Page 61 of Bad Medicine
“It won’t be much longer,” I continued, drawing the suture needle through her bruised flesh one last time, the small gash at her hair line closed off as neatly as I could manage given her constant flinching. Tying it off, I snipped the suture and placed my tools on the tray beside the bed. Turning back to my patient, I inspected the area one last time.
It was a small wound, barely half an inch long, but deep, considering the location. The laceration was in that small triangle of space where her temple met the front of her ear. Not typically a lot of flesh in that spot, but her injury was more of a tear than an actual cut, making me wonder how it had happened in the first place.
“That should do it, Miss. Davidson,” I said. “You’ll need to keep the area clean and come back in one week to have these sutures removed.” Wiping the area with a small smear of antibiotic cream, I surreptitiously looked over her other injuries.
The black eye was most noticeable, the purple skin on the outside of the orbit fading to a dusky blue as it neared her hair. There was also some light petechial hemorrhaging in that same eye, the tiny blood vessels having burst, leaving behind bright red evidence against the white of her eye more damning than any murder weapon.
But the thing that pissed me off the most—the thing that had me wanting to grab her hand and run for the hills—was the clear imprint of four large fingers that wrapped around her slender throat.
Someone had choked her.
Recently.
Stripping off my gloves, I stepped back as she hopped quickly off the bed, snatching her purse up and holding it close, her shoulders curled inward defensively. For a moment, I just stared at her, taking in her tall, lithe form, the expensive clothes and high-dollar hair cut, and wondering if there wasn’t something else I could do to help her.
“Miss. Davidson,” I began, seeing her back stiffen when I called her name. “Can you please tell me once again just how you came to have these injuries?”
“It was my fault,” she said immediately, and I frowned. Realizing what she had said, she cleared her throat and looked away before starting over. “I was walking and looking at my phone,” she corrected breezily, an unconvincing smile on her face. “Trying to schedule brunch with the girls. I wasn’t paying attention and I just...walked into a door,” she finished robotically, making me wonder how many times she’d used that excuse.
“Do you feel safe going home?” I asked plainly.
“Home?” she scoffed. “I don’t even know what that is anymore.”
“Miss. Davidson, if you need help, I can arrange for you to—”
“You can’t help me,” she cut me off, the expression on her face as brittle as broken glass. “No one can help me.” With that, she moved, reaching past me for the door, but pausing with her hand on the knob. “Do you ever look back at your life and realize you can pinpoint the one single moment in time when it all changed? Everything you knew, everything you thought you were, just gone. Like it had never existed in the first place.”
Her words were quiet, barely above a whisper, but I felt them like a punch to the gut.
“Yes,” was all I said.
“Me too,” she replied. And then she was gone.
And I hated it.
Sometimes, one of the hardest aspects of my job was realizing there were people who came into the hospital that didn’t actually want my help.
Letting out a deep sigh, I rubbed my fingers over my temples, trying to chase away the tension that seemed to live constantly behind my eyes these days. I hadn’t slept well in weeks, and I was still trying to deny exactly why that was.
But after three weeks with no contact, I guessed there was no denying the truth.
Rocco had run scared.
I mean, I wasn’t expecting a proposal or anything, but hell. I thought I’d at least get a second round.
Because let’s face it, the sex was phenomenal.
Like, out of this world fantastic. And we’d been standing. I had spent way too many nights lately wondering just how great things could have been if we’d have made it to my bed.
But, I had learned a long time ago that there was no room in my life for wishes and hopes. Only dogged determination and an inability to quit.
Ever.
Shaking off the heavy weight of disappointment, I pushed up the sleeves of my coat and headed back to the admitting desk, ready to process the discharge papers for Miss. Davidson, who was standing there impatiently, waiting for me.
I was reaching for her chart when I froze, my mouth popping open slightly when I saw Rocco entering the ER as though my thoughts alone had conjured him, gazing around lazily as he pulled off his dark sunglasses with all the practiced swagger of a GQ model.
For a moment, my heart leapt, the mere sight of him sending a fizzle of excitement through my veins, and I couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across my face if I’d tried.
