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Mark

Is it strange that I've noticed that every visit to her room, fills my stomach with pins and needles. Feeling a nervous tinge in her presence, makes me want to impress her.

At times I have to pinch myself back into the moment and not get swept away by herr curious questions. Which are remarkably intelligent. She's smarter than she likes to take credit for. I'm still not sure why she likes to hide it. 

Intelligence is so attractive when the repient is as attractive as her intelligence, you know your onto a winner. I know I shouldn't be thinking about her whilst I take my break, but my will power to stop dispersed months ago.

  I'm a subtle person, everything I do and have ever done up this point has never seemed to bother anyone. Yet, I may be being extremely paranoid but I've gotten the impression over the last couple of weeks that I've done something to offend Dr. Guard.

Terry has started to avoid me during ward rounds and  I'm not quite sure what I've done. But I think it has something to do with her, I'm certain. He was her doctor before I took over the position.

I'm sure he sees the way I look at her, I feel almost translucent in his presence like he can see my brain clogs whizzing away trying not to say a word out in place whilst he analyses my posture and breathing rate. To top it all off, his baby is pretty restless most nights and tip toes into work looking like a zombie on tranquiliser, absolutely shattered.

I'm stunned by her appearance every second I'm in her company like it's the oxygen I desperately need. I've never felt this type of lust for a person, let a lone a patient. I'm still on fence about telling her about her bare presence driving me up the walls.

But part of me knows she knows and she knows that I know. The fact is I don't want to believe myself.

What if she rejects me? She fills my dreams with request and thoughts that could quite possibly get me fired. But I don't really care, there's so much more to life than maintaining a steady income.

I know I need to confront my feelings at some point, I've been putting this day off for a while, simply because I'm terrified of what the outcome might become.

"Afternoon Rose, fancy a cuppa?" Terry rubbed my shoulder in a friendly gesture, we had become quite used to spending time with each other up to this point. Although we'd both been so busy lately, I wondered why I was so worried about him holding a grudge against me;  for something I didn't even know was bothering him. But he didn't seem his old self recently, something must be up.

"Rose, we need to have a chat. It's something I'm not too sure how to put kindly. So I'm just going to cut to the chase." As I glanced at Terry's face I realised how exhausted he appeared, his eyes were red and I could tell he'd been deprived of sleep these past weeks.

"Go for it, Guard." I replied in a passive tone, trying to prepare myself for what was coming.

"Rose, I wish I didn't have to be the one to tell you this but you know you're patient - what's her name. Hang on it will come to me in a sec ... it's the one in room 259 ... ahh what is her name."

I knew exactly who he was going on about, that pale mass of beauty that I had to drag my eyes off. It couldn't be anything good about her.

"Stephanie Jones that's it, that's sort of besides that point in all honesty. As you know she's been responding very well to 'forget me not' if we're talking in the crudest terms and well I think we should invite the Psychiatry team to do another psycho-analysis. I mean from my perspective I would be happy to send her home soon. "

My mouth dropped slightly and I attempted to cough to cover up the suprised frown that dampned my mood.

"That's a side note, the news I've been building up is, that Big Health and I have been in correspondance and they've indicated that the would want you to be interviewed for a role in their labs to over see their trials, since your research was published last month. It's an amazing opportunity for you Bud; you would be in charge of all their research across the UK and possibly even more."

His body was vibrating from a high level of endorphins, I could see his genuine happiness spread across his body.

"I briefly looked over the description, but I mean this is huge mate. It could be the break in your career and you're so young already. What are you thinking."

Terry had the habit of spinning his words into a whirl of fast paced combination of words, everything was spinning as I started to actually assess everything that had just spurted out of his mouth.

She's what? She's leaving? I'm leaving? What is he trying to say? That the universe doesn't want us to be together ? If I don't respond to him in the next few moments he'll suspect I'm upset, how can I hide my disappointment without letting out a soundless sob.

In a moment of panic my awkward laddish language sprinted across my tongue and echoed out of mouth. What an idiot.

"Wow, Terry what an opportunity! How my daze you've bagged me this  I guess you'll have to let me know over a pint later, yeah? Thank you so much for landing me this, not sure how I'll manage to make it up to you!"

I winked at him in an appreciative smirk. I wasn't quite sure whether my sentence had made complete sense, but right now nothing really did make sense.

"That's great news about that patient, she seems a lot happier in herself recently, killing two birds in one stone you sly fox." Phew I saved myself from a mental breakdown, which might  at this rate have gotten me booked into this loony bin.

What am I going to do now? Mark man up, right now and don't you dare let your emotions be displayed across your face. Have a word with yourself and suit up.

For once I didn't question my thoughts I just grabbed my cup of coffee and carried on with my day. Waiting until the drive home for my emotions to unravel and collapse into a heap of solitude and isolation.

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― We all feel the urge to condemn ourselves out of guilt, to blame others for our misfortunes and to fantasize about total disaster. ―

― Deepak Chopra ―