She reaches for my forearm again, checking her work, before she lifts my arm up to the light to get a better look.
“Can’t leave me hanging, Doc. What happened then?”
Holly sets my arm down gently, grabbing the pile of garbage and bringing it to the sink. She opens the cabinet and sets it on top of my already overflowing can and pushes down. When she closes the door, she turns around and leans against the sink with her arms crossed over herchest. “I left. I didn’t have a plan. I just kept walking. I tried to call my mom.” She tilts her chin to the ceiling, and even though the lights are dim in that corner of my kitchen, I can see her eyes glistening. “Both of my parents are doctors. My dad is a cardiothoracic surgeon, and my mom is an ER doctor. Growing up, it was always the plan that I’d be a doctor too. I mean, it’s literally in my blood.”
“With genes like that, I don’t blame you.”
“I called my mom, and as soon as I heard her voice, I started to sob.”
I can’t help myself, I stand up, letting my chair scoot across the floor as I cross the kitchen to stand in front of her. I cross my arms over my own chest so I don’t pull her to me. “What did your mom say?” I ask softly.
“She said that she had a migraine, and to call her back when I was done being dramatic.”
I hiss out a low curse, letting my own head fall back for a beat. The people who were supposed to care for her the most in her life blatantly ignored her. “And then I nearly knocked you on your ass in the snow.”
I’m still staring up at the ceiling when a warm hand comes to rest on my forearm. Holly squeezes gently as her thumb brushes over my skin. “And then you nearly knocked me over, but you didn’t. Instead, you asked about me.”
I look down at her, and she smiles. “You were the only person that day who truly cared to know what had happened.”
“So, then why’d you run?” I can’t help but ask. I know now that she was engaged. But her fiancé had proven at that moment he wasn’t worth the time.
“Because that phone call I got? That was him finally calling me back. I saw his name and was overwhelmed with guilt.” She pushes off the counter, coming a small step closer to me. “I was engaged to an asshole, yeah, but still engaged. I was an engaged woman having coffee with a really nice man that I was attracted to.”
My chest swells at that, and a genuine smile crosses my face. “What about a few weeks ago?”
She pulls her hand from my arm, and as she moves past me to the door to slip on her shoes, I want to pull my words right back.
“We broke up a while ago. He moved out while I found a place of my own. The ring was…” She huffs out a frustrated breath. “It was the last thing I had left. These last few months have been shit. Everything changed, and I think I wanted a small reminder of the woman I once was. I was too embarrassed to tell you the truth about my ring, so I opted to let you walk away.”
I cross over to her, and her gaze tracks my movement. From my feet to my chest, up to my face as I reach her. Worried eyes meet mine, and I take a breath, hoping I can find the right words. She’s been through so much in three short months. She wasn’t exaggerating that night when she told me she was having the worst day of her life.
“But the ring is gone now?”
Holly nods. “He’s gone. The ring is gone.”
“And you came here tonight, why? Was it just to take my stitches out?”
Her eyes flick back and forth across my face, and I can see the exhaustion wearing on hers. This conversation is a lot, and she’s laid all her cards out on the table. I can forgive what happened in February, and even a few weeks ago, but I want to know that she feels this pull toward me, the same one I feel toward her.
She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, worrying it back and forth. “I wanted to see you again, even if it was just to clear the air. I couldn’t have you thinking that any of this was your fault.”
My heart soars, and I take a step forward. God, how I want to pull that bottom lip from her teeth. Kiss her pretty mouth and show her just how happy I am that she’s no longer engaged to that asshole. But this girl is workingher way back from hell, and I don’t want to add to the weight of the stress she carries.
I push out a breath, trying to wrap my head around the last few minutes. She said shewasworking in an ER, which explains why she was wearing scrubs that night. But the urgent care in Willow Creek is a far cry from the ER.
“Are you going back to the ER? Or is your home in Willow Creek now?”
“They’re holding my job for me. I have a month left to fill in at some of these smaller clinics, to slowly immerse myself back into the medical world before I can start back in the ER.” She chuckles awkwardly. “It’s sort of like a trial run, to see if I can still handle being a doctor.”
“Does it make you happy, being a doctor?”
She leans back, resting her weight against the door. “I don’t know anymore.”
“Did it at one point?”
Holly looks up at me, and I can see the thoughts swirling through her mind. “I don’t have an answer for that either.”
I take another tentative step forward, wanting to talk to her about this, wanting her to sit back at my table so I can hear every anxious thought spill from her perfect mouth. But I can already see the pain on her face, it starts withher pinched brows and works its way down, causing every muscle to pull taut. I wonder if her anxiety has led her to believe she’s a failure. I want to know if her parents make her feel like a failure. I want to ask her so many things, but most importantly, I want to tell her that I admire her.
