didn’t know why I’d taken so long to do it.

I spun on my heel, heart hammering as I pushed through the glass doors and stepped into the blinding California sun.

Goodbye, antiseptic and eugenol. Goodbye, cheesy wall prints of random people smiling.

Then came the screech of tires against the pavement.

A sleek blue van swung dramatically into the lot, taking the corner a little too fast, and skidded to a stop a few inches from the curb.

The driver’s side window rolled down, revealing a mess of wild red curls and bright green eyes.

“I’ve made worse decisions,” Emily said with a devilish grin. “Now get in.”

I let out a laugh that sounded more like a sob and reached for the door when I heard my father’s voice echo across the parking lot.

“Hope!”

No, no, no, no.

I turned to see my father running toward us, wearing his navy scrubs and crisp lab coat. I steeled myself for impact. I was really hoping to avoid this part. But the universe was apparently giving me no other choice.

“Where do you think you’re going?” He was so angry I could see his cheeks turning pink.

I clenched the door handle. “I’m quitting.”

“Honey, let’s talk. Don’t make a scene.”

Honey was his favorite gaslight word. What Honey really meant was “You’re overreacting.”

“I tried talking. But you’re never going to listen. So I’m done now. I’m done with this job, this place. And I’m really done pretending we’re fine.” I climbed into the van and couldn’t meet his eyes as I said my last words. “I need space. So please just let me go.”

His name tag bounced against his coat pocket as he hurriedly jogged alongside the van, which was slowly starting to move. The tag read "Dr. Ezra Elmswood."

I thought with a mix of sadness and disdain that I didn’t even know who he was anymore.

“I can talk to Conrad, we can figure this out—” His hand gripped the handle of the passenger side, like he wished he had the strength to stop the vehicle from leaving.

“No,” I said firmly, trying to keep my voice from wavering. “There’s nothing left to figure out, Dad. Now please—”

And then I slammed the door. My father yanked his fingers back at the last second before they could get squished. His yelling became muffled behind the glass, and I turned to Emily and gave her a silent nod.

She raised an eyebrow. “Need me to do donuts in the parking lot for dramatic effect?”

“Tempting,” I muttered. “But no, let’s just go.”

The tires squealed as we peeled out of the lot.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of you in my life,” Emily said.

“You okay?” Emily asked, flicking her eyes over to me in the passenger seat.

“Yeah,” I said, but my throat felt like it was closing up. “Just… give me a minute.” I was most definitely freaking out, but I wasn’t ready to unpack it all at that moment while hurtling down the freeway in my best friend’s luxury van.

My fingers were already tingling. Starting at my fingertips, I felt a familiar numbness spread. It climbed across the bridge of my nose and bloomed on my tongue, making it hard to breathe. It felt like my mind had the remote to my body and was pressing random buttons.

I closed my eyes and inhaled slowly. You’re not dying. You’re not dying.

Eventually, the tingling faded, and precious air returned to my lungs.

“I think I’m good now,” I said, reaching for Emily’s hot pink mug like it was a lifeline. One sip of the bubbling Coca-Cola, and I felt my world recenter.

Emily snorted. “You’re the only person who panic-drinks my Coke.”

“It always tastes better in your mug for some reason.”

“I honestly didn’t think you had it in you.” Emily turned the conversation from soda back to the matter at hand, not missing a beat.

“You should’ve seen their faces,” I said, shaking my head.

“I saw your father’s face. He looked absolutely blindsided.”

“He deserved it.” My jaw clenched. He couldn’t control me anymore. Or try to dictate my life or placate me with more lies.

“I know,” Emily said, giving me a confident smile. “Now, where are we headed?”

“Big Bear,” I said.

“Big Bear?” Emily’s crimson eyebrows shot up, and the van jolted a tad as her foot slipped off the gas for a surprised millisecond. “What’s in Big Bear?”

“Mason’s cabin,” I replied. Pulling out my phone, I showed Emily the address on my screen. “He said I could stay there for as long as I needed.”

Emily snorted again and let out one of her contagious, high-pitched laughs. “Oh, Hope. You can’t be serious. You, out in the woods? Alone?”

