A Love Like This (45 page)

“Working a lot.” I tried to keep my voice
even and not sound too sad. “We’re both working a lot.” I was at a
loss for what to say. I didn’t want to talk about it, but I didn’t
want to lie either.

“You do look very tired, dear. Are you
eating right? You seem a little pale.”

“I’m eating.” I was living on meat
sandwiches and the cafeteria salad bar.

My mouth quirked at her sweet concern, but
then, as I casually glanced from Louie back to the page, I froze
still as death, my breath leaving in a rush.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the image
in front of me. It was a bunch of locks on a fence over a river and
at its center, and the camera zoomed in a particular one adorned
with a light green ribbon.
Ryan & Julia
was
engraved in cursive silver with
May 26
written
in the same font, one line below it. It was our wedding date.

I sat up straighter in the chair and
examined the picture more closely. The focus on the lock blurred
the background, but a young woman, dark hair blowing in the wind
was standing further down on the fence. I’d recognize that profile
anywhere. The Eiffel Tower rose in the distance. Now I knew where
she’d been all this time. My face turned hot as fire.

“Ryan, honey, are you all right?” Louie
asked. “You’re so flushed all of a sudden.” She reached out and
touched her cool, boney fingers to my forehead then my cheek.

I looked at her face briefly as I registered
her voice, but didn’t really hear what she said. My eyes returned
to read the headline.
The Locks of Love by Julia
Matthews.

She’d never written for the magazine before,
but that wasn’t what shocked me. I snapped the issue shut and
placed it on top of the desk, rising and shoving my hand around the
back of my neck.

“I gotta go back to work,” I said with an
abruptness I couldn’t quell, and jumped from the chair.

“Ryan, you look ill. Sit down.”

I shook my head. “No, thank you, Louie. I
really need to go. Have a good night.”

She looked puzzled when I turned to leave
and called after me. “Okay. Bye-bye, dear. Don’t take so long to
stop by next time.”

I walked on unsteady legs as I made my way
to the backside of the hospital, not sure why I hadn’t thought of
it before this. So that was that? Julia wasn’t coming back? Not for
months at least. Meredith had finally gotten her way and shipped
her halfway around the world. Blood pounded in my veins so loud I
could hear it rush in my ears, and it only made my head hurt worse.
She used our problems to pick up where she left off last year. The
bright lights down the long hallway I was striding through blurred,
and looking at the floor, I walked faster, unsure what the fuck I
was going to do next.

*****

Two days later, I’d done nothing but work
straight through by choice. I didn’t even care that Jane was there.
I just didn’t want to go home. I didn’t want to stop and think. I
felt betrayed and abandoned by the person who promised me forever,
and now, I didn’t give a rats ass if I had one more day, let alone
forever. She didn’t love me or she wouldn’t have done what she did.
The words bounded out in my head over and over again.

We were busy and I was thankful, but I was
running on fumes. It was the weekend, and we had a lot of drunk
driver accidents, more of the gang fights, and a guy who
accidentally nailed his hand to a two by four. He was calmly
sitting on the table telling us about how his brother-in-law took a
jigsaw to the wall to cut out the chunk of wood he was nailed to.
He sat in front of me with a nail through the back of his hand and
the wood still attached. I ordered IV fluids just in case he went
into shock. It would hurt like hell to remove it. I stared at it,
carefully turning his hand trying to determine if it would hurt
less to try and remove the wood first or see if I could push it up
enough to cut off the head of the nail on the top of his hand.
Either way, it had to be pulled through.

“I can take it, doc.”

My eyes met his without wavering. “It’s
going to hurt like a mother when this comes out. I think we should
sedate you.”

The dude was huge; bald with long stringy
sideburns and big beer gut. He was sweaty and smelled like dirty
socks. “Look man,” he protested, “I wasn’t sedated when this fucker
went in, I ain’t gonna be sedated when it comes out.”

This dickhead was a glutton for punishment,
but whatever, I was too exhausted to argue. I put my hands up in
resignation.
Whatever, asshole
. “Fine. I warned you.”

Kari and another nurse, Nancy, assisted.
While Nancy was unwrapping some of the surgical tools and
assembling the materials for the sutures, I took Kari aside,
whispering so only she heard me.

“Stinky over here will be squealing like a
pig in about ten minutes, so have a syringe of morphine handy.”

