Hold On To Me

by Taylor Holloway

  “How is he?” she asked.

  I frowned. Faith wanted an honest answer, not the measured-but-optimistic professional one I’d give Mrs. Ochoa shortly. “Terrible.” I took a deep breath. “I don’t think he’ll survive surgery. He might not survive the night.”

  She nodded. “When he goes, she will too.” Her expression turned wistful and she watched Mrs. Ochoa gently pick up her husband’s frail, unconscious hand and hold it to her cheek. “It’s almost comforting to think about, isn’t it?”

  It was something we’d both seen before. When one member of an older couple starts to have serious health problems, the other tends to follow on their heels all the way up to death’s door and over the threshold. Sometimes the couple died within hours of one another. It was a phenomenon there was no medical explanation for. It was just… love.

  “You think it’s comforting that she’ll die too?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I found it particularly comforting. Given that I was about to spend another New Year’s Eve alone and had to work next to the indifferent woman of my dreams, just about nothing felt very comforting.

  “I think it’s comforting that neither one of them has to do anything alone. Even when that thing is dying.” Faith’s voice was very soft, and more genuinely vulnerable than I was used to hearing. She usually had a witty comeback for everything, but not tonight. Tonight, she looked just as lost as I felt. Faith was also correct, of course. I didn’t want to die alone, and I didn’t know anyone else who did, either.

  “They do seem very in love,” I admitted. Mr. Ochoa had woken up. He was smiling at his wife like she was his own, personal angel. Mrs. Ochoa was telling what looked to be some kind of bawdy joke, complete with whispered curse words and big hand gestures. She was trying to cheer him up, even though she’d been crying her eyes out thirty seconds before.

  “They are.” Faith sounded uncharacteristically wistful. “Can you imagine what that must be like?”

  “I don’t know.” I had a pretty good imagination, but I’d never been in love like that. Still, “I wouldn’t mind giving it a try.”

  Faith was barely listening to me, because she didn’t see that I was staring at her. “Me either.” Then she blinked, colored, and cleared her throat. “I better get going.”

  “Are you ok?” I asked her, wondering what had changed. There was a crack in Faith’s steely resolve to freeze me out. I wondered if her cat had died or something.

  Faith’s big brown eyes flashed back to my face. “Of course, doctor.” My heart froze, and not out of excitement. Faith was setting up her professional walls again. My repeated attempts to get her to call me ‘Eric’ and not ‘doctor’ when we were in private had not been successful. It was an obvious attempt to maintain a professional relationship. She always seemed to do that whenever I got within emotional touching distance. “I’ll go let the staff nurse know she needs to check on Mr. Ochoa in twenty minutes.”

  This was the same dance we’d been doing for months. Every time I thought I might get a genuine moment with Faith, she bolted. She was willing to be so honest, so open, and so empathetic with everyone else. Not just patients, either. She was that way with the staff. All except for me. She held me at arm’s length and it was driving me nuts.

  If I thought she simply hated me, that would be one thing. I could accept that a woman might just not, you know, like me much. It wasn’t exactly great for my doctor’s ego, but I could accept it. Yet that didn’t seem to be the case with Faith. She seemed to like me, and I’d even caught her staring a few times. Maybe she only liked looking at me.

  I certainly liked looking at her. With her dewy white skin, long shiny hair, huge brown eyes, and hourglass shaped figure, she was incredibly pleasant to look at. She looked like a pre-Raphaelite beauty who’d tired of sniffing roses and combing her hair all day and stepped out of her painting to become an RN. I could look at her all day. But I never got the chance, because she was always walking away.

  Today was no exception, but something had changed for me, too. I was tired of being alone. It was New Year’s Eve, and I wanted someone to kiss at midnight. I wanted that someone to be Faith. I might not be successful, but even rejection would be preferable to whatever-the-hell we were currently doing. You might be able to be mostly dead, but I knew that I didn’t want to feel that way tonight. Besides, alcohol would be plentiful at the party tonight. At least if I struck out, I could get very, very drunk.

