Slowly my work at the hospital starts to get more demanding. My responsibilities as an intern are expanding rapidly. All the interns get some patients assigned to them and we have to check their progress daily. I perform medical examinations after a patient has been admitted and write treatment orders. The residents are supervising us and I have to check my insights on the treatment of a patient with them. I'm getting better at the IV thing. I've seen nurses do it without children noticing it, and I hope I can do that one day as well.

I try to fit in with the rest of the interns and sometimes I feel like I succeed. During our coffee breaks, we share our stories about unusual patients, demanding residents, and cranky nurses.

There are still people staring at me but not as much as the first weeks. I ignore it, or I smile as friendly as possible to them. No one asks me directly if the rumors are true. Or at least not as directly as Pat, but I guess she's one of a kind.

It's not that they don't talk to me. There are so many indirect ways they try to pry into my personal life. The most direct question people dare to ask me if I have a boyfriend.

"Yes," I answer them, "I do have a boyfriend."

I'm also honest about his name and when they ask me what he's doing for his job, that's when I have my moment of fun.

"He studies French," I tell them with a straight face. It isn't a lie. Dan is studying hard to get his pronunciation immaculate and to expand his vocabulary. He almost greets me in French when I come home after a long shift.

People don't expect that answer and I leave them confused with their own thoughts. It's my way of dealing with the situation. If people ask me straight away if my boyfriend might be that actor, I would give them an honest answer, but they never do.

As much I'm enjoying my work and my colleagues, my mind keeps going back to that phone call. I want to know who it was, whose life I ruined so much they want to get back at me. And I try to work it all out in my mind.

My first guess it's one of Dan's fans. I've read their websites, Facebook pages, and Twitter. Dan tried to keep me away from social media and I wish I listened to him. I know it's just words, but some words are sharper than swords. And if it was just one or two messages, but there's like ten thousand of them. It's like a Mount Everest constructed out of hateful comments and I can't help but wonder who reads that crap anyway. Some of those girls really think I ruined their life because I'm his girlfriend now.

And they share everything they know about Dan with each other. As a collective, they could find out anything about me and maybe one of them is crazy enough to buy a voice changer.

On the other hand, it could be someone I knew from my gaming era. Maybe it's someone who got duped when I quit the game and our clan fell apart. Gamers can be pretty avid about their community. When I left, that community fell apart, leaving some people with no place to go.

We made some money with our victories during tournaments. It wasn't that much, especially when you take into account we had to split the money between a large group. For some of those guys, it was a source of income.

My face showing up in the papers might have triggered someone after all these years, who wants revenge for ruining his life.

A third possibility is that it is someone else. It might be someone really close to me, as this person seems to know a lot about me. Somehow I can't imagine one of my close friends want to hurt me, but you never know.

Absorbed in my thoughts I walk through the hallways to visit my patients when I suddenly hear a scream.

"Don't die, Julian!"

It's a girl's voice and it's coming from one of the rooms. Cautiously I walk to the door where the sound is coming from.

"Ouch, there's fire everywhere!" I hear a boy scream.

I peek around the door, you can never be too careful. What I see is two kids in a hospital bed. A little girl with her leg in a cast and a boy who is obviously her brother. They're both holding controllers and play a video game. High pitched giggles and screams fly through the room, as they try to navigate Mario and Luigi through a maze of blocks and monsters. The figures jump up and down and the children squeal with joy.

I walk into the room. "Having fun?"

The boy almost drops his controller. "Sorry, we'll be quiet."

"It's okay," I say and I walk over to the bed.

"This is the hardest part, we always die here." The little girl lets out a long-drawn sigh. "We can't seem to get around it."

"Can I try?" I ask and a bit reluctantly Lilian hands me her controller.

The boy snorts. "Girls can't play video games."

I raise one of my eyebrows and a bit more sarcastic than I want to, I say: "You think so?"

I push the buttons and let Mario move around for a bit to get the feeling of the game. Apparently he has to jump up some moving blocks to get to the next part. It takes me a couple of tries, and then I succeed.

"Ha, Justin, you couldn't get us past that point." The little girl stares adoringly at me. "How did you do that?"

"I used to play this game with my brother. We were both good at it."

Lilian takes the controller from her brother. "Let's play a little more."

I quickly throw a glance at my watch. My shift is almost over and I decide to stay here for a little while. Lilian and I run through the game, jumping up and down, avoiding the monsters, jumping on platforms, gathering stars.

I learn that Lilian broke her leg and there were some complications. She had surgery a couple of days ago and they put pins in her leg to keep the broken bone together. Her parents are talking to her doctor about when she can go home.

I don't know how long we are playing when suddenly the door opens. I don't look up yet; it's probably her parents or a nurse. I wait until someone says something, but instead, I hear a clicking noise, followed by a bright flash of light.

"What the..." I don't finish my sentence. When I look up I see two people, both armed with cameras. The children look confused.

"Who are those people?" Lilian tries to hide her face for the crossfire of flashing lights. "What are they doing here?"

"So this is what you do Elise? Playing video games with kids?" one of the paparazzi says. "Does Dan know that you do this?"

Until now I managed to stay out of their sight and seeing them in this room of a sick child angers me. I want to tell these guys to get lost and at the same time, I want to hide in a corner until they go away.

I remember what Dan's agent told me, stay calm and friendly, give them some information, give them the picture they want. But there are two children with me in this room. Two frightened children who have nothing to do with my private life, but who are the victims of my personal choices at the moment. I have to get these guys out of the room to protect my patients.

Quickly I close the curtain around Lilian's bed, so the children don't have to face the paparazzi anymore.

"Please leave this room." I try to stay as calm as possible, keeping in mind that the children can still hear me. I don't know how I would have reacted if they weren't there. "You are in a hospital and violating a trespass act."

"What d'ya wanna do about it?" the other journalist says, while he keeps taking pictures.

"That's it, I'm calling security," I say. I push an emergency button and pick up the phone.

"Come on, sweetie. Give us a little smile, and we're gone," one of them says.

I want to flip him the finger, yell at him, push him away. Who does he think he is? But I can't do that. It might backfire on Dan's career, and if I use violence against them, they might sue me. Besides that, I don't want any nasty pictures of me circulating. You never know where they might end up. A future employer might not be happy finding pictures of me flipping someone off.

Luckily for me, security arrives fast, and with some persuasion, they're removed discretely from the ward. Lilian and her brother are pretty upset when they're reunited with their parents. I hope they don't press charges against the hospital.

When everything is settled down, I can finally go home. I want to crawl up against Dan and tell him all about the havoc the journalists have caused. This might upset him, but this is something he has to know. Maybe his agent can do something about this.

Just when I leave the room, someone grabs me by the arm.

"Where do you think you're going?" The cold blue eyes of Dr. Morgenstern pierce into mine.

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