Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 146548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
The note is for me, the same one I see every other day. I barely skim the scribbled words:
Farrow, tell your friend that he needs to leave.
~ Cory
Leaning on the cupboards, I bite off the cap to a pen and then push my phone to my ear with my other hand. I fill up the Post-it with two large letters.
No.
I’m rarely at my apartment. Someone else staying here in my place shouldn’t be a problem, and to be honest, I doubt I’ll even be living in this apartment long anyway.
The phone line clicks.
“I’ll email you the patient’s medical history over a secure server,” my father starts right where we left off, “and then—”
“Back up,” I interject, not wanting to read anyone’s medical files if I don’t have to. Because I’m quitting on them soon. Flipping through their med history is invasive. “Who and what am I treating?” I tear open a packet of oatmeal and grab a paper bowl in case I need to leave in a hurry.
My father must be moving around, his loafers click clap on the floor. “Excuse me,” he says faraway to someone else. “Thank you…okay, perfect. I’ll be out at the cliff site in fifteen minutes.”
I pour oatmeal powder in the bowl and turn on the faucet.
More loudly, my father says, “Farrow?”
“Still here.” I hold the bowl beneath the faucet.
“The patient is Maximoff Hale.”
My brows furrow, and my face scrunches in motherfucking confusion. “Moffy really called you for help?” I ask.
It would take two seconds around Maximoff to understand how much the guy dislikes needing to be saved. For any reason. Even if he were in cardiac arrest, I can’t see him phoning my father.
But say Moffy did, then it’d have to be serious.
“Yes, he really called—”
“Shit,” I curse as water overflows my bowl of oatmeal. Quickly, I shut off the faucet, and I overturn the watered oatmeal mess into the drain and wash my hands. Rarely does anything distract me like this.
“He was asking for instances where he should go to an emergency room,” my father explains.
I dry my hands on a dishtowel. “I don’t know Moffy that well, but he seems like the kind of person who’d make lists to prepare for things that haven’t happened yet.”
“You do know him,” my father refutes. “You know all of the Hales, the Meadows, and the Cobalts. We both do. Getting to know your patients is why we’re able to provide the best care.”
I roll my eyes.
I’m used to the daily medical lectures, but I don’t need or want one right now. My father never removes the white coat. Metaphorically and literally. It’s who he is, and shit, I don’t want it to be who I am anymore.
I can’t only exist as another name in the Keene dynasty. It means that my life isn’t mine, and that scares the fuck out of me. Life is finite; we all die, and when you’re dead, you’re dead.
I couldn’t wish my mom back. I have a single memory of her and a handful of pictures. I know that I have only one life, and I need to live for what I love.
Not what my father loves.
Not what the Keenes need me to be.
I have to live for me.
I quit medicine.
I quit.
But I picture Maximoff Hale hurt, alone. In need of someone.
And I know I’m not quitting today.
Still, my father hasn’t convinced me that this isn’t just wolf scout earning a “preparedness” merit badge. I pass the phone to my other hand and say, “Okay, but this could still be Moffy over-preparing like he always does.”
“If you heard his voice over the phone,” my father says, “you’d know he wasn’t calm. He was tense. And you know Maximoff. So now what do you think?”
There’s a reason for concern.
I rub my jaw, my pulse hiking a fraction. No more delay, I leave the kitchen for the hall closet. “Did you narrow down the problem or am I going to have to pack a bag with everything?” I gather my black canvas trauma bag and check supplies: gauze, sutures—shit, if he needs an IV…
“It could be a fracture, maybe possible head trauma.”
I hurry. “Did he sound disoriented?”
“He sounded worried and distracted.”
I remember the last time I saw Maximoff. I can still smell the salt water and feel the heat from the torches. July, just last month. His family threw a summer party on a yacht, and I talked to Moffy for a minute.
I remember how he stared off into space. How it took me thirty seconds just to catch his attention.
My lips upturn at the memory. “That guy is always distracted.”
“More distracted than usual,” my father notes.
My smile fades fast, and I stuff a blood pressure cuff in the bag. I search for my missing stethoscope, unzipping sections.
Maximoff fought with his cousin on that yacht. Both threw punches. And he’s been caught in more than a few brawls before, mostly with hecklers. “Do you think he was in a fistfight?” I ask my father, just as I find my stethoscope in a front pocket.