If you are running scared once again and have taken off, I swear that I will never forgive you.
He hurriedly found his clothes and put them on. I swear to God… I’ll kill you myself.
He was already running down the stairs whilst trying to button on his shirt when he remembered his phone. He ran back up and found it on his bedside table.
However, underneath it, was a note. His hands shook as he picked it up and tried to prepare himself for whatever it would read. He eventually summoned the courage and focused on the scribble.
“I will be staying at the hospital’s staff room for now,” it read. “I made you a late lunch. Aisha.”
He heaved a sigh of relief and sat on the bed. After much contemplation, he picked up his phone and placed a very important call.
Chapter 18
Aisha spent the following week living out of her duffel bag in the On-call Room.
Her colleagues only ever met her resting in the bunk beds when her shift was over, and even if they noticed that she almost never left, most of them chucked it up to dedication.
So much about her medical skills had gotten rusty, that she spent each day studying at every chance she got. She had avoided Caleb for the first few days until she had found that he had taken a short leave of absence and had traveled back to the Capital. Concerned, she thought to call him but had managed to talk herself out of it.
Today, she sat in the Hybrid Room as she sutured the wounded leg of a young man while his wife stood nagging him by the side. She was furious at the carelessness that had caused the injury, and no matter how many times he apologized, the woman kept on nagging, too upset to stop herself. He calmly bore it all, aware that he had caused her severe worry, and watching all of this tugged at the chords of envy within Aisha.
“Stay still or else it’ll scar,” she said to him, but then noticed that their gazes had shifted from her. She turned around to see what they were looking at and met the quiet gaze of Dr. Caleb Pace.
Aisha jumped to her feet, her heart threatening to rip out of her chest as he strolled into the room with his hands in his coat’s pockets.
“C-cal-,” she quickly corrected herself. “Dr. Pace.”
He didn’t take his eyes off her. “Dr. Graves, please see me in my office when you’re done,” he said to her and returned the smiles of the patient and nurse that stood by her side.
With a nod, Aisha sat back down to round up her work, but she was too visibly shaken.
“It’s one of two things,” the wife said, breaking the silence. “It’s either you’re scared of him, or you’re in love with him.”
“Look at the guy,” her husband interjected. “The answer is both.”
“Please stop,” Aisha pleaded, especially when she noticed the widened eyes of the nurse attending to her. She cleared her throat and continued with her suturing.
Soon, she was finished and occupied with updating a patient’s chart by the nurse’s station, however, her mind was filled with worry. She was so glad he had returned, but there were so many ‘uncomfortable’ things between them that needed addressing. They both needed to sort out themselves or else just like that night, every line would remain blurred.
She continued updating charts and reading up on the medical history of the current patient until a woman suddenly ran into the ER with a toddler. Aisha recognized her immediately as she had attended to them a few days earlier.
“What is it?” she asked. “Why are you back?”
“My baby…” the woman cried. “You said that he was fine, that it was just a cold…”
Aisha immediately took the baby from her and hurriedly placed him in the Hybrid Room. She held her stethoscope to listen to the beat of his heart. “Was he having convulsions?” she asked, but before the mother could respond, there was a loud, angry, roar in the ER.
“Where is she?” the person barked. “Where is the idiot that misdiagnosed my child?”
Aisha knew that they were coming for her, but she focused on examining the child. “Did you give him the fever reducer?”
She was eventually found, and the man came into the room. Aisha lifted a pen torch to the child’s eyes, but the man slapped it from her hand and roughly shoved at her shoulders.
She stumbled backward, the nurse by her side helping to break what would have been a painful fall.
“You idiot!” he pointed at her. “You almost killed my child. Stay the fuck away from him.”
“John,” his wife pleaded. “Please calm down.”
He roughly threw off his wife’s arm from his and looked around. “Are there no other doctors in this fucking hospital? Why am I stuck with this idiot?”
“I’ll get someone else,” Aisha said and began to run out when Caleb appeared by the plastic wrap door.
“Step back,” he said to her and she complied. He came into the room and looked around to see what was going on. “What is all the commotion about?”
“This stupid woman over here almost...”
“Excuse me?”
The room went silent and seemingly did so the entire ER. Aisha stepped in. “Dr. Pace, it’s fine. I failed to-”
“I’m not talking to you,” he said and slowly approached the man. “If you’re not going to watch your mouth in my hospital then I suggest you leave right now.”
