8 - Noah

8

Noah

I loved being the doctor in a small mountain town.

My buddy was a cardiologist in Boston. Big hospital, lots of patients. But he was miserable because he never really felt like he was making a difference in peoples’ lives. He was brought in to do a specific kind of surgery, a surgery he performed five days a week, forty weeks a year. To hear him talk about it, he felt more like an Amazon warehouse worker, doing the same monotonous work every day.

But me? I freaking loved my job! It was never boring; I did something different almost every day. I got to take care of people in a thousand different ways, and their gratitude was always front-and-center. Not just when I saw them at the hospital, but all around town. I could hardly walk up the street to Marlene’s Diner without running into a handful of patients.

Josie was riding her bike up the street; her arm was in a cast from the last time she fell, and she was itching to get it off so she could get back to rock climbing.

Aaron was recovering from long-COVID, but he was out walking around and getting fresh air with his wife like I had recommended.

Then there was Beth, six months cancer-free and living her best life. She rode by on a bicycle, a bouquet of flowers in the basket and a big smile on her face.

This was a tight-knit community, and the residents were my people . It was my job to take care of them, and I woke up every single morning with unending enthusiasm.

And now Melissa was part of that community. Which meant I felt a strong impulse to take care of her.

Jack was right about one thing: she was stubborn. Limping up the dirt road after a day, when I’d told her to take it easy for a week . I couldn’t really blame her. Nobody liked being bedridden, especially far from home. But it still made my caregiver muscles twitch.

Marlene’s Diner had a good lunch crowd, but we found an open booth by the window. At least four different customers saw me and raised a hand in greeting.

“You’re a popular guy,” Melissa said.

I shrugged. “I’m well-known. That’s not the same thing as popular.”

“No, you’re definitely popular,” she insisted. “If I saw my doctor at a restaurant, I’d hide behind my menu.”

“Sounds like you need a better doctor.”

She laughed, a carefree sound that was at-odds with the attitude I’d seen from her so far. “So, what’s good here?”

“The chicken salad sandwich is the best in the Rockies,” I said.

“Ohh, I love chicken salad! I don’t know if I’m hungry enough for a whole sandwich, though. Especially if it comes with fries.”

“Tell you what. Let’s split one,” I suggested.

“Oh, I don’t want you to only eat half a lunch though…”

“Not a problem at all!” I replied. “I usually only eat half and take the leftovers to the hospital, but the smell bothers all the nurses.”

The waitress came up with her notepad to take our orders. I put down my menu and said, “Hey there Jenny, we’re going to split a chicken salad sandwich. And I’ll have a root beer.”

“Coffee for me,” Melissa said. Then she leaned across the table and added, “A doctor drinking sugary pop? What would your patients think?”

I smirked back at her. “Root beer is my one weakness, which I indulge in once a week when I get lunch at Marlene’s.”

She squinted at me. “I don’t believe you.”

Yep. Stubborn . Fortunately, I was extremely good at dealing with stubborn patients. Jenny returned with our drinks, and I asked her, “Remind me, do I get free refills on my drink?”

Jenny reacted like I’d asked her to dump Tabasco sauce in my coffee. “You’re fixing to drink a second root beer this week? Are you feeling all right, Doc?”

“I’m feeling great, I just couldn’t remember Marlene’s policy. Thanks, Jenny.”

She walked away, shaking her head.

“You paid her to say that.”

“Ask anyone else in here,” I said. “They know my routine.”

“Fine. I retract my jab,” Melissa said.

Stubborn, but could be convinced. I could work with that.

“Now how about you explain what you were doing when you rolled that ankle,” I said. “You were backpacking, right?”

“Thru-hiking the Colorado Trail.”

I whistled. “No wonder you’re antsy to get back on your feet.”

“I’m way behind schedule,” she complained. “I was hoping to complete the hike in thirty days, but I realized on the second day that I wouldn’t be able to move that fast.”

“That’s an ambitious pace,” I agreed.

“I was too ambitious about the entire damn hike.” She leaned back in the booth and sighed, brushing a lock of hair away from her face. “I thought I could do this. I thought I was capable of doing anything . Or at least, I wanted to feel like I was. Spoilers: it had the opposite effect.”

“Speed bumps happen in life,” I said.

“Tell me about it,” she muttered.

“I know you’re not being literal, but I ran into a speed bump in my medical career.”

