Page 13 of Highland Stars
“Nope. You got here just in time. Typically you’d be able to leave tomorrow, but you were so dehydrated when you got here, so Dr. Johnson wants to continue monitoring your bloodwork.” She nods, and I continue. “I can take care of your car.” I offer before I realize what I’m doing.
“You … really? Surely you have other things to do when you get off work.”
“Nothing specific. And I like to help. It’s one reason I became a doctor. So, really, you’d be making me very happy.”
She looks at me like she doesn’t quite believe it. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay. Thank you so much.”
“Braw! I’ll get your car and if you’re okay with it, I’ll go get anything you might need from where you're staying.”
“That’s too much for you to do for me.”
“I literally have nothing else going on tonight. I’d be glad to do it. But if you don’t want me going through your belongings, I totally understand.”
“I’ve barely unpacked. Really all you’d have to do is throw the stuff from the bathroom into my suitcase. Obviously, I don’t need all that, but that seems simplest.” She sighs. “Are you sure?”
“Makenna, I’d be glad to help.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “Thank you. I’m so glad I’m not dealing with this entirely alone.”
Rory spent the last twenty minutes of the ride to Drumnadrochit accusing me of falling for Makenna, despite me assuring him that I’m just doing the right thing.
He questioned if I would do this for a middle-aged man traveling alone. I’d argued that that was an entirely different situation, and that I’d met Makenna before. It’s different.
It certainly feels different.
I drive her car back to Inverness and find my way into the cottage she’d been staying in. Makenna wasn’t lying. She had hardly unpacked. It looks as if she’s only just arrived. I hadn’t thought to ask how long she’d been here.
She has nothing in the living room, and only a few groceries in the kitchen. I find her suitcase unzipped, but full, sitting on the bed. The bathroom contains several items, but everything is tidy and organized apart from yesterday’s clothes. Those clothes, including a purple bra, hang together on a hook on the back of the door.
I’ll not mention that I touched her bra, though it will take a bit for me to erase it from my memory. I go back to the kitchen and free up a grocery bag for her dirty clothes, then take everything to her car. It feels a little surreal to be doing this.
When I make it back to the hospital with her things, Makenna is asleep. I quietly set her suitcase and rucksack by the chair and back out of the room, thankful she’s not awake to cause me to blur the line between patient and doctor any further.
I glance back as I’m stepping out the door and remember the tears in her eyes earlier in the day. She’d near broken my heart.
The line blurs further anyway.
Each time I woke last night, which was far more than usual, my first thought was of Makenna. Was she sleeping well? Was she comfortable? Was she sad and missing home? And now that I’m at work, each time there’s a lull, my mind drifts to the relative stranger lying in a bed two floors above me.
I don’t have a legitimate reason to go see her again. I took her things to her, and there isn’t anything further for me to do. I already blurred the line between doctor and patient enough.
“Thinking about your new friend?” Rory asks, taking a seat beside me on the couch in the staff lounge.
“She’s not my new friend. But yeah. I just … well, I feel bad for her. She’s here alone. She’ll have to go to the place she’s staying and recover alone. She mentioned having an uber pick her up from the hospital tomorrow. I hate the thought of that. Of all of it.”
“Maybe she’s called someone to come help her out. She’s a patient. You’ve done your part to help her. More actually.” Rory pulls a protein bar from his pocket and rips it open.
“I know. But also, I knew her before she was a patient.”
“But did you really?” He takes a bite and when I don’t respond he continues. “I mean, a big part of me wants to encourage this, because I’ve not seen you remotely interested in anyone since Cait. But she’s basically just a patient, and she doesn’t live here.”
“I can’t explain it. I’m just so drawn to her. I feel for her andwant to be there for her during this.”
“I mean, you could go up and visit.”
