She falls silent and looks down at our hands. She's still holding onto me and through that bond we share, I can almost feel the slight tremor of fear emanating from her. It's subtle, but it's there. On some level, she knows that I'm right.
Finally, she looks up at me. “Honestly, I don't think that's something you have to worry about with Duncan,” she repeats. “He's a good man and he's also crazy about you.”
The bigger part of me wants to believe both of those things are true – that he is a good man and that he's crazy about me. My rational mind, though, tells me that while the former may yet still be true, the latter is most assuredly not.
Does he deserve to know he has a child walking this world? Of course. Am I going to tell him that he does? The jury is still out on that question.
Nineteen
Duncan
“You're doing great, Miss Soto,” I say. “I'll check in on you again later.”
“Thank you, Doctor Clyburne.”
I leave her room and head down the corridor, stopping at the nurse's station to fill out a little paperwork before continuing on my rounds. I've had my privileges restored and have been back in the regular rotation for a few weeks now. It's been helpful to get myself back into a normal routine.
I'm not a guy who does particularly well without a routine – especially not when there’s a lot going on inside my head. I need the order and structure a routine provides when I'm surrounded by chaos. It allows me to keep from obsessing on what's going on around me and focus on what's important.
I know myself well enough to know that the underlying issue is my need for control. I like to be in total control of myself and my surroundings. Some call me a control freak because of it, but it's a trait common enough among people in high-pressure professions – doctors, lawyers, politicians, corporate CEO's. I think that ability to hyper-focus on what we do – as well as maintain control not just of ourselves, but unexpected situations that arise – is a necessary trait to have if we hope to be effective in our positions.
“It's good to have you back, Doctor Clyburne.”
I look up at Cindy, one of the ER nurses, who's holding down the station for now. I give her a smile and a nod.
“Thanks, Cindy,” I say. “It's good to be back.”
I turn my attention back to the paperwork in front of me. On some levels, yeah, it does feel good to be back. Most especially because Janet finally decided to name somebody else Chief of the One-Percent Unit – albeit reluctantly, from what I heard. That freed me up to return to the ER where I personally think I do the most good. I'm not political, and I'm not a big rah-rah fundraising guy – if there's one thing I learned over in Syria, it's that I'm much better in the chaos and pressure of emergency, life-and-death-type situations.
So, I'm glad she found somebody else who will happily fill that role. Janet wasn't thrilled with having to approve my transfer back to the ER, but she didn't really have much of a choice – she has a full staff and a Chief, which means that she has no need for me. But I'm glad she didn't put up too much of a fuss about it, all the same. For me, practicing medicine, helping people, and saving lives is what's most important to me. And I can do that better in the ER than in the One-Percent Unit.
I slide the clipboard back to Cindy and give her a nod as I walk away from the station to check up on my next patient.
“Excuse me, Doctor Clyburne?”
I turn around at the sound of the man's voice and am surprised to see Brad Walker walking toward me. There's a strange expression on his face that sends a cold spike of fear straight through me. My immediate thought is that something is wrong with Alexis or the baby.
Alexis and her baby were discharged from the hospital a couple of weeks ago and since then, I haven't had contact with her. I've thought about reaching out a few times, but I always stop myself. It's not my place. She's not with me. She's got a new life, a new man, and a new baby. There's just no room for me in her world anymore.
“Brad, is everything okay?” I ask.
“Yeah, everything's fine,” he says.
“Is there something wrong with Alexis?” I ask. “The baby?”
A shadow passes across his face, but it passes quickly. Brad stands there staring at me with something like contempt upon his face. I'm guessing he's still upset about what happened when I ran into them on the street. Hell, in his place, maybe I would be too. I can't deny that running into Alexis and looking into her eyes again set my heart on fire. The connection between us, even for that brief moment, had been as strong as ever. Both of us felt it and I got the feeling Brad did too – which was what led him to be such an asshole that night.
As he stands here before me, his expression grim and his body tense, as if he's prepared for a fight, I can't help but think this has something to do with that.
“What can I do for you, Brad?”
