Page 23 of Dr. Fellow

“I really hope this isn’t your office,” she comments, choosing the chair directly beneath the window.

I take a seat across from her in the only other chair. “Technically I don’t have one at the moment. I’ve been working on converting the guest room, but it’s not done yet. Funnily enough, I have pretty much everything done, except for buying a desk.”

When I moved back into my childhood home in December, I decided to turn one of the two bedrooms into an office. I figured that it didn’t make much sense to have a guest room when I’m never going to have guests, but now I’m wondering if I made the decision too soon.

“So where do you do all of your stupid doctor things, then?”

Unable to help myself, I chuckle.

“At the hospital, you know, where I do my dumb little surgeries,” I answer, repeating a phrase she once said to me.

The words come back to me like the lyrics of a song I haven’t heard in years, though I doubt she even remembers them because she never looked twice at me. I think she views all doctors as an annoyance that she has to tolerate, but whether I wanted to or not, I’ve always seen her. Maybe not in the way I do now, but it’s hard to forget a woman like Morgan.

“If I’m studying at home,” I add, sipping the flavored hot water, “I’ll usually just sit here or on the couch.”

“I never took you for someone so informal,” she says, slowly drawing circles on the rim of her mug with her index finger.

I offer her a teasing smile. “Yeah, the tattoo-covered arm really screams formal, huh?”

Morgan scoffs as her eyes rake over the ink I’ve had since I was eighteen. “You know what I mean.”

“Actually, I don’t.”

Given the way I grew up, the word formal isn’t something I would ever associate with. That’s mostly because I barely had the money to buy basic necessities, let alone purchase anything nice for myself. But now that I have more money than I know what to do with, I still don’t relate to the word in the slightest.

A flush blooms on her cheeks. “It just seems like you’re the kind of guy who likes control and order. You’re so . . . serious all of the time.”

“And you’re not.”

Morgan is playful, and passionate, and frustrating—the complete opposite of anything I’ve ever had, or thought I would want in a woman. And yet, every conversation we have just keeps drawing me in—she’s just so damn captivating.

“Not if I can help it.” She grins, settling more comfortably into her chair.

I study her. “Why not?”

She hesitates and peers down into her tea like my simple question caught her off guard. She’s quiet for a moment before she looks up at me.

“I think it’s because the pain and trauma I see at work reminds me that I’m alive. It gives me the perspective to leave the hospital and truly enjoy life. Because I see so much of it end, that if I didn’t, everything I witnessed would be a waste.”

Her voice breaks on the last word, and I watch her throat work to hold back emotion. Her eyes dart to the window, focusing intently on the street light in front of my house.

Clearly something happened at work that caused her to feel this way, something that pushed her over the edge. I want to reach out and touch her, to let her know that I understand. I might choose to express the sentiment differently in my daily life, but there’s no one who can empathize more than me.

“I like that about you by the way . . . it’s refreshing.”

She glances back at me curiously, like she does’t quite believe my admission. “It’s very different from you.”

“We all process death and trauma differently.”

Neither one of us is wrong for the way we handle our life experiences, and I appreciate that she shared this with me when she originally said she wasn’t interested in talking.

Morgan sinks her teeth into her plump bottom lip. I can tell she wants to ask me something, but she’s holding herself back.

“Yes?”

She fidgets, drawing her legs up almost defensively. “What made you become so serious, then?”

I take a slow sip of the tea, trying to determine how much I should tell her . . . and why I want to tell her anything at all.

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