Page 4 of Alphas Like Us
I’m rarely at my apartment. Someone else staying here in my place shouldn’t be a problem, and to be honest, I doubt I’ll even be living in this apartment longanyway.
The phone lineclicks.
“I’ll email you the patient’s medical history over a secure server,” my father starts right where we left off, “andthen—”
“Back up,” I interject, not wanting to readanyone’s medical files if I don’t have to. Because I’m quitting on them soon. Flipping through their med history is invasive. “Who and what am I treating?” I tear open a packet of oatmeal and grab a paper bowl in case I need to leave in ahurry.
My father must be moving around, his loafersclick clapon the floor. “Excuse me,” he says faraway to someone else. “Thank you…okay, perfect. I’ll be out at the cliff site in fifteenminutes.”
I pour oatmeal powder in the bowl and turn on thefaucet.
More loudly, my father says, “Farrow?”
“Still here.” I hold the bowl beneath thefaucet.
“The patient is MaximoffHale.”
My brows furrow, and my face scrunches in motherfuckingconfusion. “Moffy really called you for help?” Iask.
It would take two seconds around Maximoff to understand how much the guy dislikes needing to be saved. For any reason. Even if he were in cardiac arrest, I can’t see him phoning myfather.
But say Moffy did, then it’d have to beserious.
“Yes, he reallycalled—”
“Shit,” I curse as water overflows my bowl of oatmeal. Quickly, I shut off the faucet, and I overturn the watered oatmeal mess into the drain and wash my hands. Rarely does anything distract me likethis.
“He was asking for instances where he should go to an emergency room,” my fatherexplains.
I dry my hands on a dishtowel. “I don’t know Moffy that well, but he seems like the kind of person who’d makeliststo prepare for things that haven’t happenedyet.”
“You do know him,” my father refutes. “You know all of the Hales, the Meadows, and the Cobalts. We both do. Getting to know your patients is why we’re able to provide the bestcare.”
I roll myeyes.
I’m used to the daily medical lectures, but I don’t need or want one right now. My father never removes the white coat. Metaphorically and literally. It’s who he is, and shit, I don’t want it to be who I amanymore.
I can’t only exist as another name in the Keene dynasty. It means that my life isn’t mine, and that scares the fuck out of me. Life is finite; we all die, and when you’re dead, you’redead.
I couldn’t wish my mom back. I have a single memory of her and a handful of pictures. I know that I have only one life, and I need to live for what Ilove.
Not what my fatherloves.
Not what the Keenes need me tobe.
I have to live forme.
I quitmedicine.
Iquit.
But I picture Maximoff Hale hurt, alone. In need ofsomeone.
And I know I’m not quittingtoday.
Still, my father hasn’t convinced me that this isn’t just wolf scout earning a “preparedness” merit badge. I pass the phone to my other hand and say, “Okay, but this could still be Moffy over-preparing like he alwaysdoes.”
“If you heard his voice over the phone,” my father says, “you’d know he wasn’t calm. He was tense. And you know Maximoff. So now what do youthink?”