I glared at her. “I can handle it.”

“Are you sure? Because last time I took you out to the forest, you ended up driving home in the middle of the night so you could sleep with your own pillow.”

“I get a kinked neck if I don’t use my own pillow,” I muttered, my bottom lip jutting out in a pout. “You grabbed my pillow, right?”

Emily rolled her eyes. “Yes, Princess. Your magical pillow is safely stored in the overhead compartment.”

“Oh, good,” I said, relief flooding me. “Thank you.”

I didn’t particularly want to stay in a cabin in the woods, if I was being honest, but what I did want was to break the dependency I had on my parents. I knew it would take some serious distance to do it. And if this were the only free place available, I would take it.

“What exactly did you tell your brother to get the keys?” Emily asked.

“That I needed a break from scraping plaque and wanted to finish my book.”

Emily snorted again. “And he believed that?”

“Technically, that is the truth. I am writing a book. And Mason knows I’ve been working on it.”

I thought back to the call earlier that day, the one that had occurred approximately six hours before my dramatic exit at Sunshine Dentistry.

“Please, Mason. Can I stay in your cabin?”

“I guess so. But, Hope, I haven’t been to that cabin in years. The furnace is probably broken, and there might be some mice that’ve gotten into the walls,” Mason said.

I was so desperate to get a yes that I stamped down my fear of creatures with opal-scaled tails and wiry whiskers.

“I can handle a few rodents.”

Mason sighed, and there was a hesitant pause. “What’s going on? Since when do you like roughing it?”

“I’m feeling inspired, and I need a quiet place to really nail down the second half of my book. Riverside is too noisy.”

“Really? Are you sure this isn’t about what happened a few months ago with Dad’s business partner?”

I stayed silent, not wanting to confirm or deny what had happened with Dr. Pike.

“Look, Mason. Can I stay in the cabin or not?”

I knew he was just trying to look out for me, but I’d been hurt too deeply. No amount of brotherly persuasion was going to convince me not to go through with my plan to quit my job at the clinic later that day.

He sighed. “I guess so. But don’t blame me if you get hantavirus. It’s pretty much abandoned, and there could be all sorts of things living in it.”

“Oh, Mason, thank you.” Relief had flooded my entire body. A way out. That was all I needed.

“You’re welcome. I love you, Hope. Be careful, please.”

“I will, and I love you too, Mason.”

“He doesn’t really know what went down, does he?” Emily said, pulling me back to reality.

I sighed. “Not exactly. Mason knows there was tension at the clinic between Dr. Pike and me, but he doesn’t know all the details.”

My jaw clenched as I stared out the window at the passing traffic, trying not to let my thoughts get too dark.

Emily sighed. “Hope—”

“I don’t want him to worry. The last thing I want is to mess up Mason’s life, too. He’s filming doomsday scenarios and selling mosquito nets to preppers. He’s really happy. And if he thinks something is seriously wrong, he’ll try to come rescue me.”

Mason was currently out of the country on business, creating content for Crisis Command, his YouTube channel all about doomsday prepping. He was gaining major success at survival expos around the world. I didn’t want him to halt his dreams to come deal with my problems.

“Maybe he needs to—”

“No,” I interrupted. “I need to get away. I need to figure out what it is I want, and I need to do it on my own. And who knows, maybe once I find a job I’ll actually sit down and finish my novel.

I don’t know. But what I do know for sure is I’m not the same since everything that happened a few months ago.

The numbness, the panic attacks, the night terrors… ”

Emily reached across the console and took my hand. “You really think Big Bear’s the place for an identity crisis?”

“I just really need to get my head on straight and sort some things out. I want to find a job I actually like, and I want to feel capable of figuring things out on my own. I’m tired of everyone making decisions for me.

I feel like distance will help me do that.

” I gave her a pleading look. A look that said: Please just support me in this.

You’re my best friend. You have to help me even if it’s ridiculous.

“Alright,” Emily said, nodding with more confidence now. “Then I’m here for you, if this is what you need.”

“It is.”

“Then, Big Bear, here we come.”