  Prologue – Faith

  “Ok, what is going on with you today?” Amber asked me. She was looking at me over her glass of champagne with an expression of disapproval. Her blue eyes also held a mild suspicion that I was keeping an important secret from her. I winced, feeling guilty for my stick-in-the-mud mood, and my secret. “You’re even more uptight than usual.”

  “You sound just like my mom,” I mumbled. I was deflecting. The truth was that I knew exactly what was wrong with me, and my mom had commented on it herself, although she knew perfectly well what my problem was. Today, New Year’s Eve, was the eleventh anniversary of my dad’s unexpected death. I was like this every single year on the anniversary of his death, and for a few days in either direction. If anything, my terrible holiday mood seemed to be getting worse as time went on.

  “Would your mom recommend that you do a shot of tequila to cheer your grumpy ass up?” Amber countered. She aimed a sly grin at me, and I couldn’t prevent myself from returning it.

  Actually, she might. My mom was a very conservative Catholic, which meant that she wholeheartedly supported the use of alcohol for medicinal and healing purposes.

  “I hate tequila,” I grumbled. I was really a mess today: grouchy, irrational, and a ticking, emotional time bomb. I shouldn’t even be at this party, bringing Amber down with my shitty attitude. I should have stayed in, alone.

  “Hold your nose then,” Amber told me, grabbing a bottle off a nearby table and handing me a sparkly shot glass. “Because this is happening.”

  I poured, drank, and repeated until I lost count. It didn’t taste as bad after the second time. By the fourth or fifth, I actually didn’t mind it. This was not my ordinary M.O., not at all. But I was sick of feeling sorry for myself. I knew I’d pay for the drunkenness tomorrow, but tonight, the edges dulled, and I felt a lot less awful. Mission accomplished.

  “Satisfied?” I finally asked, slamming down the shot glass a final time. I hoped she was, because I didn’t need alcohol poisoning tonight. I knew how much I could drink safely, and I was right on that line.

  Amber smirked. “For now. Let’s go dance.”

  I followed with a less-aggressive frown on my face. In truth, I was lucky that my friend Amber had a nurse’s patience even if she was actually a physical therapy intern. I didn’t deserve her. I’d been a pain in the ass since we’d arrived at the hospital new year’s party. If it weren’t for my mom’s silent judgement when I announced that I was going to sit on my butt at watch ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ instead of going to the party, I wouldn’t be here. Her quiet frowns scream louder than the entire newborn room.

  So instead of sulking and enjoying a nice evening of Harrison Ford punching Nazis and looking super-hot, I was here, wearing a tight, short sequined dress, makeup, and my sexiest pair of heels. And for what? I was alone and lonely. I could dance alone if I wanted to, and pretend that I felt good, but it wouldn’t make me feel any better.

  Amber tried to get me to stay out on the dance floor after a few songs had elapsed, but I effectively dodged her. She shook her head, shrugged, and continued her get-down solo. I envied her confidence. Even with all the liquor in me, I wasn’t Amber. I was still a goody two shoes deep down in my soul. After all, I was a twenty-four-year-old single virgin who lived with her super-Catholic mom.

  “Faith! Hey Faith!” a voice to my left intoned. I grimaced and cut to the right. Mitch Walker, one of the nurse anesthetists, was approaching rapidly and I’d rather gargle glass than put up with more of his heavy-handed pursuit. He wasn’t a bad guy, I jus
t had no interest in him and he couldn’t seem to understand that.

  As I slipped through the crowd away from Mitch, I nearly ran straight into Daniel Ortega, a recently divorced, older physician that worked in the pediatrics department. He looked down at me in shock at the near-miss and then smiled.

  “Faith, wow,” he told me, “you should do your hair like that more often.” His smile said that he was rapidly reevaluating our previously purely professional relationship. “Would you like to dance?”

  I smiled at him and shook my head. Too old. Too weird. “I’ll have to take a rain check Dr. Ortega,” I managed. “I’m on my way to get some water.”

