“Have a nice evening.” George went back to his post outside of the building.
Brooke clutched the brown bag to her chest after she hit the elevator button and waited for it to arrive at the lobby. The doorsdinged then swung open, she crawled into the elevator and hit her floor button.
Maybe she could call in sick tomorrow? But she knew slinking away wasn’t her style. Instead, she planned on eating her Oreos while she cried. Come tomorrow, she’ll dust herself off, square her shoulders and go back to work. If things became too unbearable, she could always relocate. She wasn’t married to this place, maybe a new hospital in a new city was just what she needed.
Brooke moved to Chicago after medical school and took a great job offer at the hospital here. The city’s lower cost of living made it more attractive than the other big cities on the East Coast. Then shortly after her move, she made friends with Aubrey, met Justin, and she thought she’d live here forever. Chicago was a great city. It had enough of everything to keep her around.
But if seeing Justin every day at work became too much to handle, she’d apply for a new job in a new city and leave. She let the idea settle in her mind, helping her regain control. Today she wouldn’t spiral. One always had choices, you only needed to give yourself permission to see them all.
Once she made it into the comfort of her apartment, she settled onto her brown leather sofa and didn’t even bother removing her shoes as she kicked her feet up onto her coffee table. Then she dug back into her grocery bag and retrieved her packet of Oreos. She peeled back the top of the plastic film top and ate five in rapid succession. The taste of chocolate didn’t even register. Brooke turned on a true crime show to keep from thinking and reminded herself breakup calories didn’t count.
At some point, she drifted to sleep.
Her dreams were a mixture of bread, Oreos, and Logan. The guy she would never see again.
CHAPTER 2
After returning from the grocery store, his tiredness from work hit him. Hard. Logan put away his groceries and chugged a protein shake standing up in his kitchen. The earlier adrenaline from getting off work had dissipated, and exhaustion took over. He turned on a basketball game, plopped on the couch and fell asleep within seconds. Then he slept for seven hours fully clothed with his shoes still on.
An annoying ring woke him from his deep sleep. Groggily, he swiped his eyes and patted the couch for his cell phone. He eventually found it. The hospital’s number flashed across his screen.
He clicked accept, putting the phone to his ear. “This is Dr. Schofield.” Logan swung his legs over the side of the couch and sat up.
“Hey, Dr. Schofield. This is Tamara at the hospital.” She sped forward without taking a breath. “We need you to come in for an emergency appendectomy. It’s an eleven-year-old boy. I know you worked yesterday, but the hospital has been swamped with emergency surgeries. And you’re the closest to the hospital.”
“No problem.” He ran a hand down the length of his face to further wake himself up. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” He hung up.
Logan made quick work of washing his face with cold water to wake himself up. Then he changed into a clean pair of scrubs. He headed out of his apartment to the hospital. His apartment was located right on the Magnificent Mile, a few short blocks away. After finishing his residency, he had then spent two more years in Boston specializing in pediatric general surgery. This was the first job since starting medical school where he would make actual money, which felt foreign after living for so long off student loans and his meager residency salary.
Due to his fast walking pace, he breezed through the doors of the hospital twelve minutes later. Being a general surgeon meant the surgeries he performed were often urgent. A patient might come in with severe stomach pain and an hour later they might find themselves prepped for gallbladder removal. With his on-call obligations, Logan purposely selected an apartment within walking distance of the hospital. Plus, he liked living in the city.
Chicago was home. He grew up in Naperville, a suburb thirty miles away from downtown Chicago. His parents still lived there. His sister had married her high school sweetheart, and now they had twin baby girls and lived in the same neighborhood as his parents. Being the youngest, he’d spent the past years in a never-ending state of FOMO but not anymore. He joined his sister and her family at his parent’s house for the weekly Sunday dinners any time he wasn’t working.
As he rode the elevator up to the general surgery floor, Logan’s mind wandered to his brief encounter with the bread woman from the grocery store. He wondered if the bread helped her bad day. But then he entered the operating room, and his thoughts of Brooke dissipated. His instincts and years of medical training took over.
Luckily, the appendectomy was straightforward. After he performed the surgery, he went to his office to finish the required paperwork. Then he decided to check on the patient’s recovery before going home. He knocked on the door of the patient’s room and announced his arrival.
He waited for the anticipatedcome inand entered once he heard it. In the room, he found Dylan in the hospital bed with his parents by his side. To his surprise, the anesthesiologist who administered the anesthesia was next to his bed side. A nurse checked his vitals and pointed out something to Dr. Moreno on the computer screen. This made his blood pressure rise a notch.
Dylan’s parents glanced over at his arrival.
“Hello, everyone.” Logan strode across the room to Dylan’s bedside. “I’m stopping by to check on Dylan before I head out.”
Dylan’s eyes were glazed. He appeared groggy.
He swiped Dylan’s medical file off the wall next to the door then leafed through the first few pages. Then he forced a smile at Dylan’s parents and came up next to Dr. Moreno and leaned in closer. “How’s he doing, Dr. Moreno?” he whispered.
Dylan mumbled some nonsensical words and rustled around in his bed.
Dylan’s mom gnawed on a fingernail. “Is he going to be, okay?”
“Anything we need to be worried about, doctor?” Dylan’s dad wrapped a comforting arm around Dylan’s mom’s shoulders.
Dr. Moreno exchanged a quiet look with Logan. Then he spoke up loud enough for Dylan’s parents to hear. “Oh, Dylan’s doing fine.” Dr. Moreno checked his blood pressure then uncuffed the sleeve from his bicep. “He’s taking a little longer than normal to come out of the anesthesia, but he’s becoming more coherent with each minute. I’m checking his vitals a second time.”
Dr. Moreno asked Dylan a few questions. Dylan responded to half of them. The nurse assisted him as they continued through the necessary precautions to ensure Dylan was stable and recovering.
Time ticked by and Logan made himself useful by answering Dylan’s parents’ questions about their son. He hoped to ease their nerves and keep their attention off Dr. Moreno and the nurse taking Dylan’s vitals. Dylan’s condition improved. The grogginess in his eyes cleared, and his earlier slurring of his words disappeared. According to his file, Dylan had a history of taking longer than normal to come out of anesthesia and had a similar incident when he had surgery to remove his tonsils.
