TWENTY-TWO
JORDIE
Of all the ways to spend a day off, sitting in a hospital gynecology waiting room ranks just above cleaning hair out of the shower drain and just below helping your ex move.
I’ve done this before. More times than I can count. Doesn’t make it easier. Doesn’t even dull the edges.
It’s simply another little grim ritual. Like tax season. Or waxing.
The procedural form crinkles in my lap. At this point, I could recite it like a sad party trick: Deep Infiltrative Endometriosis scan. Transvaginal ultrasound to assess extent of endometrial disease.
Which is just a sterile way of saying: Let’s go spelunking in your insides and see which organ the endo’s claimed like a particularly ambitious colonial power.
Bladder? Bowel? Maybe my spine this time, for variety.
Maybe they’ll even find the sock I lost in high school. Or the will to live I misplaced five years into this godforsaken nightmare.
I skim the checklist, ticking boxes.
? Pelvic pain? Check.
? Bowel symptoms? Check.
? Painful sex? Who knows, it’s been long enough to qualify for sainthood.
? Disruption of quality of life? Try annihilation.
? Sense of humor slowly dissolving into a puddle of nihilism and rage? Not listed, weirdly.
My eyes glance at Dubliners, my latest book acquisition as of three weeks ago, and my designated company for today. Because I didn’t tell Leith or Callum about this scan.
As if on cue, my phone buzzes.
CALLUM
Finishing work now. Delivering referral forms to clinics, then off. Hang out?
I stare at the screen, thumb hovering. There’s this familiar low ache in my heart—the same one that used to pulse every time Alec’s time off meant sitting in waiting rooms. Wasted hours.
Bad coffee. Him checking the time. Eventually, you stop asking someone to come if all they do is watch the clock.
I don’t even want Leith here for it. Him delaying flights, canceling investor meetings just to sit here.
Don’t want that for Callum either.
I hate the idea of being the reason someone starts resenting the minutes they lose.
JORDIE
Out. Grocery run. Call Leith. He’s dying to show off his new whiskey room.
There. Two birds. One lie.
I drag my eyes back to the form.
Bowel prep? Yes. Last night’s laxative cocktail tasted equal parts warm celery water and regret.
Consent for IUD reinsertion? Yes. Since the last one bailed three months ago.
I chew my lip, scribbling my name at the bottom in a messy, barely legible signature that says, “Sure, torture me again. What’s one more time?”
I tip my head back, counting ceiling tiles—those ugly, speckled squares every hospital buys in bulk. One, two . . . I keep going, as if reaching a higher number might take the edge off the waiting.
Sixteen tiles in, a throat clears.
I blink, dropping my gaze.
Callum stands there. Hands in his pockets, patient chart tucked under one arm, messenger bag slung over a shoulder. ID clipped to his chest. Mouth curved in a familiar, unimpressed smirk.
“Well, well, well,” he drawls, eyebrows raised. “Funny place to grab bananas . . . Mitchell.”
Well. That lie went up in flames faster than my last attempt at a papaya smoothie cleanse. (Tragic. Do not recommend.)
Across the room, Callum hands off a referral form to the admin officer. Meanwhile, I’m vibrating at a frequency only bats can hear. My leg won’t stop bouncing. Anxiety, maybe. About the scan. Or getting caught. Honestly, even my body’s confused about what it’s panicking over.
Callum heads my way, and I sit up straighter.
I should tell him to go. Prove I can handle this alone. God knows I’ve done it before.
But the truth is, I’m scared. More than I let myself admit.
Before I can decide to let him stay or evict him, Callum drops into the empty seat beside me.
“I can keep you company,” he says, voice low, eyes soft. “Or I can wait outside. Your call.”
His tone is casual, but there’s no pressure in it. Just a quiet offer. As if he’s really okay with either answer. As if my autonomy is sacred.
“It’s only a scan,” I mumble, trying to convince myself more than him. “You don’t have to—”
“I know.” His gaze flicks to my restless knee. “But I’m here anyway.”
Callum places his hand on my knee. The warmth spreads immediately. Through fabric, through muscle, straight into that hollow space behind my ribs where panic usually lives. My breathing evens out. My leg stops moving as if his touch flipped a switch.
Traitorous body.
I stare at his hand. At the long fingers. The faint blue vein near his wrist. The gentle, unassuming weight of it.
Now I’m nervous for reasons I don’t understand.
“In a minute,” I murmur, a nervous laugh curling around the words, “you’re going to hear my real name.
” It exists only in official records. Medical charts, uni transcripts, the occasional regret-filled admin form.
Everywhere else, I’m Jordie Mitchell. Period.
Even in published papers. “Just don’t laugh, okay? ”
Callum glances sideways. “Why would I laugh?”
“I hate it. Hate it,” I stress. “It sounds like a washed-up country singer who plays Thursday nights at the pub and complains about her third divorce between sets.”
His brow quirks, amused. “I’m sure it’s not that bad.”
