Page 17 of Obeying

This afternoon we have rounds with Dr. Eleanor Vance—I always look forward to hers.

She's a senior attending, only a few years older than me, but she carries herself like someone who figured out the things the rest of us are still fumbling through and decided not to make a big deal about it. She's poised and she speaks softly, but every word is heavy and none is wasted. And she's effortlessly beautiful. The female residents admire her, and the male residents can barely form sentences around her.

Priya leans toward me and mutters, "I want to be her when I grow up."

I nod because I agree.

Eleanor walks us through a case and stops to ask Rathbone about the differential. He stutters, then goes completely blank, mouth open, nothing coming out. Eleanor waits three seconds, patient but not merciful, then moves on.

"Dr. Anand?"

Priya straightens up and delivers the answer cleanly. Eleanor smiles at her, warm and approving, and Priya's whole face lights up.

She grabs my arm as we're walking away. "She smiled at me. Did you see that? Dr. Eleanor Vance smiled at me. This woman is making me question my sexuality."

I laugh, and I needed it because the morning I had is the kind that usually follows me all day, but Priya makes it hard to stay in the dark.

Later, I'm heading toward the lobby to grab food from the café across the street when I see a familiar face.

Not anyone from this hospital. A face from before.

David Kaplan. He was a second-year at St. Andrew's when I was there. We weren't close, but we ran in overlapping circles, and he knew about my relationship because everyone at that hospital did. My ex's company was a major investor. His father's name was on the donation wall in the atrium. When my ex came to visit me at work, people noticed, and when he stopped coming, people noticed that too. David was friendly with some of his associates—friendly enough for lunches and favors, friendly enough to pick up the phone when someone called asking about a former colleague.

He's standing in the lobby, white coat on, his ID badge clipped to his pocket. Maybe he's here for a consult. Maybe a conference. Maybe just visiting a friend. It doesn't matter because the second I see his face, every good thing about this day disappears. The warmth from laughing with Priya five minutes ago, the calm I'd built all morning, patient by patient, smile by smile, telling myself I was okay, that the nightmare was just a nightmare, that today was going to be fine. All of it, gone. Just gone.

We make eye contact. His face shifts with recognition. He opens his mouth, starts to call my name, and I don't think, I just turn and speedwalk toward the elevator and press the button.

I turn, and I can see him trying to get through the lobby, but there's a group of visitors between us, a family with a wheelchair, people signing in at the desk. The doors open and I dive in, then frantically press the button like that's going to make the doors close faster.

Hurry up. Close close close.

They shut.

I lean against the back wall, and my heart is going so hard I can feel it in my throat, in my wrists, behind my eyes. He saw me. He definitely saw me. And if he recognized me, then he knows I'm here, and if he knows I'm here, he could tell someone, and if he tells someone, then he'll know exactly where I am. And it'll all be over.

All of it gone in the time it takes one person to send a text.

I'm already writing the message in my head. The one David sends. Hey, you'll never guess who I ran into. Just gossip. He wouldn't even think twice about it. He doesn't know what it means. He doesn't know that a text like that is a map with my location pinned on it, handed to a man who has been looking for me since I left.

The elevator moves. I don't know what floor I pressed. I'm standing with my back against the wall, the cold of the steel doing nothing to calm me down. I'll have to transfer again. New hospital, new city maybe, start over from scratch.

I know when the doors open, when they start to close again, and when a hand reaches in to stop them, but when that hand touches my arm, I flinch so hard I slam myself into the elevator wall. My shoulders smart from it, my hands come up, and my body braces. My breath is coming too fast, and the elevator is too small, and I'm not here anymore. I'm back in that apartment. The door with the hole in it. The sound of knuckles through wood. The calm voice explaining why this is my fault.

"Hey." Logan's voice. It's low, steady, and close, but not too close. "Hey. It's me. Are you okay?"

I try to answer, but my voice won't come, so I just nod. My hands are still up, so I force them down, force my shoulders away from the wall, force my body into something that looks like a person who's fine.

"Kristen." My name, not Portland. My actual name said so gently, so carefully, that it pulls me back inch by inch. I look at the elevator, then the buzzing light above us, and finally, his face, concerned but calm. "Are you okay?"

I take a breath. Then another. His voice helps. His face, too, familiar in a way I didn't know I needed right now. He's just standing there, two steps back, hands at his sides, not pushing, just present.

Then I realize what I must look like. Wild-eyed, pressed into the corner of an elevator, flinching from a touch like a wounded animal. In front of my attending. In front of Logan.

"Yes. I'm fine. Sorry, I just…" I shake my head. "Excuse me."

I push past him and walk fast until I find an empty supply room. I close the door, lean against it, and just breathe. My hands are shaking, and I press them flat against my thighs until they stop. The floor is cold through my shoes. The shelves are lined with gauze and saline bags and IV tubing, neat rows of things that make sense, that have labels and purposes and never do anything unexpected, and I count them because counting helps. Because counting is something my brain can do when everything else is a mess.

It takes two minutes, maybe three, for the shaking to stop. My breathing evens out and I'm back.