Dr. Fake It - A Possessive Doctor Romance

“You miss all the shots you don’t take.” I smiled a little bit.

“Sure, that’s putting it mildly.” Fiona sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “I know this is hard, but I think you should take her off the machine. I wasn’t sure before, but the more I watch your mom, the more I think she’s stable and can survive without it. And if that’s the case, then your options are going to open up big time. You can do home care, you can do a lot of things.”

“And she might wake up,” I said softly.

“I can’t promise that. She might, but she might not. There are a lot of benefits though, even if she doesn’t come out of that.”

I nodded and looked at her, feeling tears in my eyes. “Thanks for being a friend.”

“Of course.” She walked over and put an arm around my shoulders. She hugged me that way and stood with me looking down at my mom. “I’m rooting for you guys. I really am.”

“Thanks.”

We stood in silence for a minute before she let me go and walked to the door. She gave me a last smile then disappeared, heading back to the nurses’ station.

I lingered with my mom for a while. I held her hand and told her about everything that was going on, and in a strange way it felt cathartic, like I was getting it off my chest. Mom didn’t react, didn’t open her eyes, but it felt like the old days, at least a little bit. I used to tell her everything, and we’d talk all the time. I missed her voice, missed her laugh, missed her smile. I missed my mom.

I stood and walked to the door, feeling overwhelmed. I stepped into the hall and had to take a minute, breathing fast and hard, trying to calm myself down. I leaned against the wall and stared at my feet, breathing deep and slow, pushing the air out loud enough to hear it, going over an exercise I’d learned from some mindfulness app. I picked my head up when I felt calmer and spotted Gavin walking toward me, a worried expression on his face.

A strange compulsion came over me. I pushed off the wall and walked to him, and we met in the center of the hallway in the shadow of several empty doors. The sounds of beeping machines and muffled voices swirled around us and I reached up to touch his face. He said nothing, only let me stroke his cheek, then bent down to kiss me softly, holding me tight, pulling me against him. I fell into that kiss and let myself have it, let myself finally have a moment of peace, a moment of calm, a moment of pleasure.

He pulled back. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll be okay.”

“Good.” A little smile played across his lips. “I was looking for you.”

“Yeah? You found me.”

“I was hoping you could come with me.”

“Where are we going?”

“I have a meeting with Dr. Martin in a few minutes.”

I chewed my lip and stared into his handsome eyes. I knew what that meant—he wanted to bring me while he asked the all-important question, and I was actually happy about that. I wanted to be there, to make sure things would work out the way they were supposed to, although I wasn’t sure what I could do if things went wrong.

“Yeah, of course.” I nodded, steeling myself. “Let’s do it.”

He smiled and took my hand. “You’re a good person, you know that?”

“Not even a little bit.”

“You act like you’re not—but look at everything you’re going through for your mom.”

I shook my head. “Sometimes I feel like I’m only doing it for myself.”

“If that were the case, then you would’ve run away a while ago.”

I looked away, back toward mom’s room, and maybe he was right about that. If it weren’t for her, I could’ve hit the road a while ago and tried to escape, but because I couldn’t leave her alone in that state, I had nowhere to run.

He tugged me along and I followed, trying to figure out the puzzle of what kind of person I wanted to be, or if I was simply damaged, and broken, and too self-centered to ever be decent the way I hoped I could be.25GavinI lingered outside of Dr. Martin’s office even though we were a few minutes late and looked back at Erica. She smiled at me though I could see the uncertainty in her eyes, the internal struggle she must’ve been going over. I thought about what she said back there, about how she wasn’t sure if she was a good person, and I could imagine what sort of negative ideas rolled around her head. But I knew she was good, even if she couldn’t admit it, even if she wasn’t perfect.