~ Nick
I watch as Emma nods before disappearing into the bathroom. I hear the shower start to run and without even trying, images of her peeling off her scrubs immediately flood my brain. I picture her pale white skin, the dark freckle she has on her left shoulder that I couldn’t resist kissing in my office that night.
I’d noticed it as soon as she’d walked in and taken off her coat, her strapless dress exposing all of that skin. But my eyes had been drawn to the freckle, the only mark on her chest and shoulders. Even then, without ever uttering a single word, I’d wanted to press my mouth against it, taste her, kiss my way along her collarbone and up her neck to her mouth.
“Fuck,” I hiss, running a hand through my hair.
I can’t think about this shit now. Not while I’m standing in her bedroom and she’s standing naked under the shower, the two of us separated by little more than a single wooden door. I wonder if she’s locked it, if she doesn’t trust that I will wait. I’m tempted to try, to see if she does, but I don’t. I don’t want to scare her because I can see that she’s already skittish. On edge, maybe and wondering why the fuck she ever brought me back here.
Even I don’t know why I’m here. All I know is I’ve spent the past four hours standing outside her work waiting for her to finish, hoping I wasn’t going to miss her. A part of me always worried how it would look when she came out, whether my waiting for her was going to do nothing but totally freak her out. But I knew I had to explain things to her, knew I had to tell her how wrong she’d gotten everything and that the Amy she met that night was not the Amy that was tattooed on my skin.
That nothing was how she thought it was.
The water continues to run and I know I need a distraction, anything to get my mind off her. I place the clothes she’s given me on a small stool by the door. I don’t need them because I don’t actually need a shower. I might not have slept much since I finally finished work last night, but I did at least shower. I wasn’t going to take the chance on finally being able to speak to her again and stink like a fucking brewery.
So after Tony and I had talked, how I’d explained to him that I now knew where she worked, but hadn’t been able to reach her, I went back to my apartment and showered. I caught a couple of hours on the couch, tried calling one more time, this time explaining why I so badly needed to speak to her, and then I just went to the hospital where she worked, not knowing how the hell she was going to react when she saw me again.
Finally seeing her again though, as she’d walked out into the early morning, definitely made the lack of sleep worth it.
I look around her room, not wanting to snoop but just find out a little bit more about her. It’s a big room, dominated by a large queen bed that backs up to the window. The window’s ledge is lined with books and mugs and a couple of other things, and it’s only then that I notice just how much shit she has lying around everywhere.
I never pictured she’d be this much of a slob.
To the left of the bed, a large chair that could easily fit two people is covered in clothes, including the black dress she was wearing a week ago. I swallow hard at the memory of the way she looked in it, forcing my eyes to continue their path, back towards the bed and the side tables, to the desk that sits in the other corner. It’s covered in notes and textbooks. Names like Grey’s Anatomy, Clinical Diagnosis and Genetics etched on their spines, different coloured post-its marking various pages.
I walk towards the desk, thumb through the pages that show diagrams and pathways, mechanisms of living that I don’t really understand. It impresses me that she knows all this stuff, blows my mind how smart she is. I could tell the second she spoke to me that night, long before I ever knew she was a doctor. There was just something about her that set her apart from every other girl that walked in and sat at my bar.
The memory makes me smile.
I shrug out of my jacket and hang it on the back of her desk chair, sliding off my boots as my eyes rove over the corkboard that’s propped against the wall behind the desk. I expect it to be covered with notes, but it’s not. Instead there are photos all over it, ranging from when Emma was younger, right up to present day.
I lean in, taking a closer look and that’s when I notice the change. She might be smiling in each one, surrounded by friends both socially and at work, but it’s her eyes that are different.
In the younger pictures, they are bright, the smile on her mouth reaching her eyes. In the more recent ones though, that light is gone, replaced with something that I remember seeing in Amy’s eyes towards the end.
Loss, misery, as though there is no life left anymore.
It breaks my heart to think Emma is truly this unhappy. Makes me want to do something about it, change things for her because I know how painful it is to watch someone give up.
Just as I start to move away, I see something else, pinned to the lower corner of the board as though she isn’t quite sure she wants to see it, but isn’t ready to throw it out either.
The napkin from last week.
I immediately reach for it, unpinning the paper as I step backwards and sit on the end of her bed. I swing my legs up, settling back against the window ledge as I read through the list I wrote; all of the pros and cons. There’s an asterisk now, next to one of the entries: getting to be happy*.
It makes me smile, my eyes closing as I remember back to writing it, the way my heart was pounding in my chest at the time because not only did I barely know this woman, but I also had no idea how she’d react to my words.
And while things hadn’t exactly turned out great that night, they were definitely looking up now.
Well, if she ever gets out of the shower, that is.