She held back a giggle and nodded her head.
“Got it.”

He was at least two hundred fifty pounds,
and I doubted that Kari and Nancy together weighed that much. The
brother-in-law was still in the room, and I asked him to help hold
his friend down after we strapped his arms and legs on the table. I
had him lean all his weight across sweaty guy’s right shoulder
while Nancy got the choice job of leaning across his thighs. I
pushed on the wood side to see if I could ease it up enough to get
the pliers around it and not pull out chunks of his skin.

“Doc, why don’t you just saw off the wood?
Take it off in pieces around the nail?”

“It isn’t safe. I’m not going to risk
cutting your hand in half. This is going to take a while.”

I pushed hard on the wood and clamped around
the nail head with the pliers, pulling on with subtle pressure. I
needed to raise it up enough to get the cutters under it to remove
the head. I’d then grab the wood and yank it out as fast as I
could. The man hissed and bucked on the table as I worked to get
enough space to slide the instrument in. Sweat started to bead on
my forehead. We all had on gowns, gloves, and eye guards, making it
hotter than a sauna. It was a tight fit, but I finally got the
clamp on it and began to manually turn the small round blade, like
cranking a can opener. Slowly, it began to grind through the metal
shank of the nail.

“Fuckin’ A! That hurts like a bitch!” The
patient began a steady stream of cuss words. I kept cranking, the
muscles in my arms straining with the pressure I had to use to help
the blade go deeper into the metal, and my fingers getting numb
from holding the instruments so tight for so long. Finally, the
head of the nail popped off into the hand Kari had positioned to
catch it.

I dropped the device on the metal table and
tried to work the feeling back into my hands. “Are you okay?”

“I’m golden.” I could see his bravado start
to wan even if his words didn’t.

“Last chance for juice.” I looked blandly at
the fat guy in front of me. His machismo act was just making my job
harder. “If you thought that hurt, it was like a kiss compared to
what’s coming.”

Sweat rolled down the man’s face in rivers,
and his shirt was wet with it.

Kari was washing his skin with iodine
soap.

“There is no shame in taking the pain meds.
This is a nasty injury.”

“I said, no, doc.”

“Okay, hold him down. Kari, help Nancy.”

I made eye contact with the man still lying
across his chest, letting him know this was it. I was through
screwing with this guy. If he wanted to be tough, I might as well
get it the hell over with. I was too tired and too hot to keep
fucking around. I wrapped my gloved hands around the wood block
with the nail embedded in the center.

“Okay, on three.” My upper body and back
muscles flexed. “One!” I yanked with all my might, and the man
screamed like I was sawing off his hand. The nail dragged through
his flesh with a sickening suction when it finally came out.

“You sorry fuck! You said on three!
Son-of-a-bitch! Jesus!”

I moved away, peeling off my gloves, and
putting on a new pair. I was bored with this stupid jerk. Blood
oozed from the wound on both sides, and I examined it. It looked
clean.

“My hand is on fire!”

I looked at him, expressionless, my tone
brooking no argument when I addressed the nurses. “Kari, apply
topical on both wounds. Nancy, 100 mils morphine. The syringe is on
the tray.”

Her eyes got big and round. “What?”

“I said 100 milligrams of morphine. Put it
in the IV.”

Kari looked at me and held up a hand to
Nancy. “Doctor, may I speak with you for just a second before we
get started?”

She placed some items in the trash and I
joined her in the corner of the room.

“Ryan. 100 will kill him. 15 maybe, because
he’s so big.”

“Holy fuck,” I murmured, the gravity of what
I’d almost done hitting me hard. “I meant 10 mils.”

She turned and held up ten fingers to Nancy,
who nodded and placed the syringe in the IV port.

I didn’t say another word as I sutured up
the wound, and though unknown by anyone but me, my hands were
shaking.

Afterward, I ripped the gloves, mask, and
eye guard off and left the room in search of Jameson. He was my
attending and he’d decide if he’d take it to the chief of staff. I
found him in his office and knocked lightly on the glass.

He waved me in. I slumped into one of the
chairs, my foot bouncing nervously. I felt weird, my hands were
numb, and I was jittery like I’d just snorted a long line of
cocaine and utterly exhausted at the same time.

