Page 20 of Fixation
Drinking tea, sneezing, and the occasional cough—nothing about that was particularly alarming.
I convinced myself I was being overprotective. Irrational.
That going over there wasn’t worth the risk of exposing her to the Russian mafia.
Plenty of people get seasonal allergies.
After I got off work, it kept nagging at me, so I watched over her. Then my pager blew off three hours into my nap.
While I should’ve been watching her, I’d operated on a man with a gunshot wound. Patched up his ruptured spleen. The twenty-year-old I’d never met before took precedence over Harper.
Never.
Again.
I try to reason with myself that this isn’t the end of the world. She’s here. She’s alive.
I’m looking after her now. I’ll make sure she’ll recover in no time.
Meaning no harm done, right?
Wrong.
Plenty of harm done.
This angel.
This wounded kitten.
My obsession.
I missed over ten hours of her life, and look where it’s gotten us.
Regret pulses through me. I make up for neglecting her by hugging her tighter.
I take comfort in the fact that my scrubs are clean. That I changed out of the bloodied ones. That I can hug her without worrying about her catching anything.
I’m grateful for gettingthisright. Thankful that my sixth sense sent me to the waiting area, to Harper.
I have her.
And yet, the full body ache won’t leave me be. It hurts everywhere—my heart, my muscles, my bones—to know she’s been in immense pain and all by herself.
From now on, I’ll do better.
I won’t simply watch her. Won’t just visit her.
I’ll be there to make sure she takes care of herself.
Since she fails to do that, I’ll be the one to do it for her.
“Cold,” she hums, her burning head lolling against my chest.
A soft cough rattles her body.
Her eyes remain closed.
She isn’t conscious, and that’s okay. She doesn’t need to be for me to take her home and do what I do best, treat her.
