by Cara Malone
Dr. Stevens looked mildly conflicted, glancing toward the nurse’s station as if she had a million things to do, but she stayed and said, “There’s only so much I can tell you without violating privacy laws, but if you make it quick and show me some identification, I’ll tell you what I can.”
Megan quickly dug her student ID card out of her wallet, showing it to Dr. Stevens as she explained, “I observed an autopsy at the Medical Examiner’s Office yesterday and the patient had bacterial meningitis–”
“Yep, I definitely remember that,” Dr. Stevens answered, cutting her off. “They called us yesterday and everyone that was on staff the day he was here had to start a round of antibiotics. Real pain in the butt and we fell behind for the rest of the night. Everybody was extra crabby because the wait times were so long.”
“Was there anything remarkable about the case that you can recall?” Megan asked.
All the online literature reviews in the world couldn’t make up for some good, old-fashioned primary research, and she wanted to hear from someone who had a hand in Paul Goulding’s care before he became part of the Medical Examiner’s domain. She wanted to know if there was a reason why the ER doctors hadn’t identified his condition, and whether that was a common occurrence. How often did people trace a path from the Emergency Room to the autopsy suite without a clue about their cause of death?
“I can’t really help you there,” Dr. Stevens answered. “He was unresponsive upon arrival. We continued resuscitation attempts that the paramedics had initiated, but he died shortly thereafter. There really isn’t anything more to report about that case.”
“Oh,” Megan said, disappointed, and she was just about to launch into a line of questions about how the Emergency Room was protecting its other patients against the disease when an ambulance pulled up outside and Dr. Stevens and a few others snapped into high alert.
“Gotta go,” she said to Megan, already rushing toward the door. “Good luck with your research.”
Megan stayed a little bit longer, watching as the sliding glass doors opened and the doctors and nurses flooded out to assess the incoming patient. Not wanting to be in the way, and aware of the fact that she’d been in the ER longer than she intended and was running the risk of being late for her appointment, Megan followed Dr. Stevens’ directions to the elevators in the hallway.
She went up to the third floor and, after a few minutes of walking through the hall and reading the directories on the walls, she found the lab. She was just reaching for the door handle when it swung open, and the person who came out—nearly knocking her to the floor—was none other than Ivy.
Megan rolled her eyes—if anyone was going to send someone to the Emergency Room from inside the hospital, it would be Ivy.
“Excuse me,” she said, stepping out of Ivy’s way lest she sustain further injury. “I didn’t realize the queen was coming through.”
“I didn’t mean to knock into you, Megan,” Ivy responded with feigned sincerity. “Are you okay or do you need a bottle of water and a time out?”
“I’m fine now, and I was fine yesterday,” Megan answered.
“Are you sure? I could call a nurse,” she said, then winked and added, “or a paramedic.”
“I’m sure,” Megan answered, clenching her teeth. Ivy had a way of getting under her skin, and Megan was shocked that she’d made it this far into the program without giving in to the nearly constant desire to slug her. Instead, she decided to hit Ivy where she knew it would hurt the most. She said, “I was doing just fine when I finished last year three spots higher than you in the class, anyway. What’s your rank, again?”
“We’re only a third of the way through the program,” Ivy growled at her. “We’ll see who’s on top at the end, when it counts.”
She started to walk away, handing the victory for that little verbal spar to Megan, and rather than being a gracious winner, Megan couldn’t help saying, “Eighth.”
Ivy’s shoulders visibly tightened at hearing her class rank—clearly it was a number she wasn’t comfortable with—but she didn’t turn around. She just kept walking toward the elevators, and Megan went into the lab. She would probably never convince Ivy that her fainting spell yesterday had been a complication of her migraine instead of a result of the autopsy, but at least she could hold onto this little victory for as long as she managed to stay ahead of Ivy in the class rank. It was her primary goal in life, at least for the time being.
She went into the lab and signed herself in, then sat down in the nearest empty chair. The room was pretty full for a Tuesday morning, about a dozen other people waiting for bloodwork, scans, and other tests, and their morale didn’t seem much better than those waiting in the ER downstairs. Megan set down her backpack and pulled out a textbook, ready to use this time to cram in a little extra studying—it wasn’t easy being fifth, and after running into Ivy, she was regretting the time she took yesterday to rest. But before she could dive into her textbook, Megan’s eyes fell on the occupant of a chair on the other side of the room.
It was Alex, the EMT student who had caught her yesterday, and she was watching Megan’s every move. A shiver went through her as she felt those steely eyes on her, and she looked away.
She was surprised to find her pulse was slightly elevated. There was no reason to believe that a medical student and a paramedic-in-training would cross paths again, at least not until Megan stared her rotations, so she didn’t put much stock in the way she was drawn to Alex yesterday. But here she was, and Megan found herself entirely too excited by this serendipitous event.
She wanted to keep looking at Alex, really study the features of her face this time and see how much subtle flirtation she could accomplish before the lab technician called one of their names. She wanted to find out if the tension she felt yesterday had been real.