“She almost fucking killed my child.”
“Well, your child is not dead yet. Keep making a fuss instead of allowing him to get treated and watch what happens in the next few minutes.”
The man closed his mouth, and Caleb turned to her.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “Won’t you examine the child?”
Aisha came to her senses and began to fumble with her stethoscope once again.
“Doesn’t he have a fever?” Caleb asked.
“I-I think so.”
“Then take off his clothes!” Caleb half-yelled.
She did as she was told, and found tiny red blotches along the child’s arm. She turned to his mother.
“How long has this been here?”
“A few days.”
Purpura, she thought.
“What’s your diagnosis?” Caleb asked Aisha.
She straightened and thought for a moment. “He’s been having convulsions and running a high fever… and now this. Perhaps it’s Meningococcal Meningitis.”
“Menin- what?” the father shrieked. “Didn’t you tell my wife that it was just a cold?”
“Get to work then,” Caleb said to her. He turned around to walk out of the ER as she gave instructions to the nurse. Aisha ran after him and met him at the reception.
“Please guide me,” she said. “I’m not sure of what to so.”
He gazed quietly at her. “Do a spinal tap, and then prepare for a lumbar puncture. Have you ordered a blood test?”
“I just did.”
He continued with the instructions and when he was done, she thanked him and returned back to the ER.
After all was settled with the child, she began to head back to her room when she passed by his office. He had asked to see her so she mustered up the courage to knock, and when granted access went quietly in.
She stood at the door and waited for him to speak, and when he didn’t for a while she eventually lifted her head to him.
“Thank you for helping me out,” she said.
“I’m noting a pattern of cowardice with you,” he replied. “You keep trying to run away from everything. You can’t pick a career and fight for it when things go downhill and neither can you a lover or even the truth. You were never this way back then or was your confidence all a facade?”
“Perhaps it was,” she answered. “I’m not as strong as I thought I was.”
He was quiet for a while and she knew that he was fuming.
“I’m sorry about what happened today,” she said.
“I don’t need your apology.”
“I’ll t
ake my leave then,” she said quietly, and his response stung. “Close the door on your way out.”
Chapter 19
Caleb was pissed at both himself and her as she exited the room. He hated the way the man had spoken to her, and even worse how she had accepted it all without a word of defense. Granted she had been at fault, but the Aisha he had known would never have allowed anyone to speak down to her.
She was so very timid now, and filled with perhaps fear or shame... he could not tell, and he wanted to snap her out of it.
His phone began to ring then and upon the ID of his closest friend, he picked up immediately and rose to his feet.
“Have you found the nurse’s address?” he asked.
“I'm sorry man, I wasn’t able to.”
Caleb shut his eyes and fought to control his frustration. “Perhaps you should just let this go,” his friend said to him. “It’s been four years already and Aisha’s already gone. They altered all the records and hid it all away. Even I, as Chief of Neurology, have no access to it.”
“That wasn’t the tune you sang to me a few days ago when I was in your home.”
“I know, but then I know you. Once you latch on something you never let it go until it has been resolved. After searching and seeing just how much secrecy surrounds this entire case, I’m suddenly very worried and scared of your involvement. You’ve flown to three states in the last few days to speak to the staff that was present and testified against her, and so far no one has budged. Everyone seems overly cautious and I’m sure Aisha would have been the same if she were still here. She wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Thank you,” Caleb said to his friend.
“You’re welcome, buddy. I’ll come over with the kids next month. We all could make proper use of the lake by your house.”
“Sure,” Caleb said and hung up the phone.
He stared out the window as he brooded over and over about the matter. All he had now were rough shards of what had happened, but not the whole thing. And he feared that if he gave up now, that it would be much too late in the future.
Placing his phone in his pocket, he turned around and exited the office.
He headed straight for the staff room and when he entered he saw her. She was sitting at a table and going through a thick textbook as she ate what appeared to be a cold slice of pizza.
“You shouldn’t be eating that,” he said to her as he walked in, and shut the door behind him.
Surprised to see him, she paused her nibble on the dough. “It’s fine,” she said. “Did you want something?”
“You moved out the next morning,” he commented.
“Hm,” she replied. “I thought it would be best.”
“For whom?”
She didn’t respond. He went forward to take a seat opposite her.
“Aisha, tell me what happened four years ago. We need to get somewhere.”
