Chapter Text
“I agree with Trinity.”
“I’m her stress relief squeeze toy, or was…”
“Good job, Robby. You too, Trinity.”
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This is honestly the shift from hell. Garcia, Dr. Al, charts, and don’t even get me started with Langdon.
He’s back in the ED with only a slap on the wrist after everything that came to light. Typical “punishment” for someone like him.
He tried to apologize for screaming at me, but it won’t change the fact that I’m still unsure of myself.
Sure, it’s been months since that singular shift with Langdon. The very next shift, you could tell that there was a change when I walked in. The most obvious was Langdon’s absence from the ED. It took a week or so for people to notice that Langdon wasn’t coming back and a couple more to realize that he wasn’t on a spontaneous vacation either. Once the realization settled, it took no time for them to start gossiping about what could have happened. Since I was the one to argue with him on that faithful day, people started assuming the worst. Why wouldn’t they? A senior resident versus a first year resident on her first day. Obviously will have more people on his side than her.
A man versus a woman. Teacher versus student.
Coach versus a girl.
Any normal person in this situation would try to talk to somebody about it. Friends, family, or even a lover. Talking to Garcia about Langdon was especially unhelpful. As lucky for me, Garcia and Langdon are all buddy-buddy with each other. Anytime I try to bring it up and how it affected me, Garcia shuts me down. The same thing happened today when I tried to talk to her about her backing up Langdon instead of me. She even told me to get fucking therapy and deal with it like an adult. Just for wanting to talk about what happened with Langdon. Not just for wanting to talk about today but also with what happened 10 months ago. She doesn’t even believe that it affected me so much.
She cancels plans to see fireworks together. Says we’re causal. Makes pointed comments towards me while working on a patient that are meant to belittle me. Then, she tries to smooth things over by giving compliments. Saying my first name instead of my last. As if we were just friends. As if she doesn’t know what the inside of my apartment looks like. As if she doesn’t know the color of my sheets or the way I organize my clothes. As if she isn’t used to my touch on her skin or my reaction to her running her hand over my scars. As if Whitaker didn’t accidentally use her toothbrush instead of his one morning. Yeah, just two people that got really close to each other. You could say in more ways than one, but that’s just me.
Just hearing my name come her mouth makes me smile. It sounds so right coming from her. I never thought my name fit me until I heard it come from her. The way she looks at me when she says my name. It almost brings me to my knees. Even just looking at her makes me stop breathing and pay attention to her.
I know it’s pathetic to do this for a woman that only comes over for sex and ramen and occasionally stays over to watch a movie with me. I mean it’s more than just occasionally since she has her own toothbrush in the bathroom. She insisted since it would make it easier for her to get ready in the morning.
Sometimes I think it means she wants to stick around.
She’s told me over ramen that normally she has on and off relationships or flings that last a couple of months. We’ve been “together” for almost 10 months, since a bit after Pittfest. She invited me to get a drink after a particularly hard shift. Saying “just so we can relax and forget about it; plus we can get to know each other better”. We talked there for hours in a booth in the corner with my vodka cranberry and her bloody mary. We stayed there until the bartender told us to leave.
As we were walking back to her car, she told me that it was fun and we should probably plan to do this again. She looked gorgeous in the warm glow of the nearby streetlight. I think she was saying something but I couldn’t hear it as I drunkly decided to step closer to her. I can’t remember who moved first but soon we were just inches away from each other. She cupped my left side of my face and asked if this was okay. I placed my hands on her waist and nodded slightly as we both leaned in. I could taste the cherry lipgloss she uses along with the bloody mary she drank. She was surprisingly gentle as she moved her tongue into my mouth. We stayed there for maybe a couple of minutes until finally we broke apart. She got in her car and wished me goodnight as I called an Uber to take me back to the apartment I shared with Huckleberry.
“Uhh Santos”, someone said snapping me back from my thoughts and back to the tons of charting that I still need to make up.