“Yes, Dr. Matthews? Still having trouble
with Miss Cooper?”

I shook my head. “I almost overdosed a
patient.” I held up my hands and they shook like a leaf. “I can’t
feel my hands, I feel like I’m about to jump out of my skin.”

Dr. Jameson put up a calming hand. “What was
the drug?”

“IV morphine. I can’t believe I just did
that! I’ve never done anything close to that irresponsible before.
Am I out of the program?”

“Does anyone else know about this?”

“Yes, two of the nurses. They caught it in
time.”

“So no one was hurt?”

“No.” My knee continued to bounce
rapidly.

“Ryan, calm down. You’re overworked. How
long have you been on?”

“I don’t know. Since Tuesday evening?”

“It’s Friday morning. So, no, you’re not out
of the program, but you are restricted from working more than
twenty-four hours. It’s irresponsible and the hospital would be
liable. Are you on anything? Be straight with me.”

“No! I don’t sleep,” I blurted. “I can’t…
seem to sleep.”

“Like I said, you’re overworked. I’ve seen
it happen before. Your dedication is admirable, but go take a week
off.” He pulled out a prescription pad, wrote a scrip, and leaned
forward to hand it to me. I reached for it, glancing down at the
words. “That’s an order.”

“But…”

“Ryan, stop talking before I reconsider
keeping you in the program. You have a brilliant future ahead of
you. Don’t screw it up. Fill that at the hospital pharmacy and go
home.” He turned back to the report he was working on. “That’s
all.”

I felt like my ass was glued to the chair as
I stared at him, stunned that I hadn’t just ruined my entire
career. I finally stood and walked slowly from the room. I’d go to
the pharmacy for the meds, but then I was heading straight to one
of the sleeping rooms. I was still reeling from the knowledge my
wife was in Paris, and I didn’t think I had enough physical stamina
left for an hour on the subway.

Suddenly, it hit me that I had an entire
week at my disposal. A week where I couldn’t avoid the subject of
Julia from bombarding my mind, and it all became so clear that I
didn’t want to avoid her anymore. A slow smile spread across my
face. With the help of the sleeping pills Dr. Jameson prescribed
and the knowledge that, when I woke, I would get on a plane and get
my fucking life back; I was going to sleep like a baby.

*****

It felt so good. I was floating and warm,
and Julia was with me. Nothing could be more perfect. I could see
her face smiling down at me, her green eyes all soft and filled
with love as she looked into mine. Her hair fell in a dark curtain
around her face, tumbling over her shoulders; tickling my neck. Her
fingers pushed my shirt up, and I reached up to tangle my fingers
in the silky strands.

We were outside and the sun was shining; the
vivid blue sky, dotted with fluffy cumulous clouds, created a
brilliant backdrop. She was so beautiful and she smelled amazing.
Her perfume wafted around me and I inhaled it deeper, wanting her
very essence.

“
Baby, we have to go to class,” I
murmured regretfully, sitting up slightly, my hand reaching out to
pull on her shirt; only it was my T-shirt. It was almost summer
vacation, and I’d be going home to Chicago and Julia to Kansas
City. We’d fallen asleep in my dorm room late last night after I’d
finally caved and told her I loved her. I’d wanted her for so long,
and I regretted every second I waited. Pretending to love someone
you don’t is hard, but pretending not to love someone you do… is
fucking torture.

She shook her head and bit her lip, grinding
her hips down against mine. I was already hard, and I wanted to
move with her, needing more pressure, my body craving hers. I sat
up, my chin tilting, reaching up for her mouth, and my fingers
curled up her thighs and then around her ass, pulling her tighter
against me.

“
I’ve dreamed of this forever…” I
whispered with my eyes closed. Her fingers slid up my arms and into
my hair as our hips ground together, the fabric separating our
bodies not hiding her heat or my raging erection. Julia moaned
softly, and her breath rushed out over my face, her mouth hovering
over mine. Any second now, I’d kiss her for the first time. “Since
I first saw you, I’ve wanted to touch you like this.” I reached up
to cup both sides of her face, then combed my fingers through her
hair. I stopped moving when the hair in my hands was short; just
hovering on her shoulders and thinner. Where was the luxurious,
thick hair I’d dreamed about raining over my body? My fingers drew
it out, mentally cataloging the differences.