I pressed the button for my floor and stood as close to the door as I could without mashing my cheek up against it. “Inside joke,” I said over my shoulder.
He made a rumbly noise that only tightened the strings holding me together. “Yeah. Sounded like it.”
I could feel his dark gaze on my back, my neck, everywhere. I stared at the doors.
“How’s that bruise doing?”
“My bruises are not your concern,” I said, and I was so proud of my cool, unfussed tone even as my fingers twitched at my side, eager to touch the welt on my thigh. It was a fun shade of plum, the shape of Australia, and large enough that my whole hand couldn’t cover it. But it was just a bruise.
“Yeah, Whit, they are.”
I didn’t know why that was my undoing, but it was. It pulled me apart at the seams until everything fell away, all the layers and structures and weight. I could almost see the shape of itbefore me, like I was a paper doll, pointless without the pieces swapped in and out to make me into something that mattered. I forced a ragged breath over my lips. My shoulders fell and my neck softened. I wasn’t a broken grenade right now, but I was so damn tired. Tired and empty and alone.
“I’m more than capable on my own.” I wanted to take a step backward. Just one. There’d still be plenty of space between us. More than enough, really. A respectable, professional amount of space. Though I didn’t. I dropped my gaze to my shoes and kept it there. “As I told you last week.”
“Both of us said things last week, Whit.”
“You can’t call me that.”
“You’ve said that before. That I can’t. I shouldn’t. But you’ve never said you don’t want me to call you that. There is a difference, you know.”
“Not to everyone else,” I cried, waving a hand at the empty car.
I heard the rustle of his clothes as he pushed off the wall and then I felt a puff of warm air on my neck. He didn’t come any closer, didn’t touch me, but the heat of him wrapped all around me. We stood there, silent and breathing the same air until the elevator jostled to a stop.
His forehead touched my shoulder. “There’s a difference, Whit, and you know it.”
Henry stepped around me and exited the elevator without a backward glance.
As much as I wanted to stay in this elevator and obsess over everything that had happened in the past two minutes, I had to get off at this floor. I ran a hand through my hair and marched down the hall while sending out a few pleas to the universe to save me from another tense moment with Henry.
The universe, sadly, wasn’t on my side today as I rounded a corner and ran right into the first-year residents. From thesounds of it, they were comparing stories from this morning’s liver transplant.
I powered ahead, not slowing down to acknowledge this gathering. I had appointments to get to and I hated starting late because it always snowballed.
But I’d barely passed by when I heard, “Dr. Aldritch! Are you coming to the softball game this week?”
Slowing down—but not quite stopping—I forced a smile for Cami Cortes-Dixon. “Not sure. I have a few things going on.”
“We won’t make you play,” Tori Tran said. Her bow tie was covered in those yellow cartoon characters. Minions. Perfect thing to focus on when I was busy blocking out Henry’s entire existence. “Unless you want to. You can do whatever you want. Obviously.”
That earned a real smile. “I made a splash last week. I’m not going to top that.”
“Okay, well, you know we’d love to see you,” Cami said.
Just as I’d fully passed the residents, Jenelle fell in step with me. “Any chance you have a few minutes for me?”
“Of course. You have access to my calendar. Schedule yourself whenever works best.”
She gave a slow nod and shoved her hands in her coat pockets. “So, not right now?”
“I’m due in the clinic.” I glanced at my watch with a sigh. “And I’m already cutting it close.” When the slow nods continued, I asked, “Is everything okay?”
Her lips parted though it seemed like she was struggling to get the words out. “Yeah,” she said after a pause. “Just some personal things I’m trying to figure out. I’ll find time in your calendar.”
I stopped at a set of double doors. “Is it the social media stuff again?”
Jenelle ran a pseudonymous account where she discussed matters of race in healthcare, particularly issues in appropriately diagnosing and treating Black patients when their symptoms didn’t add up neatly. All the cases she referenced protected patient privacy, of course, but there’d been occasions when she’d asked for my opinion on certain content before posting. As far as I knew, I was one of the few who knew the true identity of @ThatHenriettaLacks.
