Page 3 of Alarm Fatigue

“For what? For being late? Okay, I am sorry I am late. Or did you mean to apologize for existing?”

I am not touching that at all. “How did this even happen?” I ask him.

“Apparently I lost a bet.”

“Nice. That is just what every woman wants to hear.”

I have to admit that part of me enjoys this bickering thing Mark and I have going here. It is a different dynamic than at work. After the last nine years of numbing myself with overworking, comfort foods and streaming romcoms and crime series, it kind of feels good to feel. Even if what I feel is anger, annoyance and indignation. And I cannot help admitting to myself, in that moment, that I do not mind the chance to see him like this, in a light blue dress shirt and slacks, and out of his usual scrubs. It somehow makes it more obvious than usual that he works out.

Ugh, why does he have to be so hot?

“One coffee then.” With that he starts toward the counter, without offering to get me anything. I think maybe he realized this when he turns back. “I will sit with you and you can pretend to enjoy yourself and we can get this over with.”

“Thanks.” I say back, because what else can I say? But even that seems risky—a possible opening for some horrid quip from him. Thankfully, he is already out of my personal space.

As Mark walks from the table, I think about the fact that he did not offer to get me anything. I have to assume that this oversight was out of shock rather than rudeness. He was clearly not expecting to see me any more than I was expecting to see him. He may be infuriating, but he was likely raised better than to be outright insulting, outside a medical setting, anyway. I do not know too much about his background other than my late husband mentioning that Mark had lost both of his parents at a young age. Also that most of his family live overseas.

In the hospital it is understood that social niceties are frequently left at the doorway of a patient’s room, particularly in the setting of critical care events. Mark is no exception to this rule, at least in my experience. He does, however, take this to an extreme. Over the time I have known him he has barked orders at me, dressed me down in front of the rest of the staff for not reading his mind, and even made me cry once. At least I cried my tears in the privacy of the stairwell, until Eli found me there. I have not yet given Mark the satisfaction of demonstrating to him how much he could wound my pride.

I close my eyes and take a breath. When I open them again, I see he is still waiting in line and I take in the back of him. If only he was not so irresistible to look at, maybe I could be more assertive with him. I do have a weakness for attractive men. It goes back to my own father. He was so handsome on the outside, but his insides were wired to be cruel. The better looking a man is, the more he is able to unnerve me for reasons that have less to do with attraction and more to do with feeling off balance. As it is, I think of everything I wish I had said to Mark over the years to make it clear how much he irritates me. Not just today, but truly, all the days I have known him.

How is this my life?

This was an evening that was supposed to be about me going out into the world again. It was not supposed to be an exercise in aversion tolerance. So, for now, I am not going to let him get under my skin and certainly not going to allow him to encourage me to stoop to his level.

I do wonder, though, how he did not realize that he was going to be meeting me? When he first laid eyes on me tonight, he looked very unsettled, even if for the briefest of moments, and I have to admit, I enjoyed that. I do not mind the idea of making him uncomfortable for a change, at even if it is just this once. In any case, I am not sure who set him up, but from what I can tell, he did not know he was meeting me.

When he turns around to come back to the table, I pretend to be engaged with something diverting on my phone. Amalie may be like a sister to me, but she is going to owe me big time for this humiliation she has orchestrated, accidental or not. It was her idea to get me to have a social life again, and it was she that rallied my daughters into pushing me to participate in this relaunch of me into the dating world. For this fiasco, she will owe me a very expensive bottle of wine, or a day at a spa, or maybe this is even worth a trip to the Caribbean on her dime. I look down and see my screen saver, an image of my granddaughters, dressed alike by their mother, posed for a picture, with their little brother in the center, asleep. For now, this gives me the resolve I need to act better than I feel.

“Rachel.” He has returned, coffee in hand, and is looking down at me. “I should have offered to get you something. I’m sorry.” His tone infers he is not sorry at all as he takes the seat opposite me at the suddenly too small cafe table.

“I would have been suspicious if you had offered me any type of courtesy, actually. You have not offered me any before, in all the years I have known you. What would possibly be different about today?”

To my surprise, he looks briefly ashamed, but it is gone so fast, I am not certain that was the look he was giving.

“What I cannot believe is that this is my first date in years, and it is with you, of all people.” Damn, there I go saying more than I meant to.

I look away from him in that moment, more out of self-protection than anything else. It is not just that he is ridiculously hot, there is something about Mark Levy that throws me off whenever he gets too close. He has had this effect on me ever since I first met him. His glowering and brooding intensity tend to make me feel extra edgy, like I cannot find my footing. With most men, I can shut it off, but with Mark, it feels like something is underneath my reactions, something more elemental than my past coming to haunt my present. Not for the first time, I start to wonder if there is something else between Mark and me that leads me to react to him in such a strong way.

Nope, that is not a safe line of thinking at all. No, I think to myself, let’s push those thoughts right down. I am just confusing my expectations of the evening with the fact that he is someone who is arrogant and rude, so naturally he would make me extra nervous, in a completely plutonic way.

It is then that I realize my mistake. As much as I groaned about going on this date, a small part of me could not help but look forward to the possibility of going out, meeting someone new, and maybe having a good time. Like a normal, well-adjusted person. Part of me has a romantic heart and fell for the hope, the chance, however slim, of enjoying myself outside of my immediate family and usual carefully orchestrated surroundings. So here I was, accidentally hopeful and dressed up for Mark Levy: physician, colleague and consummate asshole. It makes me so angry at myself that I feel increasingly like lashing out at him.

He takes a sip of his coffee and glances at his watch. Classy. Couldn’t he at least try to make conversation? Can’t he be bothered to treat me like the woman that I actually am? Or at least with the respect due to me as a colleague from work? Although that ship probably sailed with the lipstick choice.

And that is when he goes for the jugular.

“Look, how long do you think we need to keep up with this…date?” He grimaces at the word, “I can still catch a part of the game if I leave in the next thirty minutes.”

Here I was, resolved not to let him ruffle me, to treat him with the politeness that he cannot be bothered to show me, and then he had to open his mouth. It is bad enough for him to talk the way that he does at work, under the guise of being ‘The Doctor in The Room,’ but now I have had enough.

“You know what, Mark?” I stand up, and a few people turn around and chance a look at me and frown at him. Good.

“How about we call it? Time of death, 19:43. You can catch the whole game.”

With that, I drape my coat over my shoulder as I saunter right past him, and out the door. I realize as I walk by his chair that of everything that happened this evening, this part, telling him off, was the most fantastic thing that has happened to me in a while. All I have to do is make it to the door without tripping and this crappy night can have a perfect ending after all.

Chapter 3

---