Her hand froze at the mention and it was a few moments later before she spoke again.
“You’ve found me out,” she said. “That’s enough.”
“Why do you want to live like this?” he asked. “Are you that scared?”
“I am.”
“What about me?” he asked. “What happens to us?”
“I’ll leave,” she said and rose to her feet but before she could walk past him, he grabbed her hand.
He could feel her pulse, the erratic beating of the small nub within her wrist.
“Don’t you love me?” he asked without turning his gaze to hers, and at his words, he could feel her resistance lessen.
“Let me go, Caleb. Remaining here was a bad idea.”
“Then why did you stay?”
“I have a debt to pay.”
“Is that what you’re telling yourself? We were engaged to be married before you disappeared. That is the debt and promise of a lifetime which I am certain a few thousand dollars don’t compare to. But you still ran away. Say the truth… I don’t deserve this.”
She didn’t say a word, so he eventually let go of her hand. He thought that she would leave and shut his eyes to contain the pain in his heart, but then suddenly, warm arms came around him as she buried her face in his shoulders.
She just breathed him in, refusing to speak, but still refusing to let him go.
“I wish I could just leave,” she muttered. “Forget you and everything that happened in the past. And I should, but… I just wanted to stay with you a little bit more. To remember what it felt like to have the world at my feet and your love within my reach.”
He held her arms when she started to loosen it from around his neck. “Let’s fix this,” he said, but she shook her head, her voice croaked with tears.
“We can’t. I’m a coward.”
“I’m not!”
“That’s the problem. You are not. I can’t lose you.”
“Is my life threatened?”
She shut her eyes in frustration and he knew that he had pushed her to say too much of the things she never wanted to utter. She turned around to leave but he placed his hand on the door and turned her around to face him. “Is my life in danger?” he repeated.
“It is,” she said. “As long as I’m around… as long as I exist.”
“Tell me,” he urged with gritted teeth. “It is Kate Hades and her father, isn’t it? Tell me the details so that I can find something to bring them down.”
“And you think I haven’t tried? You think I would give you up that easily?”
She placed her hand on his cheek, softly recalling and committing his features to heart. The tears fell from her eyes.
“I had hoped you would forget me,” she said. “That you would move on. You’re a smart guy, Caleb, that is exactly what you should have done. But what is this? Why am I still buried so deeply within your heart?”
He took her hand from his face and held it against his chest. “You are my heart,” he said. “The moment I chose to love you was the moment it ceased from being inside of my chest. It is with you, so when you left, you left me incomplete, and you’re about to do it again. Please don’t break me once again. I won’t survive it.”
“Caleb stop!” she cried, and began to pull her hand from his grasp but he wouldn’t let her go.
“I can’t lose you,” she said. “I’d rather be without you than risk losing you. You can’t win over ruthlessness.”
“Yes, I can,” he exclaimed and the moment he said that, she froze. She looked into his eyes, and he knew that in that moment she believed him, and it scared her. There was a laughter behind the door and it brought them back to where they were.
She instantly began to wipe the tears from her eyes, as the complaints came through the door at why it wouldn’t open. She hurried over to her seat and picked her pizza back up.
“I need to kiss you,” he said and she stared at him.
“I’ll come by your office.”
“Promise?”
She nodded.
“Stop eating that trash,” he said. “I’ll get you a new box.”
He stepped away from the door and it fell open, almost throwing a nurse inside. He walked away before she could regain her composure enough to see him.
Chapter 20
“Who was that?” the nurse asked, and Aisha cocked her head as if to see past the door. She shrugged, so the nurse went out to check but Caleb was already gone.
“It was Dr. Pace, wasn’t it?” she asked and Aisha nodded with a smile.
The nurse’s eyes widened as she came over to sit with Aisha. “He wasn’t still scolding you for the child’s incident, was he? Oh my, I can see the tears in your eyes. Were you crying?”
“He was really mean,” Aisha said, and the nurse shook her head in pity for her.
“We call him Dr. Frost,” she said. “Pity you. Now you’re on his black list.”
“He has a black list?”
“He does,” the nurse said, “but he doesn�
��t know it. We’ve chucked it up to him being so brutally honest in every sense of the word. If he’s pissed off at you, he becomes a little colder or snappier. He can be dismissive one evening and the next morning he smiles at you again.”
“Isn’t that based on his mood?”
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