Chapter 6
Six
Beckett
I’ve been in the apartment for a month, and there are still six boxes in the corner of the living room. Tomorrow is a rare day off, and I can finally unpack. Or so I tell myself every time I drag my shadow through the door at one in the morning.
I can’t shake the sound. Nineteen years old.
A car accident and a chest cavity that wouldn’t stop filling with blood.
I can still hear his mother’s scream. It’s that jagged, primal sound that rips through the sterile silence of a waiting room and settles in your marrow.
It never gets easier. Anyone who says it does is a liar or a sociopath.
I strip out of my clothes, toss them toward the hamper, and pull on a pair of black gym shorts. I don’t need sleep. Sleep is where the images wait.
I drag the boxing bag out from the corner and wrap my hands without sitting down. I plan to use one of the bedrooms as my gym, but it’s full of boxes, so for now, this is what I’ve got.
I hit the playlist and lay into the heavy bag first. The leather stings my knuckles, but I need to vent the initial adrenaline rush.
The bag swings back at me, and I meet it, jaw clenched. My shoulders burn, but I welcome it. Pain that makes sense is easier to bear.
Faces flash behind my eyes.
The CPR. The count. The way my arms shook by the end because I didn’t stop when I should have.
My mother’s cry cuts through next, ripping from her chest the night my father didn’t come home.
I punch harder.
The first patient I lost as a doctor. Seventy-six. Expected, but still devastating.
The second was younger. It was far from expected.
Tonight.
Nineteen.
I step back, breathing hard as sweat dampens the collar of my T-shirt. My hands are shaking now, adrenaline buzzing under my skin with nowhere to go.
I shove the boxing bag aside and climb onto the treadmill.
The belt hums to life beneath my feet.
I up the speed.
8.0.
9.0.
10.0.
Every stride is a memory I’m trying to outrun. My father’s face as he clutched his chest. The smell of the road as I gave him CPR and the ribs cracking under my hands. It’s a sound I’ve heard a thousand times since, but never that loud.
My lungs are screaming for air, and my sweat drips onto the belt, but I don’t stop. I can’t remember the last time I laughed. I don’t think I’ve felt anything but functional in years.
Suddenly, a sound cuts through the drums of the track.
Bang. Bang-Bang-Bang.
Someone is trying to put their fist through the front door.
I slow the belt to a crawl, then hit the stop button before wiping my face with a towel. Nobody ever knocks. I barely know the people on this floor because I’m gone before they wake and home after they’ve fallen asleep.
I pull the door open, ready to handle a fire or a break-in.
Instead, I find a woman.
She’s hunched over, one hand on the doorframe, sweating, and wearing… what the fuck are those on her feet?
“Can you turn down the—” She rears back, her eyes widening as she takes me in. They’re green and bright, even in the hallway light.
Her mouth opens, then closes again.
“No,” she says quietly.
I feel that split second when the world tilts and tries to rearrange itself into something that makes sense.
She squints at me, her head tipping slightly. “You’re…”
I wait.
“…the doctor. Oh. No. Absolutely not.”
It takes me another long second to place her before it finally clicks.
Hot yoga girl.
The recognition hits me like a bucket of cold water.
Fuck. Is she one of the crazy ones? Did she follow me home?
“You!” she hisses.
I glance behind me, just in case there’s another me standing there. “Me?”
“What are you doing here?” she demands.
I frown. “I live here. What are you doing here?”
She glares.
What the hell could I have done to deserve a look like that?
“Did you follow me home?”
“Follow you?” She lets out a jagged, hysterical laugh. “In my wildest, most morphine-addled dreams, Doctor, I didn’t think I’d find you behind this door. I came up here to find the person who replaced Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers was elderly! He shuffled!”
I have no idea who Mr. Rogers is, but that’s not my concern right now.
“Are you alright? You look like you’re about to pass out.”
“I am not all right! I am in pain!” She gestures wildly at herself, her face flushing a deep, brilliant crimson that has nothing to do with her back injury and everything to do with the fact that she’s wearing a bathrobe in front of the guy who saw her in spandex yesterday.
“Is there a gold medal you’re training for? ”
“I—what?”
“You’re running,” she snaps. “In my bedroom.”
I look past her, down the hall, then back at her. “I’m running in my apartment.”
“Yes,” she says slowly, as if she’s explaining something to a child. “And it sounds like you’re sprinting through my spine.”
She shifts but winces, still clearly in a lot of pain.
“You shouldn’t be up and around.”
“No,” she fires back. “I should be sleeping, but you’re reenacting the Hunger Games.”
“That’s not—”
“You replaced Mr. Rogers,” she says, cutting me off.
“Who?”
“Mr. Rogers,” she says. “He lived up here before you and shuffled.”
“I didn’t—”
“Now it’s you,” she continues. “Thud. Thud. Thud.”
I rub my jaw. “I was told these apartments have state-of-the-art soundproofing.”
She laughs again, but there’s no humor in it.
“Yes. They do. Except mine. Apparently, mine is special. My apartment is the only one in the building that didn’t get whatever miracle insulation the rest of you have,” she says.
“Management was very honest about it. Knocked money off the rent. Big selling point.”
“And you still took it?”
“Two years ago, the man above me shuffled.” She points to my chest. “Then you moved in.”
I lean against the doorframe. I can’t help it; the sight of her in those slippers is lifting my grim mood. It’s the first thing that’s made me want to smile in weeks.
“I haven’t heard a peep from the neighbors on either side,” I tell her.
“My apartment is the architectural glitch. The soundproofing stops where your ego begins. You’ve got to stop or at least run at a reasonable hour, you know, when people are actually awake.”
“I work shifts,” I explain, crossing my arms. My eyes dip down to her slippers again. “Sometimes late. I need the cardio to wind down.”
“Wind down? You’re revving up!” She tries to stand straighter. “I’m sorry your job is stressful, but I have a politician flipping off reporters tomorrow, and I can’t do my job if I’m hallucinating from lack of sleep.”
“Look,” I say, softening my voice. “I didn’t realize it was that loud, but maybe the soundproofing issue is something you should raise with maintenance or your landlord?”
“Oh, don’t you dare ‘logistics’ me, Doc,” she says, her eyes flashing. “I am too high on whatever you gave me yesterday to deal with a landlord. I am dealing with you.”
She takes a shaky step back and pulls her robe tighter.
“You’ll have to imagine me storming away because I can’t physically do it right now.”
“Wait.” I step into the hall. “Are you okay? You really shouldn’t be up and around too much.”
“I know!” she shouts, turning toward the stairs.
“Take the elevator,” I call out, concerned. “The stairs will kill your back.”
“Again, I know.”
Her pink slippers shuffle across the carpet.
“I’m thirty-five years old,” I mutter, dragging a hand down my face. “I should not be this rattled by a woman in slippers.” I start toward her. “Let me help.”
“Please don’t, Doc,” she says, her hand on the railing as she prepares to descend. She looks back over her shoulder. “Do me a favor and run on a soft surface. That’s how you can help. Goodnight.”
I watch her go, the pink fluff of her slippers disappearing down the stairwell, one agonizing step at a time.