Page 45 of Tapped

All of a sudden, I’m not tired.

I’m starving.

Both literally and carnally.

I stuff my feet into my running shoes and grab my keys.

Me – Give the guard a heads up not to shoot me.

Evita – What? Why?

Me – Because I’m going to make sure you don’t die tonight. Rhetorically or otherwise.

Evita – No. No-no-no. I’ve already died rhetorically, and they’ll make sure I’m fine otherwise.

I’m out the door.

Me – I’ve already attended a funeral today. If I get shot tonight because you didn’t clear the way for me with every layer of security around you, you’re going to hurt my feelings more than you already have by assuming I’m unwanted by females everywhere.

Evita – Please, Micah.

Me – First you assume no one wants me, and now you’re begging me. You’re hot and cold. I’m getting mixed messages.

Evita – Death by foot in mouth … I’m dead.

Me – No kidding, I’m gonna be pissed if I get shot.

I toss my phone in the passenger seat and back out of the narrow drive of my condo on a mission.

And this time, it’s personal.

12

NEEDY AND DESPERATE

Evie

Ipace on bare feet in front of the dining room window.

I should not have texted him. I don’t know what’s wrong with me or why I did it other than the fact I’m not living inside of my own head very well at the moment. I can’t stop thinking about the funeral. Of all the funerals I’ve attended since I started practicing, no one has ever gone with me. Naomi thinks I’m crazy, and my father thinks it’s a waste of precious time.

What they don’t know is it’s selfish. It keeps me from turning into a person I don’t want to be.

It keeps me grounded. When I lost my first patient, it gutted me. So much, I attended his funeral without telling anyone.

I’ll never forget Mr. Kelly. He had only been my patient for a few weeks. I inherited him when another physician in the practice suggested he’d be better served by a geriatrician. He was eighty-nine and suffered from nothing more than a full-lived life and a loving family.

If anyone deserved to be celebrated, it was him.

That’s how it started, and I’ll never forget his funeral.

When my father found out I attended one funeral, let alone made it a hobby, he preached and preached to me not to become attached, that it was unhealthy, and to keep my work separate from life. He said if I didn’t, it would eat me alive.

He was wrong.

I’m not like him—my job is a passion, not a business—and attending countless funerals doesn’t drag me down at all.

It has the opposite effect.

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