Page 9 of Near Miss

One of her eyebrows rises, followed by the shrug of one shoulder. “I don’t.”

“Maybe that’s because you’ve never seen me kick.”

A laugh—it’s really more a cackle—tumbles from her lips. Her eyes are wide, and she looks amused. “Well, if the general populous is to be believed, I’ll consider myself lucky for that.”

“Ouch.” I say it, but I don’t feel it. I think I feel lighter than I have in months.

She cocks her head, eyes flitting back and forth between mine and the volunteer badge. “I’m going up to inpatient recovery. There are a few post-ops I want to follow up on. All adults. It’svisiting hours. If you want to talk to people who might actually care and don’t want to spend all afternoon straining your vocal chords to sound like a cartoon dog, you’re welcome to come with me. You just can’t come into the room until they say it’s okay.”

I scrub my jaw when really I feel like pressing a fist to my chest, so it stops my heart from hammering against my rib cage. My resting heart rate is usually a lot lower than this, but it’s only the second time she’s met me, and it’s the second time she’s been nicer to me than almost anyone else on the planet. “You haven’t told me your name.”

“You never asked.” She shrugs again. The doors to the elevator open on four, but neither of us gets out. “Greer.”

“Greer,” I repeat. “Do you think the adults like story time?”

“Depends on how good your Chase impression is.” Her voice is deadpan. Raspy. I feel it in my chest—strolling across my rib cage and planting itself there, kicking its little feet right alongside the still-too-fast beating of my heart.

I forget I ever wanted to be alone.

Greer

I think there’s bile in my hair.

I’m not really sure. I got paged to look at a liver during a trauma to see if it was salvageable, and when I leaned in—everything went wrong.

Trauma isn’t my thing, fortunately—I think I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime.

But that didn’t change the fact that organs perforated, blood sprayed, and things ended up in my hair that didn’t belong there because I hadn’t bothered to tuck my ponytail under my scrub cap.

I had no one to blame but myself for that one. I’d spent approximately one hour in my own bed last night before getting a page that there was a match for one of my patients who desperately, desperately needed a new pancreas and kidneys.

That took about seven hours, and I was overtired and somewhat delusional, if the low-hanging ponytail and the fact I invited a football player I’ve only met once to do rounds with me were any indication.

He was good with the patients—I’ll give him that. I imagine he’s probably good with people in general. A smile like that, eyes that are wholly focused on you, so you know he’s listening.

Only one of my patients, Jer, was a football fan, and it turned out he cheered for a team in Philadelphia, so it was sort of a moot point in terms of the grand reputation rebuild I proposed it to be when I was running off three hours of combined sleep. But Beckett sat with him, and they talked stats and rumours and all sorts of things I don’t care about and don’t plan to care about while I finished my rounds.

I left him there when I got the page about the lacerated liver.

I could have showered here, but I have an entire twenty-four hours off, pending no organs suddenly becoming available, and I wanted out of the hospital as soon as possible. My sister gave me one of those wax sticks for your hair to keep in my bag so I could “look good” during long hours here. It’s come in handy a total of zero times, but today I wet a brush, slicked the whole thing back, and tried to pull off a bubble braid so maybe no one would notice.

I’m not entirely sure it had the desired effect, and I didn’t drive today so someone somewhere is going to be subject to medical waste when they sit beside me on the subway, but the people of the Toronto Transit Commission have definitely seen worse.

The night air hits me when the revolving door finally opens, and I tip my head back, inhaling. I don’t always mind when I get stuck here longer than I should, but tonight, I just need my own space and I really, really want to go home.

But Beckett Davis stands there just beyond the curb, one leg kicked up against a white truck, hat on backwards, hair curling against the nape of his neck, and one of the lampposts shining down on him like it’s a fucking runway.

“Hey, I just wanted to say thank you for today.” He’s smiling at me and it’s one of those stupid, moony smiles I bet people meltfor: full lips framing lovely teeth, and one dimple popping in his cheek. His eyes—an otherworldly green—drop to my chest, but then he grins again. “Cool shirt.”

“What?” I pluck the worn cotton between my fingertips and look down. I don’t even remember what I’m wearing. An ancient, worn cotton shirt my sister gave me that says “Dorsia,” the name of a fake restaurant from my favourite movie, in faded lettering. “Oh. Yeah. I’m sorry, were you waiting here for me?”

“No, I was hanging out with Jer. We were watching some old highlights. The nurses kicked me out about five minutes ago.” He pushes off the truck and cocks his head. “Can I take you for dinner or for a drink? It’s the polite thing to do.”

Those are just words. Just something a sort of acquaintance might offer to another as thanks for helping them out. But they aren’t, not really. At least not to me.

They’re also things you do with someone you might be trying to date. My heart beats in my chest, but not really filling itself to its full potential or capacity because it exists in this little cage I’ve drawn around it.

I don’t date. But I don’t know Beckett Davis enough to tell him that. I cross my arms over my chest, protection and deflection all at once. “Maybe you shouldn’t worry about being polite and do what you actually want to do.”

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