That was her response. Were we recorded? Being watched? Why was she being so distant? She’d only do that if she didn’t feel something for me, but I knew that wasn’t true. There was another option though…My stomach bottomed out as it hit me. Things were serious. Something was wrong with me.
That’s why she was putting up distance. Same with Ivy.Fuck.
The realization hit me like a goddamn train.
We moved on to verbal recall, and I couldn’t focus, my brain spiraling. She read a list of ten words. I had to repeat them in the same order. I remembered six. Missed two. Got the last two flipped.
“Baseline last season was eight out of ten,” she said.
“Maybe I’m rusty,” I offered, hoping I was wrong and the weight in my gut was misplaced.
“Or maybe you’re symptomatic. You’re distracted and not able to compensate like you normally would.” Her gaze flew to mine in warning.
That shut me up.
The test ran another loop—reaction-time tracking. A dot would appear in different quadrants, and I had to tap it fast. Usually, I crushed this. But my timing lagged. My dominant hand was slower. My heart rate spiked.
I knew she noticed. She didn’t say anything.
She tapped a few notes into her tablet. I waited for her to say something human. She didn’t.
“You’re not gonna tell me anything?” I asked.
“Not until it’s reviewed.”
“Can you make a guess?”
“No, what good would that do?”
“Let me know what you’re thinking instead of me freaking out and guessing with half answers. What are you seeing, Sloane? Tell me. Please.”
“It’s hard to say until we know for sure,” she said, still not meeting my eye.
“Do I look okay to you?”
Her eyes flicked up, and for a split second, the mask cracked. Not much. Just enough for me to see the fear behind it. Her eyeswelled, and her bottom lip trembled but then she cleared her throat and swallowed, hard.
“You’re finishing the protocol,” she said quietly. “Then we wait for the cardiologist.”
My mouth went dry. “This isn’t about reaction time, is it?” I asked. “You think it’s something else.”
“I think you’re not being honest with yourself about how often you feel off,” she said, her tone the one I heard that first time meeting with her. She was in full Doctor Mercer mode, and usually, I found that hot.
Right now, it unnerved me. I leaned forward, taking a breath as I waited for her to look at me. “I think you’re hiding something.”
Her jaw tensed. “Oliver, this isn’t a conversation we can have in here.”
I laughed once, short and bitter. “We’ve had worse conversations in worse rooms.”
“That was before this.” Her voice cracked slightly. “Before everything… got real.”
Before I could ask what that meant, she stood and closed the laptop.
“That’s it?” I asked. My temper flared. She knew I was a mess and was letting me spiral, keeping me in the dark.
“For now.”
“I deserve to know what’s going on.”