  Before Mitch could catch up, I dodged Daniel and started edging towards the bathrooms. It seemed like every man I worked with wanted to make a bad decision with me tonight. Every man except the one I wanted, that is. Just my luck.

  “Hi Faith, you look beautiful tonight. What do I have to do to get you to dance with me?” The voice was deep, familiar, and so perfectly timed that I nearly laughed out loud.

  Of course.

  Of course, it was Eric Carter who would find me next. The young doctor was hot, polite, interested, and one-hundred-percent off limits to a girl like me. It was just fine for resident or staff physicians to sleep with nurses. It was career suicide for nurses to sleep with doctors—particularly the residents.

  It’s a cruel, bizarre double standard, but it’s also the truth. We worked at a Catholic hospital, which really only made it all that much worse and hypocritical. Eric’s medical career would survive a failed relationship with me, but mine wouldn’t. Once we broke up, I’d be the one who got the crappy shifts, the poor performance reviews, the suggestions to look elsewhere because I ‘made people uncomfortable’.

  I was simply more replaceable than he was. I’d worked at this hospital for three years. He’d been here for less than one. I was sure he didn’t even realize what he was tempting me with when he insisted on flirting with me all the time.

  As if proving his point, Eric smiled at me and extended a hand. The bright, sparkly lights of the dance floor beckoned. Eric looked very different in a suit. Without the white coat, stethoscope, and the scrubs, he looked less serious, although of course he looked phenomenal in the white coat and the scrubs. He’d look good in just about anything.

  Especially, um, less. He’d look really great in… less. A lot less. I tried to push the thought aside, but it was sticking in my brain like a glitch. It raddled around and around in there, becoming more visual all the time. My hormones had taken control of the reins. I was just along for the ride.

  Tall, clearly in incredible shape, and with the sort of hyper-symmetrical, wholesome good looks that made my heart pound and eyes that made my thoughts flee, he was everything I wanted and more. His green eyes sparkled in the low light, like he knew a secret. He probably just knew how much I secretly liked him.

  If it were merely a physical crush, I could probably have resisted him, but the fact that he was also brilliant, tenacious, and easy to work with was icing on a cake that made me stay instead of running away. Thanks to Amber’s bad influence and my own impressionable weakness, I was in a state of helpless lust. I gaped up at Eric like a guppy that flopped up on land to escape a catfish and ended up staring at a tiger. The tequila running through my veins made me giggle instead of balk. I’d been fighting my attraction to this man for a year.

  “What are you prepared to do?” The words coming out of my mouth were brave, but I wasn’t. My heart was fluttering wildly against my ribs, but I couldn’t let him know that. I fluttered my eyelashes instead.

  Apparently, it was enough of an invitation. He plucked my hand from my side and held it between both of his. His big hands felt warm and safe, and Eric’s gaze was solemn. He shook his head from side to side.

  “Anything,” he told me. His voice was pure awe. “I’ll do anything you want.”

  What could I say to that? He led me out onto the dance floor.

  Chapter 1 – Eric

  The sun wanted to hurt me. It crept through the drapes in my bedroom, found my face, and mercilessly attacked an innocent, deeply hungover man. The cruel, blinding, prizing rays found their ways between my eyelids, baking them with light and heat until consciousness rose back up from wherever alcohol and exhaustion had banished it. I grumbled something and flopped over on my side, confused to find that I was on the carpeted ground next to my bed, instead of in it.

  With a concerted effort, I peeled my eyes open a bit wider. I’d slept in my contact lenses and my eyes were not happy about the abuse. It took about thirty seconds of blinking before I could properly understand my physical predicament. During that time, I heard a feminine gasp, a slight rustling to my right, the pitter-patter of bare feet and then a door opening and then closing with a decisive pop. All that meant I was alone by the time I was prepared to see what was going on. Understanding what I did eventually see took even longer.

  I hadn’t been alone last night. That much was obvious. But since I couldn’t for the life of me remember what had happened, I was forced to put the pieces together like an especially untalented private investigator. Or that guy from the movie Momento.

