“You’re alive,” I say.
He shifts his arm slightly, one bleary eye squinting at me before he perks up.
“Ahh, my favorite doctor came back!”
Clearly still high.
“I was curious if the anesthesia fried your last three brain cells.”
“Nah.” A faint smirk pulls at his mouth. “Still got two.”
I walk to the end of the bed, check the chart, then glance at his monitor. “Your heart rate’s a little high.”
“Can you blame me? You’re out of scrubs.”
“Yeah,” I reply, scanning the notes. “I finished hours ago.”
“You have… clothes.”
“I’m off shift.”
“You have… legs.”
I pause, then glance down at the leggings and UGG boots I pulled on after showering. “Incredible, isn’t it?”
He stares at me, suddenly suspicious. “Are you real?”
“Excuse me?”
“Are you hot-doctor real, or hallucination real?”
My mouth twitches, but I smother it. “You’re high.”
“I probably shouldn’t tell you your hair looks really fucking soft, then.”
I let out a snort, and he frowns.
“Was that in my head?”
“You definitely said it out loud.”
“Shit.”
I shake my head and bite my lip so I don’t react. He’s a patient, and patients get high. They say things they don’t mean all the time. But for some reason, I can’t help but sneak an extra look at him.
He watches me back, still foggy, but with that frustrating, unsettling sharpness beneath it. He sees more than he should, even half-conscious.
“You’re different without the white coat.”
I ignore that and gesture back at his chart.
“No signs of infection, and Dr. Moreno says the meniscus looked clean. They reattached what they could and trimmed out the rest. It went well.”
He exhales. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Silence stretches.
