“You’ll be so proud of me. I’ll fight for us, Dr. Andrews. No matter what.” I give a mock salute and he laughs. A real, belly-filled laugh, shaking his head as he comes down. “Get out of my office, Keeton. Go round on patients or answer a page. Make yourself useful before I change my mind.”
Chapter Eleven
Colter
Islamdownthedoorhandle to the resident’s lounge, shoving so hard it cracks against the wall when it flies open. My movements cause the overhead lights to flicker on, and there I see her.
Lying sideways on the shitty little sofa with her feet slung over the side so they barely rest on the floor, fast asleep. Her pager vibrates obnoxiously on the small table beside her. She’s out cold and oblivious to its call.
I throw my hands on my hips, not knowing where to start. If anyone, especially her father, took a second look at our relationship they’d see I’ve become completely smitten with her. It’s so fucking hard to hide how I feel when I see her with her hair down, wild curls radiating that infamous coconut scent.
It’s harder and harder to hold back my laughter, because dammit, she cracks me up. She’s fresh, snarky, and smart; each day I’m surrounded by her I need to remind myself who her father is, so having any personal thoughts about her is absolutely forbidden.
I take another look at her, she’s lying so peacefully it barely looks like she’s breathing. I’m fucking livid I gave her an inch of freedom, the opportunity of a lifetime to scrub in on a double transplant. I put my reputation on the line, and rotated the schedule to bump the other resident to a different case because I thought I saw something in her. Worst of all, Iwantedher there. I wanted her to learn and soak in that experience. I wanted to go back to my office and see that fire lit up inside of her while we debriefed afterwards.
I wanted to make her fucking happy.
But what does she do? She no-shows. Stands the whole team up and ignores my calls just to hide away and take a nap, apparently.
Fuck.
I rake my hands through the sides of my hair, pulling at the ends as I let out a heavy exhale. That surgery was brutal. My back aches from standing, my head throbs from straining, and my fucking jaw is tense from biting back any nasty comment I had for geriatric ole Dr. Anderson. I’m so bitterly angry with myself for looking around the room, searching for Annaliese as we got started. With each body that filtered in and out of the OR, my gaze flicked up expecting her to be rushing in, her entire frame covered with surgical attire except for her gorgeous eyes.
I waited for that breath of air that came with having her near me, but when Dr. Anderson mentioned she rushed off to take a break, the look on his face told me everything I should have known sooner.
She duped me.
“Let’s go Keeton,” I bark as I cross my arms over my chest and plant my feet firmly in the doorway.
She doesn’t so much as flinch in her sleep at the sound of my voice. I pause for a moment, willing my anger to diffuse just a touch before taking two steps into the room. The door falls shut behind me with a slam, which again, garners no movement from her. My hands fall to hang at my sides, and I release a heavy exhale as I move to stand directly over her. “Keeton.” I kick the leg of the couch, the sound echoing off the small walls.
Yet, she still doesn’t budge.
A faint beeping fills my ears, and I turn my head to one side, and then the other, searching around the room for its source. My gaze falls back to Annaliese and notice her hands tucked firmly under her head. I reach an arm out, not sure how or where to touch her, and when my palm meets her skin, I step back in shock.
She’s ice cold, so cold it nearly burns, and my stomach plummets.
I fall to my knees, saying her name again, the venom now replaced with worry as I usher her on her back. When her hands are uncovered, that incessant beeping is a little louder, and I then notice it’s coming from her watch.
I tap the face of her watch twice, and the screen lights up. I squint, needing to twist her wrist to get a good reading at the message flashing in red.
Glucose: 32 mg/dL
My blood freezes in my veins at the warning.
For fuck’s sake. Annaliese is a diabetic?
I school the anger that comes along with having no fucking idea she had an autoimmune disease, let alone one that is incredibly fragile. I silently curse both her name and Richard’s as I rifle through the backpack at her feet. Dumping her belongings out over the floor, I search for something, anything, that will help. I bypass the packets of fruit leather and peanut butter, debating slathering the inside of her mouth with the latter, when I finally come across a glucagon kit.
Pulling out the pen, I bite the cap off with my teeth and spit it to the side before drawing up a dose. I haven’t had to think about glucagon dosing since the days of med school, so any memory I have is fuzzy. I know I can’t waste time reading directions when her life is in danger, and I have no idea how long she’s been out. I pull up the hem of her shirt, and run my palm along her stomach to her side, finding a pad of soft skin.
“This might sting for a second,” I whisper to her, unsure if she can still hear me.
I jam the pen into her skin and administer the glucagon. My ears ring with adrenaline as I lean back and wait for it to take effect.
My eyes are glued to the watch on her wrist as I firmly hold my hand over her faint pulse. As the minutes pass, I see the little arrows start to move up, showing the rise in her glucose, but it’s not enough.
I watch her chest take in each slow breath, and I swear my own heart has stopped beating. I know I need to wait a certain amount of time before giving another dose, but fuck, I’m so out of my wheelhouse that panic starts to take over. I’ve never felt this feeling before. This anxiety. Not as an insecure student in med school, not as a fresh-faced resident about to cut open a living person for the first time. I’m a respected surgeon, but right now, fear has trapped my mind to the point where I can barely stay calm enough to think of the next steps. All I know at this moment is that I need her awake, and I need her to talk to me. So I draw up another dose and find a spot near the one I just used.