More than any of that, though, she wanted to get caught up on her reading so that she could continue to kick Ivy’s butt in class that afternoon. She wanted to protect her rank and prove to Ivy and anyone else who might be doubting her that she had what it took to be a damn good doctor. She couldn’t do that if she kept letting Alex distract her in crucial moments, and the way her body reacted when she was nearby was a warning sign that Alex could be dangerous if Megan were to indulge those desires.
She could tell that from all the way across the room.
She decided it would be best to pretend she didn’t see Alex, or didn’t recognize her. She pulled her textbook open in her lap and kept her head down, ready to study. She read the same sentence several times, though, and she just kept wondering what Alex was doing.
She didn’t have to wait long to find out. In her peripheral vision, Megan saw Alex stand, pause for a moment as if uncertainty had just grabbed hold of her, and then she crossed the room.
Megan couldn’t contain her curiosity any longer. She abandoned the ruse of the textbook and looked up. The waiting room was no more than fifteen feet across, but it feel like a runway as Megan watched Alex close the space between them, her hips swaying seductively from side to side, her eyes locked on Megan’s in a way that made her heart beat faster.
When Alex got to her, she gave Megan a friendly smile and pointed to the seat next to her. “Can I join you?”
“Umm, yeah,” Megan said, scooting her backpack out of the way and feeling irritated at the uncertainty in her own voice. She never reacted like this to girls—she made girls react like this to her.
Chapter Nine
Alex
Alex sat down in the thinly cushioned chair beside Megan, wondering if she was imposing on her. She hadn’t really stopped thinking about Megan since their encounter the previous day, and when she spotted her across the waiting room it seemed like fate had brought them back together, but Megan had immediately pulled out a book and looked away.
Alex had already been sitting there for at least ten minutes because the lab was backed up from the morning rush, and she couldn’t imagine spending another ten minutes
sitting awkwardly across from a girl she thought she’d had a moment with yesterday. So she took a leap of faith, and decided to find out if that moment had been real.
“Are you feeling better today?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Megan answered. “The migraine cleared up pretty quickly and I got a lot of sleep last night, but if I remember your side of the story correctly, then that was due to the concussion I sustained when you let me hit the floor.”
“Sounds about right,” Alex said with a laugh. She was relieved to see Megan sliding her textbook back into her bag. If she really didn’t want to talk, then she would have ignored Alex and gone back to reading The Pathologic Basis of Disease. She nodded at the book as Megan zipped her backpack and said, “That looks like a real page turner. Are you sure I’m the cause of your sleepiness?”
“Maybe not,” Megan conceded. “So who knew we missed the most eventful autopsy ever?”
“Yeah, it was crazy,” Alex said. “I didn’t find out about the meningitis until after I got home. A girl from my class called me, said it freaked her out. Apparently, it was pretty gruesome.”
“I probably would have thought it was cool,” Megan admitted with a smile. “But then again, I spent the bus ride over here researching everything I could find about the disease, so I might be coming at this from the perspective of a–”
“Nerd,” Alex supplied with a grin, cutting her off.
“I was going to say doctor,” Megan said with a thank-you-very-much air, but Alex could tell she was teasing. Flirting? “So your classmates are freaking out. How are you holding up?”
Alex shrugged. She honestly hadn’t given the possibility of contracting meningitis too much consideration, aside from sequestering herself in her room last night to protect her mother. She wasn’t worried about it, but then she wasn’t worried about much these days. That was the best benefit of her anti-depressants, keeping her on an even keel whether it was warranted or not.
“It’s probably that whole youthful immortality thing,” she said with a shrug. “I really don’t think it could happen to me.”
“Meningitis?”
“Meningitis, death, all of it,” she said, wondering if she’d gone too dark, too fast. She studied Megan, looking for her reaction and wondering if she should lighten the statement with a joke. She didn’t have a lot of those in her repertoire lately, but she could try to muster one for a girl like Megan.
“No one’s immune to getting hit by a bus,” Megan pointed out, “but your odds of contracting meningitis from a deceased person whom you shared a room with for less than an hour are pretty low. I was reading up on the antibiotics we have to take and they’re basically just a safeguard against the worst-case scenario. The patient died less than twenty-four hours after contracting the disease, so on the off chance that any of us have it, they can’t waste time on diagnostics before they start giving us the treatment.”
“Hurray for preventative medicine,” Alex said. “What exactly are we doing here, by the way?”
“No one told you?”
“No, my friend was too busy telling me how close to puking she was to give me the details,” Alex said. Then, giving Megan a side smile, she added, “Enlighten me.”
It was meant to be a little bit flirtatious because there was just something intriguing about Megan that begged Alex to get closer to her. She didn’t think anyone would have the power to break through the haze of her little blue pills, but Megan made her want to try.
Alex studied her reaction closely, eager to know whether Megan would pick up on the tone of her voice and the way she was smiling at her, if she’d even be interested if she did pick it up, or if she’d just answer clinically.
“Well, what we’re getting in the lab is a throat culture,” Megan said, and although it was a technical answer, the fact that she turned her body sideways in the chair to address Alex, her knee brushing against Alex’s thigh ever so slightly, wasn’t lost on her.
