I pull off the exam gloves and drop them in the bin. “And then you go home, Mr. Sorokin. That’s how hospitals work.”
“I know how hospitals work, Doctor. I’m asking what happens between us when I leave.”
I let out a nervous schoolgirl giggle that is downright embarrassing. I’m a doctor, for Christ’s sakes. Doctors don’t giggle.
“There is no ‘us.’ There’s a patient and a surgeon, and when the patient is discharged, that relationship ends.”
He holds eye contact, steady and unblinking, and his face tells me he doesn’t believe a word I just said. That makes two of us.
“Have a good night,” I add, and I hate how breathless it sounds.
I grab my supplies and walk out without looking back, because looking back would mean acknowledging the pull in my core that’s begging me to stay, and I refuse to give it the satisfaction.
Halfway down the corridor, I duck into the staff bathroom and hold onto the edge of the sink with both hands. My reflection stares back at me with flushed cheeks and blown pupils and the look of a woman who is in way over her head.
This is adrenaline, I tell myself again.
The woman in the mirror doesn’t believe me, either.
