I looked at it for some kind of clue, but he was wearing his usual beige trousers. Everything looked normal from where I was standing.
‘The one you fell on?’
‘No, the other one.’
‘Well, what do you mean, weird?’
‘I don’t know, like it’s damp.’
I narrowed my eyes, trying patiently to understand. ‘Damp?’
‘Damp,’ he confirmed.
‘You mean your skin?’
‘My leg.’
‘Yes, but, the skin of your leg?’
‘The whole leg.’
‘You’re not making any sense.’
‘I don’t know how else to explain it.’
I looked at Jack, who shrugged.
‘Do you want me to take a look at it?’ he asked Ray.
‘Are you a doctor?’
‘Well, no, but?—’
‘Then you can keep your hands to yourself, thank you.’
Jack suppressed a smile. ‘Understood.’
I checked the clock on the wall. ‘I’d better hurry up, then.’
‘Yes, you’d better,’ Ray agreed. ‘But also, do a good job. I’m not going anywhere with you looking like that.’
I poked my tongue out at him as I headed for the stairs, unable to keep the smile off my face as I ascended. Not even Ray could kill my good mood today. Last night had been the best night of my life. Being with Jack had felt incredible, and my body was sore and aching in all the right places to remind me. There was only one, small niggle. A seed of doubt that was trying to get in, to plant itself, to grow into an entire tree of worry.
Where to from here?
I would still be leaving in a few weeks. And no matter how many times I told myself, or Jack, that we could just live in the moment and enjoy whatever it was between us for just that, whatever it was, it turned out that maybe I wasn’t that kind of woman after all. Feelings were creeping in and that would make it harder to walk away. Feelings were definitely a complication I wasn’t sure I was ready for.
‘What do you mean, damp?’ the doctor asked Ray later, in the examination room.
‘You know, damp,’ Ray replied. ‘Wet. Moist.’
‘Oh God.’ I squeezed my eyes shut. ‘Please don’t say that word again.’
‘What, moist?’
I stood up. ‘I’ll wait for you out in the waiting room.’
The medical center hadn’t changed much since I was a teen. The walls were still plastered with posters, some of them so faded as to be illegible. The building was old and in need of repair, but according to a sign by the front counter, a new medical center was in the process of being built on the other side of town, near the sports fields. I was reading about how this was thanks to community fundraising efforts when someone tapped me on the shoulder.
