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Cook County General was loud. It always was. Phones. Gurneys. Screaming. Code calls. Shouting over monitors. Crying. Apologies. Unfitted laughter. It was the sound of the ER if anyone could stomach that tune.
But John Carter said nothing.
He was sitting on the bench next to the vending machines. His knees buckled inward, his coffee was untouched. The cup was long cold by now. Nobody noticed. Why would they?
And no one else could see her, either.
She was sitting right next to him. Long legs crossed. Red lipstick. A cigarette she never lit. And a voice that never had to be raised.
“You’d think they’d know by now,” she said in a low tone, picking at her nails. “That you’re disappearing.”
Carter didn’t look at her. He didn’t have to.
“They’re busy,” he muttered, half to her, half to himself. “They have traumas and charts and lives.
“You have a life.” She smiled. “Sort of.”
Carter huffed.
Her perfume was the kind that smelled like dust and old photographs. Her hair was pinned up in a retrodo, as if she had stepped straight off the black-and-white screen.
She was beautiful.
But being in her proximity was like sitting under a wet coat on a cold day. She was all those nights he spent alone in med school. Every missed call. Every bed he crawled into after a double shift, staring at the ceiling with his chest tight and nothing to say.
“Do you know what today is?” she inquired, dropping her head on his shoulder as if she had any right to be there.
He flinched. But didn’t tell her to stop.
“…My birthday,” he whispered.
There was a pause. She seemed to nod as though she knew.
“You didn’t tell anyone.”
He shook his head. “Didn’t want to be the thing.”
“You didn’t want to risk it, in case they forgot.”
Silence.
Doug laughed at something Mark said across the hall. Haleh was berating a med student. Abby was fast walking, papers in hand, looking anywhere here but here.
Carter sat very, very still.
He gripped the cold coffee. “It’s pathetic.”
“No,” she replied, flicking an imaginary bit of lint from his coat. “It’s human.”
“Do I even get to feel like this?”
“Why?” she asked gently.
“Because I have a job. A purpose. Friends. I’m lucky.”
“You’re lonely,” she corrected.
Carter’s eyes burned.
He swallowed hard. “Is something wrong with me?”
“There is nothing wrong with you,” she told me, finally lighting her cigarette, although no one else was able to see the flame. “You’re just packing too many nights and not enough arms.”
He chuckled, bitter. “That sounds poetic.”
“I’m Loneliness, sweetheart. I write all the best lines.”
His throat tightened.
And with that, she rose and flicked invisible dirt off her time-warped dress. “You should go. Pretend you’re okay. Smile at Weaver. Make a joke with Jerry. Say something clever about gallbladders.”
“I’m so tired,” he whispered.
She bent to kiss his forehead. Cold. Kind. Crushing.
“I know.”
And then she was gone.
Just like that.
No footsteps. No goodbye.
Only the hum of the vending machine, and the cold coffee in his hand.
Carter remained there for another minute. Then two. Then he stood. Straightened his coat. Rubbed his face.
Doug saw him across the way. “Hey, Carter. You good?”
Carter hesitated.
Then smiled. It didn’t quite reach.
“Yeah,” he said. “Just tired.”
And he returned to the noise with a steady stride. Into the chaos. Into the shift.
But her lipstick was all over his skin.