“It is,” I say, smiling despite myself. “Only my mother calls me that. She picked it—thought it sounded elegant.” The words come too fast. “She also thought marrying a farmer would be some rustic homestead fantasy. Didn’t last. She left when I was nine.
Said it wasn’t the farm life she wanted.
But then Dad died, and I was sent to live with her.
Turns out, it wasn’t just the farm life she didn’t want. ”
Callum doesn’t say anything right away. Just looks at me with that deep, steady gaze that makes it feel like he’s cataloguing every word I tried to make sound casual.
His jaw tenses, barely noticeable. Maybe he wants to say something. Maybe he wants to call bullshit on me pretending it doesn’t hurt.
“Anyway,” I wave a hand, trying to cut through the weight in the air, “I ramble when I’m nervous.”
He exhales, slow. Then, almost as an offering, “My Chinese name’s Hán Wěi.”
“Yeah? I’ve heard your niece and nephew call you that.” My lips tilt. “What’s it mean?”
“Great. Extraordinary,” he says sheepishly. “Mā had high hopes.”
I snort. “No wonder you’re so arrogant.”
Before he can rally a comeback, the nurse calls out across the room: “Jordanna Marie Mitchell?”
I wince. “That’s me.”
Callum’s hand slips away, and I feel the absence of his touch more than I’m willing to admit.
Stupidly, it takes everything in me not to reach for it again.
I settle on the table, paper crinkling in the too-quiet room. The stirrups are cold against my skin, and I try not to shiver. I glance at the doctor as every instinct in my body screams, “run.”
“I understand you’ve always had Dr. Krishna,” the nurse said, too apologetically. “But she’s been called into an emergency. It’s Dr. Roberts today.”
Now I’m staring at a man with the bedside manner of a printer jam. He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t look at me. Just the bored efficiency of someone who’s done this a thousand times and never once cared.
It’s him or nothing.
Today or five weeks from now.
And five weeks means another cycle of bleeding through pajamas, heating pads duct-taped to my abdomen, canceling shifts, Googling “how to pain-manage your entire personality.”
It means another pathetic dread of watching my life shrink down to the size of one corner of my bed.
And honestly, I don’t know how much smaller I can make myself.
“Take a deep breath,” he says flatly.
The gel is cold. The probe is colder. And then—pressure.
A jagged, blooming pain rips through me, sharp enough to punch the air from my lungs. My back arches off the table.
Fuck—
“Relax,” Roberts mutters, “you’re making it harder for yourself.”
The nurse leans in, her hand finding mine. “Hey. Squeeze if you need to, okay?”
He angles the probe deeper.
Pain radiates through my pelvis, down my legs; every movement drags my insides across broken glass. Cramps build. Spots edge into my vision.
“Wait—” I choke out. “It hurts.”
“It shouldn’t hurt,” Roberts says, clipped. “Just breathe.”
I am breathing, you bastard.
But it’s fast. Shallow. I can hear my own ragged breaths echoing loudly in the room.
Slow down, I tell myself. Hyperventilate, and your CO? drops. Respiratory alkalosis. Dizziness. Syncope. You know this. You wrote a fucking paper on this.
“Please wait.” My voice cracks as I fight back tears. “Stop.”
But he keeps going. I feel a tearing sensation that has me crying out despite myself. I can’t stay still; my body jerking involuntarily.
The nurse bristles. “Doctor, maybe we should stop. She needs analgesia and—”
“She needs to stay still,” he snaps. “Miss Mitchell, if you’d stop lifting your hips, I’d be done much faster.”
Another shift of the probe rips a choked sound from my throat.
Tears burn hot, blurring my vision.
Jordie. Pursed-lip breathing. Now!
My lips try to form the shape, but the pain’s too big, swallowing every thought whole. Instead, I bite down on my lower lip until I taste blood.
All I can do is tremble as the room tilts, my body fighting itself, my mind screaming breathe, breathe, breathe.
It’s not enough.
“I’m—” my throat closes, “I’m going to be sick.”
The nurse fumbles for a sick bag, but it’s too late. I turn my head, retching, and the sickening splash of vomit hits the floor, echoing like a slap in the small room. The acrid smell fills the air almost instantly, and I squeeze my eyes shut, humiliation burning hotter than the pain.
“I’m so sor—” My words dissolve into a sob I can’t catch in time.
“It’s okay,” the nurse says, hand brushing my forehead. “It’s not your fault, sweetheart. We’ll get this cleaned up.”
Roberts huffs, pulling the probe out as if I’m the inconvenience. “If you’re done,” he says, disgust curling his lip. “I’ll proceed with the IUD insertion.”
I’m curled on my side, sweat-drenched, tear-streaked, bile still on my tongue, and he’s already reaching for the next instrument.
Then his voice cuts through it, flat. Unbothered. “Are we ready?”
Something inside me splinters—but I don’t break.
I straighten, jaw clenched, spine stiff as I roll back onto my back. My hands curl around the edges of the table, gripping hard.
And then I stare at the ceiling, at the familiar, ugly, speckled tiles.
One, two, three . . .
Count them, Jordie.
Count them until you’re somewhere else.