The Doctor Who Has No Chance (Soulless 11)

Nothing at all.

I opened the trash can, tipped the box over, and dropped everything inside. “Goodbye, Catherine.”

Eleven

Sicily

I didn’t hear from Zach again.

It was like it never happened.

I spent most of my time working, keeping up with Dex and his hectic lifestyle. If I weren’t doing his charts while he visited with patients, I would have time to do other things, but doing his charting was one of the biggest assets to him. It was something I couldn’t abandon, not even once. I wasn’t sure what he would do if I called in sick and wasn’t there.

The last patient left for the day, and I sat in my comfy chair at the check-in desk and went over all the paperwork that needed to be filed. When I checked in patients, I took down all their info, but I didn’t get a chance to bill the insurance companies until later in the day. Dex was usually in his office for a couple hours too, so we both took care of everything that we weren’t able to handle during patient care.

Andrea left, and then I looked out the window when I heard the splatter of the rain.

It wasn’t a cold, winter rain, but a springtime sprinkle.

I hadn’t brought my umbrella, so I’d need a cab.

I lowered my gaze and went back to work.

“Sic?” Dex’s voice came from his office.

Instead of shouting back, I stepped into his office and found him sitting on his couch. But he didn’t have a chart in front of him or any other paperwork. He just sat there, the sleeves of his long-sleeved tee rolled up to his elbows, his black jeans low on his hips. He didn’t look like a surgeon at all, but more of a fashion model. It was hard to believe someone that beautiful could be so brilliant. “What do you need?”

His flattened palms were pushed together, and he pointed them at the couch across from him.

I took a seat and smoothed out the back of my dress in the process.

He dropped his gaze and looked at the floor.

I waited for him to collect his thoughts and give me orders. Even when he was in one office, I still had to assist with his other positions, like if the residents had a question or his research partner needed something. It was this never-ending circus, and I was surprised he stayed sane enough to forget all that stuff and focus on his patients.

He dropped his hands and looked at me. “I’ve spent the last few weeks thinking…and I’ve come to the conclusion that I respectfully disagree with your conclusions.”

I had no idea what he was talking about. “Sorry…?”

“When you look at Derek and Emerson, you see a devoted couple happy in love. Well, it wasn’t always that way. Derek was a fucking piece of shit, and he gave her hell. He was engaged in his early twenties and found out she was sleeping with his best friend, and that haunted him for a decade. It took them a long time to get that plane off the ground, but they continued to fight and work until it was soaring in the air.”

Now I started to understand.

“My parents are no different. My dad didn’t want to be with my mom. He was given no choice. He’d just gotten divorced when he met my mom, and against his will, he fell for her. And that was a bumpy ride too, apparently. I’m telling you that there’s no such thing as meeting someone and then it’s easy. Those strong relationships survived the turbulence, the storms, the fucking hurricanes, and now they have clear skies. I know I’ve got a lot of baggage, I know that I hurt you, I know that my situation is not ideal…but I want to fly through that storm with you.”

My hands came together in my lap, fidgeting because my heart was in my stomach and my stomach was in my head. I was blindsided and flipped upside down, totally caught off guard by all of this.

“You don’t want to be a choice. You don’t want there to be two women. I get it, okay? But I loved Catherine more than life itself, and I was utterly devastated when she left me. And then she came back to me…and I said no. I chose you. Do you have any idea how significant that is? Do you understand the gravity of that decision? I could have gone back to her and tried to get my old life back, but the way I feel about you…is way stronger than what I feel for her. That means something, Sicily.” His eyes bored into mine like he was putting everything on the table, all his chips in the pot, staking his entire life savings on this bet. “It made me realize that, while I love her, I’m not in love with her. I just needed closure, because once we talked, once I got my answers…all those feelings…they just stopped. I stopped obsessing over our relationship, stopped wondering if there was something I could have done to prevent what happened. It was just the mystery, the uncertainty, the confusion—not her.”