“What happened? You failed some big test in med school?”

“Close,” I replied. “I got blown up by a bomb.”

She did a double-take. “ What?”

My phone buzzed, so I held up a finger. “One sec.” It was a text.

Jack : You’re making a mistake.

Me : I’m usually the one saying that to you!

Jack : That girl is more stubborn than a blind mule. And she’s just passing through. You don’t want to get involved.

Me : You’re the one always picking up strays. I’m just making sure one of my patients is doing all right.

Jack : By taking your patient to lunch?

Me : I take my patients out to lunch all the time!

Jack : No you don’t.

Me : Rosa had lunch with me yesterday. Then there was Danny last Thursday, after we bumped into each other at the sporting goods store. I took his wife out to lunch the week before that. She should be starting contractions any day now, by the way. Then there was Bryce a week or so before that, although technically that was just morning coffee, not a full lunch.

Jack : Stop spamming me with evidence. You have ulterior motives for taking Melissa out. I just wanted to warn you that she’s as friendly as a wolverine.

Me : The X-Man superhero, or the animal?

Jack : Either. Both. Just stay away, man.

I put my phone away as Jenny delivered the sandwich. “Sorry about that. So what made you want to hike the Colorado Trail?”

Melissa’s eyes went as wide as marbles. “Forget about my hike! I want to hear how you got blown up.”

“I’ll tell you about it after I hear this hike story.”

“Why does there have to be a story?” she countered, taking a bite out of her half of the sandwich. “Maybe I just wanted to enjoy nature for a few weeks.”

“You went on the hike because, in your words, you wanted to feel like you could do anything. Tell me about that.”

Melissa tilted her head. “Are you just a medical doctor? You sound like a psychiatrist.”

“I’m just a guy who likes talking to people!” I said cheerfully. “Tell me your story, and I’ll tell you all about how I got blown up.” I leaned forward and bit into my piece of sandwich. “And it’s a good story, too.”

She paused her chewing, then nodded and swallowed. “I got cheated on.”

“Ouch.”

“That’s not all,” she clarified, nibbling on some fries. “After I caught him, he begged me not to dump him. So we went to couples counseling. For weeks . I thought it was working. I started looking at him like the same man I had always loved, rather than a cheater. I believed it was a one-time mistake.”

“Until…” I said.

“Until he cheated on me a second time!” she exclaimed, smacking the table with her palm. “He didn’t bother with the pretenses after that. He just packed his suitcase and left. Didn’t say a word to me.”

Without thinking, I reached across the table and cupped her hand. “That’s awful. I’m sorry. How did you find out?”

“Which time?” she asked dryly, eyes flicking down to my hand.

I pulled back. “Whichever you’re comfortable sharing.”

“I don’t mind sharing. I’m not embarrassed. It’s not like I did anything wrong.” She gulped down some coffee. “The first time, he was showing me a video on his phone when an incriminating text message popped up. It was an affair with one of his coworkers. The second time, the woman—a different woman—called me to confess.”

Melissa leaned back in the booth and stared out the window, gently shaking her head. Rather than speak into the silence, I let it stretch so she could continue.

“I say woman , but she was more like a girl. Eighteen years old, a freshman in college. Worked as a waitress at Applebee’s. According to her, she thought he was single. When she discovered he wasn’t, she tracked me down immediately.”

I felt my heart swell with sympathy for this woman sitting across from me with a busted ankle. I had the overwhelming desire to do something to comfort her, but all I said was, “That must have been a very hard phone call to take.”

She laughed bitterly. “Yes and no.”

“Oh?”

There was a moment where her walls, the ones she’d put up to keep people away, came down. Behind them was a glimmer of deep sorrow and pain. But just as quickly as that hint of emotion appeared, it was gone, and her eyes were once again as hard as steel.

“Yeah, it was tough. The phone call hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest. But a small part of me was relieved. After learning about the first affair, I spent so much time blaming myself. Wondering if I had been more loving, more caring, more something , maybe he wouldn’t have cheated.” She glanced at me for a moment, then looked down at the plate. “A second affair with a different woman? That was proof that it’s him . He’s not a good man who made a single mistake—he’s a selfish asshole who would have cheated no matter the circumstances. That made things easier to handle.”

“But not so easy that you didn’t make a big life change,” I said gently.

