Page 3 of A Doctor's Promise

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If he could put his nerves down to that morning’s meeting, the clinical trial, then at least he wouldn’t need to focus on how fragile his facade had felt when he had been in the Relatives’ Room with Edie. How just one look from her had felt so intimate it had been as though her bluebell eyes had seen right inside him; right through his wall and his disguise, right to the ball of hurt he carried so closely to his heart.

Finn knew deep down he could sign the trial papers and conduct the research if he put his mind to it. It wasn’tthatthrowing his mind askew, no matter how much he wished it was. It was her; Edie. She’d been in his life for less than ten minutes and already she’d gotten under his skin.

He looked at the shafts of light from the window filtering either side of his desk, uniform and straight. The particles of dust flew around manically through the light beams. That was how he felt; like a speck of dust. He was trying so hard to stick to the narrow path ahead but right now he felt like he was careering around with little constraint or control.

He grabbed a pen from the desk tidy at the corner of the desk and scrawled his name on the contract. There was a stack of post-its beside the desk tidy and Finn peeled one from the top and wrote an addendum to the contract. If he was going to focus on his work, then he needed no distractions. He couldn’t have the hurt he’d been bottling up and hiding away all of these years, fizz over and spill out and reveal who he really was. As much as he hated himself for even thinking it, he needed Edie off the trial and as far away from him as possible. It was the only way Finn could regain some control.

As Finn wrote the Post-it note addendum to the Clinical Director, he felt a pang of sorrow at the thought he’d never get to see Edie again. He shut his eyes and her face flashed in front of him.

“Urgh,” he groaned; rubbing his hands over his face and grabbing the signed papers.

He picked up his bag and headed for the door.

“Doctor Cooper?” Moira looked up from her desk as he walked through her open door.

She eyed him up and Finn felt a flush of embarrassment at how he must look. Goodness knows how many times he’d run his hands through his hair, or how red his cheeks must be from the stress. He felt like he’d aged a good fifty years in the last hour.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, taking off her cat’s eye glasses and placing them on the desk next to her half-empty cup of coffee.

Moira’s office was in stark contrast to his own. She had photos and posters and pot plants galore lining her shelves. Her desk held a personalised mouse mat of a cat in sunglasses that Finn had always assumed was Moira’s, and a pink mug emblazoned with motivational sayings usually held coffee or tea throughout the day.

The bright colours and positive vibes always made Finn feel happy when he was in Moira’s office. But today he barely noticed even the bubble-gum pink of the blinds.

“Fine,” he blurted in answer to her question.

He handed over the signed contract.

“Can you give these to the Director for me, please?”

Moira looked up at what he was handing over and raised an immaculately pencilled eyebrow.

“You’ve signed them then?” she asked, her mouth rising at one side.

Finn ignored the question, he needed to get out of the hospital and inhale some fresh air into his lungs which now felt though they were wrapped tightly with elastic bands.

“Get an StR to do my afternoon clinics, would you please? I’ll be back in on Monday.”

He turned and left before Moira could fire questions at him.

Edie lifted a box from the stack in the spare room and dragged it through to her bedroom. She knew she shouldn’t really be lifting heavy things, but needs must when there’s no-one to help. She ripped the parcel tape with a pair of nail scissors and set about trying to unpack the contents.

A photograph of a smiling Edie with her arms wrapped around a handsome man fell out of the tightly packed box onto the immaculate cream carpet. Edie felt her heart drop to her toes. She picked up the photo and tossed it into the pile of things she’d designatedrubbish.It was the third box she’d sorted, and the rubbish pile was double the size of thekeeppile.

It had been a morning Edie would rather forget. Not the best first impression made at work and by the time she’d cycled home along the winding Norfolk country lanes, Edie’s bravado had all but worn off. Leaving her with an exhaustion that swept her off her feet and dozing on a sofa that still smelt like its plastic wrapper.

When Edie had woken a few hours later, with a head like a hammer drill, she’d taken it upon herself to do something to make her feel more positive. And organising her boxes had seemed like a good place to start. Until she’d actually started.

Each box had been filled with sweet memories that had turned sour. Each item a tug at Edie’s heart strings which were already tightly strung. If she hadn’t left London in such a hurry, Edie would have sorted her belongings out before she packed them. But there had been no time to throw away the photos and cards and jointly purchased paraphernalia that they’d accumulated during their five years together.

Robert had been her first love. Her only love. She’d met him on her first day as a post graduate when she had walked into the wrong seminar room by mistake. She had been used to the compact campus university where she’d spent her undergraduate life. Now she had to face a sprawling mass of buildings set over a large proportion of east London. Ten pairs of eyes had fallen on her and watched hungrily as she’d spluttered out the words,I think I’m lost!Out of those ten young men, only one had offered to show her the way. Robert, with his whiter than white smile and perfectly quaffed blonde hair, his deep blue eyes with a twinkle that had made Edie’s tummy drop all the way to her toes. Robert had joked that she’d walked into a room full of accountants who spent their lives looking at the wrong type of figures, which is why they’d been so dumbstruck at her entrance.

He’d dropped her at the right room and when Edie had peeled her heavy bag from her shoulder, she had spotted a note tucked in between her copies ofLove’s ExecutionerandOn Being a Therapist.On a lilac page ripped from a ring binder pad were written the words;Let’s start a love story, his name and number had been scrawled underneath.Of course, his note had lit a flame beneath Edie’s romantic torch, and the rest had been history. It was a simple note, but Edie could never work out the logistics of when Robert had written it, even to this day.

Edie paused her rummaging, running her hand through her long dark hair which was flowing loosely down her back. She hoped more than anything that she had already thrown that note away. Finding it and reading those words would open a floodgate of tears that she just couldn’t deal with right now. Not when she had so many extra hormones flying around her body.

A hand automatically went up to her stomach. It was hidden away under a tunic top and leggings just in case, but Edie knew it was still as flat as it had ever been. As a lover of yoga and Pilates, Edie was toned enough to keep her ever-changing body under her control for the time being. Which was good, as she could only imagine Doctor Cooper’s face if he figured out she was pregnant, that would be the final straw.

A flutter tickled the inside of her body as she remembered the surgeon’s dark brooding eyes and commanding frame. A smile spread across her face and she tried to bite it away and remember his rudeness instead, chewing her cheeks until pain spread through them. Her eyes wandered over to therubbishpile and glimpsed the corner of a mix tape Robert had made her on one of their first dates.