Page 158 of Alphas Like Us
Being famous.Not somuch.
I’m recognized every single day, sometimes minute-by-minute. I’m stopped walking down the hall. I’m stopped when I eat lunch in the cafeteria. When I’m minding my own fucking business duringrounds.
If it’s not the patients or their families, it’s the nurses, technicians, doctors and hospital staff. They want to gossip with me about the Hales, Meadows, and Cobalts like I’m their direct outlet to secret information they’ll never be allowed tohave.
Every day I have to brush them off. I’m perfectly fine with a bad reputation. I don’t give a flying shit if people call me cold or arrogant or an entitled bastard—but when it affects my job, when it affects my ability to be thebestat what I do, then I fuckingcare.
I hate knowing that I’m not contributing enough. That I’m taking the spot of someone who could potentially do better work than what I’mdoing.
I could tell Shaw about thismorning.
When I had a patient whorefusedto give me a medical history. He said he didn’t trust me. Not with that kind of personal information, and I tried to explain how there’s clear patient-confidentiality laws, but he didn’t want to hearit.
In his eyes, I have too many ties to the media and public and the things that I say aren’t just a whisper in thenight.
Hell, that wasn’t the first time I had to hand over a patient to another intern. Or be reprimanded by the hospital board for not carrying as big of a load as the other residents in myyear.
And I can’t argue with them. It takes me three times as long to do a job that they can do in under tenminutes.
I thought it’d be different coming back to finish my residency, but I didn’t imagine this kind of struggle. I’m not sure I couldhave.
I’ve become a “celebrity” doctor, and that’s hindered my ability to help people inside Philly General. And I feel worthlesshere.
Three years.It’s what I keep telling myself. That in three years I’ll be worth more again. I’ll be out of this hospital and working for the famousfamilies.
But that’s three years of running at a brick wall and not being able tobreathe.
I haven’t been able to talk about this with Maximoff. I want to protect him from feeling at fault, or from blaming himself. Broaching the topic means that I’m reaffirming his worst fears: I’ve lost an immeasurable source of happiness by being with him, by being famous. And that’s not how I seeit.
He’s my happiness, and I’m fighting for the day where I go back to him. Andfuck,it’s right there. The day is right in front ofme.
Justgo.
I sit up, boots dropping to the ground. I glance back at Shaw. “Just a long shift,” I tell him, my mindracing.
Justgo.
“Tell me about it.” He downs his coffee and then disappears into the lockerroom.
When the door swings closed behind him, I stack the charts from my lap and place them onto the coffeetable.
Quickly, I push into the locker room. “Hey, Shaw!” Ishout.
“Yeah?” He sticks his head out, past a few cedar lockers. Bare-chested, he pulls on a Poloshirt.
“Who’s on-call tonight?” I ask while I yank open mylocker.
“Morris, Kim, and Bakshi.” He narrows his eyes at me while I take off my scrubs and change into black pants and a plain shirt. “I thought your shift ended atten.”
In an hour. “It does.” I tuck my black V-neck in my pants and buckle my belt. For me, that hour will be stretched to three depending on how many people will stop me and ask forpictures.
It’s why I’m always late. Toeverything.
Shaw hangs on his locker door. “Is it Maximoff Hale?” he asks. “I can keep a secret if you need to talk orsomething.”
“I’m good,” Isay.
“You know I’m not like those other people,” Shaw continues. “I’ve watched Maximoff Hale on TV since I was about ten. He’s practically a real person to me, not just acelebrity.”