That got a big laugh out of Melissa. She was really beautiful when all the tension left her eyes. “Right. I still had to go do something crazy. I’ve been calling it my early mid-life crisis.”

“It had better be early!” I said. “You’re not even thirty.”

“Don’t remind me. I turn thirty soon.”

“Oh, thirty isn’t bad,” I teased. “I’m thirty-four, and so far my thirties have been the best decade of my life. It’s just like my twenties, except I’m wiser and less broke.”

“Also, you haven’t been blown up in your thirties. I assume.”

I pointed at her with a French fry. “An excellent observation.”

“Regardless of what my thirties have in store, everything went to shit in the past month. So I ran away to the mountains to find myself.”

“And how’s the search going so far?”

“So far,” Melissa replied, “all I’ve learned is that I’m clumsy and hate hiking.” She stuck her ankle out of the booth into the aisle for me to see.

“You’re not clumsy. That injury is extremely common out here. Trust me: you’re not the first busted ankle I’ve examined. Heck, you’re not even the hundred -and-first. You’ll be hiking in the woods and trying to find yourself again in a week.”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “I’m holding you to that, doctor.”

I laughed and bit into my sandwich.

I was halfway through chewing when my phone rang. It was the on-call line from the clinic. I hurriedly swallowed and answered the phone.

“Sorry to bug you before your shift starts,” Theresa said, “but we’ve got an emergency. James Yellen’s boy broke his leg.”

“Floyd?” I asked.

“Yup. Crashed his mountain bike coming down Mt. Crested Butte. Compound fracture. They’re bringing him in now.”

I was already pulling a few bills out of my wallet. “I’m on my way.” I hung up and grimaced at Melissa. “I’ve got to go. Something much worse than a twisted ankle.”

“Oh no!”

“You need a ride back to your cabin?” I asked while sliding out of the booth. “I can drop you off real quick.”

She waved me away. “I’m fine. I want to walk around town a bit.”

“Not too much walking,” I playfully warned. “Getting the blood flowing is good for recovery, but if you overdo it, you’ll need more than a week to get back to the trails.” I pulled out a clinic card and scribbled quickly. “This is the number of a friend who can give you a ride when you’re ready to go back to the cabin.”

“If it’s Jack,” she said acidly, “then the answer is no.”

I wonder what’s rubbing the two of them the wrong way? I chuckled and said, “It’s Theresa, the woman from the clinic. Either she’ll give you a ride, or find someone else. She knows everyone in town.”

Melissa gave me the kind of smile that filled me with warmth. “Okay, doc. I promise I’ll call her. Thanks for lunch.”

“Any time!”

“Wait!” she suddenly said as I started to leave.

A swelling of hope filled me. “Yeah?”

“You didn’t tell me how you got blown up!”

“Ah, crap,” I replied. “It’s too long of a story. I’ll explain it next time.”

Melissa made a face. “Boo. You’re going to make me sprain my ankle again just to hear about it?”

“I’m sure we’ll run into each other. It’s not a big town.”

I waved to Marlene by the front door before rushing outside. My mind was already racing, thinking of all the steps I would need to take when I reached Floyd’s broken leg. The warm summer sun hit my face, a refreshing reminder of how much I loved the mountains this time of year. But it wasn’t as warm as the feeling I got when Melissa gave me a rare smile. I enjoyed her company, and didn’t want to leave. I liked her, and was drawn to her in a way that excited me.

Jack was right. This lunch wasn’t like those I’d had with my other patients.

I hurried back inside. Melissa gave a start when she saw me, a handful of French fries in her mouth. “Forget something?” she asked, voice muffled by the food.

“Have dinner with me tomorrow night,” I blurted out before I could regret it. “I’ll tell you all about how I got blown up. And lots of other stories.”

Melissa blinked and swallowed her food. “That sounds like a date.”

“Sure, let’s call it that,” I replied. What am I doing? I shouldn’t be asking her out.

She tilted her head sideways. “Are you allowed to date your patients?”

“Technically, you never paid for my services, so you’re not an official patient.”

“So it’s a loophole date.”

I shrugged. “Why not?”

For a few heartbeats, I was certain this was a mistake. I’d read the situation wrong; Melissa wasn’t interested in me, and was about to laugh in my face. The sting of rejection was right there , waiting to flood my veins.

But then she blushed, and smiled. “Yeah. Why not?”