“You can start by staying the hell away from Alexis,” he hisses.
I'm doing my best to maintain control of myself – the last thing I want to do is get into a fight with Alexis' boyfriend. But it's not an easy thing to do when you know you're better for somebody than the person they ended up with, and that person is in your face, growling at you in righteous indignation, even though you haven't done a damn thing to deserve it.
“I haven't seen her since she was discharged, Brad.”
He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, his stance softening – slightly. “Look, I appreciate you saving her life and all of the top-notch care you gave her –”
“I was just doing my job.”
“And I know you two have some kind of history together, though she's never been real specific about it,” he continues, his voice tight. “It was just more than obvious the night we ran into you out on the street that it still means something to her.”
Yeah, it still means a hell of a lot to me too. And if not for a twerp like you getting in the way, we'd be revisiting that history and enjoying each other again. I wouldn't be wandering around here like a ghost. Even though I got what I wanted – a rotation back in the ER – I'm not happy. The work is exciting, but life is once more a little dull around the edges and lacking that vibrancy I've been searching for.
A vibrancy I felt in Syria, but one I also feel in Alexis' presence.
“Yeah, we do have a history together –”
“History is better left in the past, Doctor Clyburne,” he interrupts. “That's where I'm asking you to leave it. In the past.”
I give him a wry smile. “Look, Brad, I'm not sure what has you so wound up today, but I can assure you that I've not done anything to bring that history to the present,” I tell him. “Like I told you, I have neither seen, nor talked to Alexis since she was discharged.”
He runs a hand through his hair again and shuffles his feet. He's upset, I get that much. And for whatever reason, he's focusing his anger on me.
“Has something happened?” I ask. “Did you and Alex –”
“That's none of your goddamn business,” he snaps.
His outburst draws the attention of a nurse pushing one of her patients in a wheelchair by us. She shoots me an expression of concern, but I give her a subtle shake of the head, trying to tell her there's nothing for her to worry about. She casts a look at Brad once more before continuing on her way.
Brad finally looks up at me. “You know, life was so much better when you were over in Syria,” he continues. “I never had to hear about you, think about you, and I sure as hell didn't have to listen to Alexis talk about you. You were just – gone. A non-thought, a non-consideration.”
I get a small prick of satisfaction knowing that Alexis still thinks about me enough to talk about me – one that only intensifies knowing how much it bothers Brad here. Yeah, I can be a little petty sometimes.
I understand what he's saying, though. Being compared to an ex is going to be tough for anybody. It's going to suck, I get that. And then having that ex drop back into somebody's life, perhaps reigniting all of those old feelings – yeah, that is going to suck even more. So, from that standpoint, I can almost sympathize with Brad. Almost. He's a prick and I don't like him – and I personally think Alexis made a terrible choice – so he doesn't get any of my sympathies.
“I'm sorry you feel that way,” I tell him. “But, that's not really my problem. I'm just living my life, doing my job, and I'm not interfering in your world.”
“But you are,” he insists. “Your very fucking presence is interfering in my world.”
I'm holding myself in check, but he's really pushing it. I have my limits to how much shit I'll take from a person, and Brad is definitely reaching the upper threshold of that limit. It's tough to feel sympathy and compassion for a guy who's just an outrageous asshole.
“Why can't you go away again?” he asks. “Why don't you just go back to Syria and make everybody's life easier.”
“Make everybody's life easier?” I repeat, getting dangerously close to that red line in my mind. “You mean your life, don't you?”
“No, I mean everybody's life. Alexis is better off when you're half a world away, I don't have to deal with the Duncan this, Duncan that, bullshit,” he sneers, as a slow, malicious grin slides across his face. “And you don't have to worry about running into Alexis and being tormented by something you'll never have.”
I'm trying to hold my shit together, but Brad is not making it easy. He's really pushing me. I step closer to him, narrowing my eyes. He flinches, and I can see him fighting himself, forcing himself to stand fast, rather than show weakness by taking a step back from me.
“That's not my problem,” I growl. “If you're not enough to keep her attention and keep her from thinking about me, that's on you, Brad.”