He leaned over, hugging me. “I appreciate you, Jess. I know I never showed you that enough, but I do. I never stopped appreciating you.”
I hugged him back. “I know,” I said. Right then, I meant it.
***
I told myself that I wasn’t going to think about Jody anymore, but as soon as I got home, and got ready for bed, I felt my mind drifting back to him.
He really needed to stop presenting himself in my ER as one of my patients. That was annoying and it was putting a wrench in things. I meant it when I told him that I thought we could be friends, but sitting alone in my bed early in the morning, going through what had happened during the day, I couldn't help but feel that it was simply misguided wishful thinking.
With our history, I didn’t think it was going to be possible that we were ever going to be anything, certainly no more than acquaintances. I needed to tell him that, but I also didn’t necessarily want to speak with him again.
I needed to. I needed to get him out of my life, cut the source of pain off at the stem, and I knew that. But things were not that simple, unfortunately, whether I wanted them to be or not. And I needed to be honest with him, which was hard when I wasn’t sure if I was being honest with myself.
I thought I was honoring myself, but denying myself someone because they had been unkind so long ago felt a little immature. Maybe I was being immature.
I let the back of my head hit the pillow and looked up at the ceiling, where the fan span and whirred, when I looked at my phone and thought about calling him to ask how he was doing.
I would have to pull his number from his medical records, though, and I wasn’t willing to do that.
I wasn’t going to call him. If I saw him again, it would probably be at the hospital, when he was visiting his friends, and I probably wouldn’t see him again. I told myself that was okay.
I told myself I didn’t want to see him.
It wasn’t as if I didn’t have any other prospects. The truth was that I was still being asked out on dates, still being matched with people on dating sites, and the men I had gone on dates with were asking me if I wanted to follow up on my dates. I wanted to keep my prospects open, I wanted to date, but I wanted to find the right person to date.
I couldn’t let my past suck me back, no matter how good looking my past was. No matter how sexy he was now, with incredible muscles and…
No. I wasn’t going to let myself go there. I wasn’t going to allow myself to think about him like that, because it was going to get me nowhere.
I put the blanket over me and tried my best to fall asleep.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
2019
I arrived a little late at the hospital, feeling like I had been drinking the day before. I hadn’t. The last few days had been something of a blur and I was trying to find my footing once again. It felt like, the moment Jody had walked in, everything had changed for me.
It hadn’t. My life was no different because he was in it, and in fairness, he was hardly in it. We had only gone to breakfast together once, and after that, I hadn’t heard from him again. Not that I wanted to, I told myself. Things between us were never going to be simple and I wanted simple things, at least in my dating life.
My work life was complicated enough. Cam looked me up and down. Her hair was up in a bun, and as always, she looked immaculate. She wasn’t wearing her white coat because none of us ever really did, but her stethoscope hung around her neck, over her pretty patterned blouse.
I could feel her gaze on me as I walked up to her. “Are you okay?” She asked.
“Why, do I not look okay?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I didn’t say that. You just look like you haven’t slept for days.”
“I have heard sleep is for the weak.”
“I’m sure you heard that from a medical provider,” she replied, laughing. “Seriously, do you know why you’re not getting any sleep?”
I rolled my eyes. “What would you say if I told you that I do, but I also know it’s really silly?”
“Oh,” she said, her smile widening. “I know this. I do. Is this about knife guy?”
I shook my head, looking down at the tiled floor as I leaned against the concrete wall. “I really wish you wouldn’t call him that.”
She laughed. “What do you want me to call him?”
“You could call him by his name.”
“You haven’t told me his name.”
I swallowed, looking away from her. “Yeah, because I know you’re going to look him up,” I said. “And that’s going to make things really awkward for me. Plus, he is a patient in this hospital, so… you might not be allowed to.”
“Please,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “He’s not my patient. I haven’t even seen the guy in person. Hell, I’ve never laid eyes on his chart. I just want to know if he’s married or something.”
My eyes widened. “You think he’s married?”
“I don’t know,” she said, taking her phone out of her pocket. “But there is a quick way to find out.”
I turned away from her. “Cool, find
