Page 30 of Christmas On Call
The words were meant to be reassuring. They landed like ash.
“Thank you,” Asha managed. She stood, legs somehow supporting her weight, and moved toward the door.
“One more thing,” Harrison said.
She turned back.
“I know this feels invasive. And I’m sorry you’re in this position. But the policy exists to protect everyone—you, Nurse Benson, the patients, the hospital. It’s not a judgment. It’s just transparency.”
Asha nodded again, not trusting herself to speak, and left.
She made it to her car before the first crack appeared in her composure.
The parking structure was dim and nearly empty in the mid-afternoon lull. Asha sat in the driver’s seat, hands gripping the steering wheel so hard her knuckles went white and felt everything she’d been holding together for weeks start to fracture.
Her breathing came too fast, too shallow. Her vision blurred at the edges. This was panic, she thought distantly. This was what happened when control finally failed.
She started the engine and drove home on autopilot, her mind a loop of catastrophic thoughts:Everyone will know. They’ll all know. The other doctors, the nurses, the residents. I’ll be reduced to gossip, to speculation, why did I get tangled in this? Damn it, Asha.
She didn’t remember the drive. Just found herself in her parking garage, staring at the concrete wall, unable to move.
Inside her apartment, she stripped off her work clothes like they were contaminated. Stood in the shower until the hot water ran out and her skin turned red. Put on pajamas even though it was only four in the afternoon.
Her phone buzzed on the bathroom counter. Max:Hey, you okay?
Asha stared at the message, unable to formulate a response.
Another buzz:Asha? Did something happen?
And another:I’m getting worried. Please just let me know you’re okay.
Asha turned off her phone. She couldn’t cope with it at all.
She moved to the couch and sat in the silence of her immaculate apartment—all clean lines and neutral colors and no mess, no chaos, no evidence of human habitation beyond the barest necessities. This was what she’d chosen: control over connection, order over intimacy, a life so carefully constructed that a single text message could bring it all crashing down.
She sat there as afternoon bled into evening, as the light through her windows shifted from gold to gray to dark. She didn’t turn on the lights. Didn’t eat. Just existed in a state of suspended dread, replaying the meeting over and over.
Hospital policy requires disclosure.
One week.
The relationship needs to be on record.
Relationship. The word felt foreign, dangerous. She’d spent three weeks trying to keep what she and Max hadprivate, contained, manageable. And now it would be official, documented, known to everyone.
Her phone sat dark and silent on the coffee table. She’d turned it back on around seven and found several messages from Max, each one more worried than the last. She couldn’t bring herself to read them all. Couldn’t face the concern, the questions, the inevitable moment when she’d have to explain that their careful secret was no longer secret at all.
At 9 PM, she made a decision. Not a good one, perhaps, but the only one her exhausted, panic-addled brain could manage.
She called the charge nurse for Thursday’s shift. Kept her voice steady, claimed a stomach bug, and hung up before questions could be asked.
Doctor Asha Patel never called in sick. In seven years at Oakridge, she’d worked through colds and migraines and a bout of food poisoning that had left her dizzy and hollow. But tonight, the thought of walking back into that hospital, of facing Max or Harrison or anyone who might know, felt impossible.
She took a sleeping pill and crawled into bed.
Sleep came in fragments, punctuated by dreams of exposure: standing in the NICU while everyone stared, pointing, whispering. Harrison’s voice over the intercom announcing her relationship to the entire hospital. Max looking at her with disappointment and saying,I told you this would happen.
She woke at 3 AM in a cold sweat, checked her phone—twenty-three messages now—and turned it off again. She knew she should just reply, but she just couldn’t bring her fingers to type out anything. The state of overwhelm had consumed her.
