Page 57 of The One Where They Fall in Love

The kid’s shoulders straighten as he tilts his head. His interest piques at the mention of “spideysenses.”

“That’s how you hurt your arm, right?” I raise my brows at him, trying to get him to play along with my game. I pull a wheeling stool up to his bed and sit on it. I give him a reassuring smile and his lips lift a little.

“Yeah, I was, um, battling the Green Goblin,” he says, a hint of excitement in his eyes.

“Wow, you are so brave. The Green Goblin scares me so much! I always have nightmares about him.” That isn’t entirely made up. The Green Goblin from the live-actionSpidermanmovies actually scared the crap out of me when I was a kid.

“I used my webs to trap him!” Riley squeals back.

“Nice work, man! Tell me all about it while I wrap up this arm.” I slide closer to the table where his arm is laying and I see his little fingers are so swollen they are touching each other. “Make sure you look at Mom the whole time though. She wants to hear the story too.” I smile at the mom, and she gives me a knowing smile back.

“Eyes on Mom, okay kiddo? I’m just going to check out these web shooters on your arm, but keep telling me, what did you do to the Goblin?” I squeeze a small amount of skin to distract him from the pinch of the needle that I use to inject lidocaine near his wound.

The kid regales us with a made-up story of how he defeated the Green Goblin, and by the time he is done, I have his arm stitched and wrapped. Not only was it a good stitching job, but I was also proud of myself for being able to make this kid’s day after it started out with an accident that landed him in the ER. When I walk out of his room, I have a grin on my face until I have that unnerving thought again.

I can’t wait to tell Elle.

That thought makes something squeeze in my chest, an all-too familiar feeling of dread. A flood of thoughts fill my brain: images of my night with Elle, her smile this morning, her comment about “what we are.” The scene of her consoling me on the treadmill pushes in, followed by a made-up image of her being hurt, or in danger. I shake my head and try to push those thoughts away, and replace them with reality. Elle is fine. She’s home with Thor. She was in my bed this morning. And I loved it.

I pinch the bridge of my nose as I make my way to the on-call room. I need a second to myself. I can feel panic rising in my chest, and I need to get a handle on it. I can’t fall apart, not here. There’s a flare of anger in me—I was literally fine a minute ago, helping a nice kid and feeling proud of myself, and now… now my mind is trying to sabotage me. As per freaking usual.

I close the door behind me and lock it. The stress of this shift is evident in my shoulders, and I turn my head to crack my neck, trying to release the tension from my muscles. The on-call room consists of a twin bed and a desk, much like there would be in a prison cell. The walls are white cinderblock and the chair is a rickety swivel chair that couldcollapse at any moment. I sit in the desk chair and hang my head between my legs, trying to steady my breaths.

The intrusive thoughts about Elle fade, replaced with questioning ones about my job, my future, and what the hell I’m doing with my life… and now they’ve circled back around to how, orif, Elle is going to fit into that. God, my mind is such a fun place.

My thoughts drift back to all of my conversations with Elle and Henry about my job. And then to what I said to Henry last night. I could never really quit residency, could I? I am anything but spontaneous. My life has been planned since my first science class. How could I throw all that away now? That moment with the kid was good, right? Maybe I could find more moments like that?

I can’t make so many decisions at one time. I’m not hardwired for it. Last night with Elle was amazing,soamazing I can’t imagine it ever being better than that. But I got swept up. She was dancing and then the other guy… I acted completely on impulse.

And now, I am freaking thefuckout.

I can’t do this. I can’t commit to her when I don’t even know what I’m doing with my life.

“Ow!” I look at my hand to see that I’ve pulled a cuticle off of my finger as I was sitting here. I didn’t even realize I was doing it. A small line of blood drips down my thumb, and I grab a tissue and apply pressure to it, cursing myself. I amunhinged. Of course I can’t do… whatever this is with Elle. A guy like me can’t make her happy. Everything about my life is so unstable right now. What am I thinking?

Inhale, Oliver. Five, four, three, two, one.

Exhale. Five, four, three, two, one.

Inhale.

My pager buzzes on my waist. I pull it off of my scrubs and throw it across the room. It smashes against the far wall and the batteries roll across the floor. Good. That really helped the situation.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Not everything I think is true. Not everything I think is true.

When my own mind works against me, it’s really hard to decide what is real and what isn’t. Right now, everything feels out of control.

But nothing is going to be solved by me sitting in this windowless room.

I walk across the room and retrieve the broken pager, putting it back together with shaky hands. Then, I walk to the nurses’ station and bandage my finger. I hide all these small signs that I’m slowly falling apart from the inside, put on my white coat, and go cure my fourth pneumonia patient of the day.