Chapter 61
***Larissa***
An eerie feeling crept up my neck as I waited outside the hospital. I clutched my bag tightly. Where was jack? He said he'd be here in thirty but it was already almost an hour and I was weary from waiting. I had had a long day at the clinic. My team and I had performed a surgery on an eight year old child that had a tumour on his brain and it was successful. All I wanted was to go home.
“Would you like a ride home Doc? You've been standing for quite a while,” Kassy asked.
I gave her a small smile, “No you go on along, Jack is coming to get me.”
She smiled warmly “Okay, cause we don't want to keep her royal surgeon waiting.”
I rolled my eyes at her. I would never get used to her teases.
“I'm fine kass and don't worry, he'll be here soon,” I said.
“I really need to get myself a man who comes to pick me up. I'm slowly becoming a man from all this stress,” She whined.
I smiled at her, “The problem isn't that you don't have the man. The problem is that you want all of them.”
She pouted, “I'm indecisive that's it but why do I have to choose? It's selfish. Why can't I have all of them?”
“Seems like someone is going to be single in the forthcoming year's. Don't die from abstinence anyway, let someone love you,” I teased.
“I get really horny nowadays. Just standing next to you makes me wet my panties,” She said.
We burst into fits of laughter.
“You’re so gay from celibacy,” I said.
She asked.
“Guess who isn't getting laid tonight,” I further teased.
She went crimson in the face and hit me in the arm playfully, “I really do not like you, right now.”
“You should be grateful you have me, else you would have died of loneliness.”
“Maybe you're my better half,” She said and laughed.
“You should get going though. It's your shift tomorrow morning.”
She sighed deeply. “I really should, my head hurts so bad.”
“That’s because you aren't getting any, sad.”
Kassy went blank before bursting into laughter again when she got the joke.
“Okay really I gotta go. There's no way I'm letting you roast the fuck out of me anymore.”
We said our good night and waved.
I stared up at the sky, grey clouds had gathered, it seemed as though it was going to rain. I couldn't wait anymore, there were only a few people walking and I didn't even come with an umbrella, if it started pouring.
Exasperated, I took out my phone to call Jack but it kept going to voicemail. “Hi Jack, it’s Larissa. You probably know that already,” I chuckled softly, “don't come and get me. I'll take a taxi home. It's getting late. See you.”
I sent the voice mail and replaced my phone in my bag. I stopped a taxi, got in it and leaned against the windowsill. If I had parents, this would be a time when I needed them around, when I felt like I was going insane.
To everyone I was the world's best neurosurgeon, the very famous Lisa, the one who worked magic in the operating room.
Although, maybe I really was all that but many times I felt lonely and scared. Scared that someday I may have to perform a surgery and it might go wrong. Scared that then they won't see me as the great Lissa. Scared that maybe I would lose all I had worked for.
During my years of training, whenever we lost a patient, it messed up with our mood. Although we appeared strong when breaking the news to the family of the patient(s) but behind closed doors we cried oceans. People felt we were used to it, but we could never be used to it as it felt new every single time. It was like a sutured cut was being opened again and again.
It didn't feel great losing someone. Someone you love.
Tears rolled down my cheek and that was when it occurred to me that I had been crying. On days like this when I cry for the little things, I end up crying for the other things that were messed up in my life. I was scared.
Besides Jack, Margaret and my children, no one ever really showed me genuine love. Maybe Logan did. But that wasn't love, probably lust. Love didn't betray, love didn't delight in wrongdoings.
I missed my children, on days like this when I felt down, all I wanted was to have my children around. But they were at school. I should probably visit them tomorrow. I also wanted my parents that I didn't have.
Regardless of how much I tried to feign being strong, Logan’s previous letter made me shit scared. Maybe because he had threatened to show up and destroy everything I had worked for. I was sure he could do it because he had been coming off as desperate lately because of his dying father and it bothered me. And the kids…What if he found out about them? What if he already knew? Could he have been spying? No one woke up to just execute a plan, they'd have been cooking it up before doing so.
I paid the driver and alighted at the grocer’s. I needed to get some foodstuffs, it was Jack who did it sometimes although other times he ordered it. But since I was headed home, I could do it myself.
I walked into the store and again that eerie feeling crept up my neck. I squeezed my fists tight and it almost became white. I glanced around me but everything was calm. I swallowed, my chest tightened. Why did I feel like I was being kept an eye on? I had felt it at the hospital but it wasn't anyone just .
Or was I in my head too much? Maybe I was. Or could Logan be watching me from a distance? He knew where I worked, what if he was tailing me? Or had been tailing me from the hospital?
Unable to tolerate the thoughts, I stopped my shopping after getting a few things. All I wanted was to go home and shut myself in. I paid with my card and stepped out of the store, dragging with me bags of groceries.
I stopped at the sidewalk and waited for a cab. I still hadn't heard from Jack which was weird. That was unlike him. I tried to reach for my phone again, to call him but I dropped my card in the process.
“Shit,” I cursed under my breath as I dropped the grocery bags.
“Excuse me miss. You dropped this,” Someone said.
I turned around and saw a young man with–golden eyes? I gasped and stepped back. I blinked again and there was nothing but brown eyes.
Had I just imagined that?
The man grinned impishly and something about his smirk made the hairs on my neck stand.
“Your card miss”
“T-thank you,” I forced out and snatched my card from his hands as I began walking off. Something was off. I needed to get away.
But then I hadn’t taken a few steps forward when I couldn't move anymore. A piercing pain shot up my arm, my vision became blurry, I couldn't speak.
I blacked out.