“Ugh, a throat swab?” Alex asked. “I thought I was done with those when I got my tonsils out.”
“They’re awful, aren’t they?” Megan commiserated. “My roommate wants to go into pediatrics, but I don’t think I could handle gagging kids with cotton swabs all day.”
Alex laughed, hoping that this banter was more than the friendly passing of time while they waited for their turn with the lab technician. Her flirting was pretty rusty and talking about throat cultures probably didn’t count as seduction, but she thought that—unless she was reading the signs all wrong—Megan was interested in her. She kept her eyes locked on Alex as they talked, her lips parting periodically to show her perfect white teeth as she smiled.
“So that’s it? They’re going to jam a swab down my throat and then I get to go home and take antibiotics until they tell me I’m healthy?” Alex asked.
Megan said, “Yeah, that’s about it. It could take up to twenty-four hours to get the culture results, and since the disease can move so fast we have to start the antibiotics immediately.”
“Well, that sounds like a nail-biting good time,” Alex said.
“It beats being dead,” Megan answered with a smile.
“That’s true,” Alex said. “I hope they have a toy drawer.”
Megan arched an eyebrow at Alex, and in that moment she simultaneously realized the unintentional innuendo in what she’d said, and saw intrigue in Megan’s eyes. That answered the question of whether Megan played for her team, and it also sent a furious blush into Alex’s cheeks.
“I mean like my doctor had when I was a kid,” she said quickly, as Megan laughed good-naturedly at her embarrassment. “Cheap yo-yos and bouncy balls and stuff like that.”
Before Megan could let her off the hook, the door to the treatment area opened and a guy with a clipboard stepped out and called, “Alexandria McHenry?”
Alex was only too eager to remove herself from that humiliating moment, so she stood up. She wondered if it would be too forward to give Megan her phone number right now, but the lab technician was looking rather impatiently at her, and she figured that the lab was so backed up Megan would likely still be waiting here by the time she finished her dreaded throat swab. By then, Alex might well have recovered from this moment and gotten the color out of her cheeks.
“Good luck in there,” Megan said, and then she reached for her textbook again and Alex followed the technician.
He led Alex down a short hallway with small patient rooms on both sides. Reading from the chart, he said, “Ms. McHenry, can you confirm your date of birth for me?”
Alex told him, and he led her into the last treatment room. There was a small exam table in one corner, a cabinet across from it, and a chair for the technician to sit in. He remained standing and motioned Alex over to the exam table.
While Alex sat down on the crinkly paper, he asked, “And you’re here as a result of the meningitis exposure, correct?”
“Yes,” Alex answered, feeling a little anxious.
She really did hate throat swabs, and she remembered every single one from her childhood, thanks to bout after bout of strep throat. Her dad usually took her to the doctor’s office because his job was salaried so it wasn’t as big a deal for him to leave work as it was for her mom, and Alex used to squeeze his hand as hard as she could while she opened her mouth and waited for the doctor to gag her with the swab.
The anticipation was always the worst part, and today she had no hand to hold and no one to distract her. She watched the technician put on a pair of gloves and a surgical mask, then he took a long, flat package out of one of the drawers in the cabinet. He carefully removed the cotton swab and prepared the vial it would go into.
Alex decided to think about Megan. Anything was better than focusing all her attention on the torture instrument coming at her, and Megan was a very easy subject to latch onto. Alex couldn’t remember the last time someone made her feel like Megan did, her cheeks burning, her pulse racing and her stomach doing flips. Just sitting beside her s
ent electricity through Alex’s body, and she wondered what it would be like to actually touch her, to thread her fingers into Megan’s or to kiss her.
Alex probably shouldn’t be thinking about her like that. She knew almost nothing about Megan except that she was a medical student, she was clearly very smart, she was a knock-out, and she had—on at least one occasion in her life—had a migraine. Maybe that was enough, though, at least to take the next step and see what she was like outside of a clinical setting.
The technician swabbed Alex’s throat, she gagged as expected, and then the dirty business was done and she was released with instructions to go straight down to the pharmacy, where an antibiotic prescription would be waiting for her.
Megan’s chair was empty when Alex got back to the waiting room, and she stood there for a moment, wondering if it would be crazy to wait for her. She thought Megan seemed interested in her, but Alex had been swimming in a haze of numbness for so long that she didn’t completely trust her instincts anymore. Maybe she’d misread the entire situation and Megan would be confused or displeased to come back from her throat swab and find Alex waiting for her.
On the other hand, Alex didn’t have anywhere to be for another hour and a half and she thought the chances of accidentally running into Megan a third time were pretty slim. It was now or never, so she took a seat and waited for her, trying not to look too eager.
She pulled a compact mirror out of her bag and looked at herself, hoping that her cheeks weren’t too red after the throat swab. Megan may have fainted on her, but Alex didn’t want to ask Megan out looking like she’d just finished dry heaving. Her cheeks were a little flushed and her hair was a bit wild, so she combed it as best she could with her fingers and then put the mirror away.