  The scene told the story through a hundred little clues. First, I was naked. I don’t usually sleep entirely naked, although the lack of any condoms, used or unused, and the fact that I was on the floor seemed to imply that I’d been less lucky than I’d perhaps hoped. Still, she’d stuck around until morning. My bed smelled like someone who used a tropical scented shampoo and/or body lotion, rather than my usual ‘mountain fresh’ all-in-one man wash. I crawled up into it and basked in the feminine smell and leftover warmth.

  Next, the piercing pressure of something against my left flank provided the real clue to what happened last night. I wriggled back and forth until I could pull the object free. It was a St. Raphael Hospital System ID belonging to Faith McNamara. She smiled out from the photo like the Mona Lisa.

  Faith went home with me last night?

  Excitement and joy shot through me, although they were quickly tempered by the knowledge that she’d clearly taken off as soon as she woke up. I tried and failed to remember what had happened. There had been dancing, and then drinking, and then kissing against a wall… The memories got fuzzy after that. I shook my head to try and shake the synaptic connections back into their proper alignment, but if I’d been as drunk as I suspected, those synaptic connections might not be there to find. They were too soaked in alcohol to ever stick in the first place.

  What the fuck had happened last night?

  I tossed and turned and tried my hardest to remember. Little flashes teased moments that I must have experienced but were now reduced to single images. In one, Faith was unzipping her dress. In another, I was on top of her, and kissing her long, beautiful neck. The sound of her sighs and gasps teased the edges of my sensory memory, and I recalled the feeling of her hands on my bare chest, my back, and my shoulders. I remembered the feeling of her gentle teeth on my earlobe, and shivering against the sound of her breath in my ear. I remembered her sly smile and the way her long hair tumbled around her bare shoulders. But everything was fragmented and incomplete. After months and months of fantasizing about Faith, it was almost too cruel.

  Still, the story came together enough for me to make some sense of it. The pieces suggested a narrative, even if most of the details were missing.

  Faith had been here, in my apartment. She’d been in my bed. We’d done… something. Something that wasn’t sex but was clearly close to it. And now she was gone, rushed off in such a huge hurry that she forgot her ID badge.

  I hoped to god that I hadn’t embarrassed myself somehow while in bed with Faith. Whatever I’d done had obviously resulted in me sleeping on the floor, so that was troubling. I shook my head against the frustration, and then regretted the sudden movement as my headache reminded me that I was very, very dehydrated. You might think that doctors would know better than to get shitfaced. You�
��d be wrong.

  I declared defeat in trying to remember exactly what had happened with Faith in my bed. It would either come back to me, or it wouldn’t, but clearly my attempts at forcing the memories to recoalesce were not proving successful. I pulled myself out of bed and reached for my phone, only to grab something glinting on my bedside table.

  It was my grandmother’s wedding ring. I blinked in confusion. What was that doing on here? I usually kept it in a locked safe in the other room. In fact, I wasn’t entirely sure I remembered the combination to that safe. And yet, here it was.

  The ring wasn’t talking. I stared at it for a long, long time. It was a very pretty ring, at least, I thought it was pretty. The heavy platinum ring was set with an enormous, glowing green emerald instead of a diamond. My grandmother had insisted that diamonds were overrated years before it was a popular millennial sentiment. There were diamonds on the ring as well, however, ringing the rectangular emerald in a rainbow halo. In the light from the morning sun coming in through the window, the ring looked even more luminous and bright than usual.

  “One day you’ll find a girl that deserves a ring like this.” A voice from a much older memory echoed in my mind. My grandmother’s eyes glinted mischievously from a distance of fifteen years. Her eyes were the same bright green as the emerald. “If I’m dead by then, you can give it to her. If I’m still alive, she’ll just have to wait!”

  Why would my grandmother’s engagement ring be sitting on my bedside table? My memories refused to provide any sort of an explanation. I put the precious ring back down in frustration, noticing that I’d gotten a shiny red string tangled around my own left ring finger. It looked like a piece of tinsel from a Christmas tree. I pulled it off and stared at it, waiting and waiting for an accompanying memory to surface.