Archive of Our Own

Mel King knew the damage a rumor could do. When she was in the fourth grade, nobody would sit with her in the cafeteria because they didn’t like the way she ate her sandwich (layer by layer: bread, meat, cheese, lettuce if it wasn’t too limp, tomato, bottom bread). They said it was weird. They said her weirdness rubbed off and made you weird too. Like she had cooties or something. They said she had bad luck. In high school, nobody invited her to sleepovers or dances. She spent long evenings studying alone in the library and listening to other groups of friends talking and laughing, distracting each other with jokes she didn’t understand.

This was all to say that rumors didn’t hold weight. All Mel knew for sure was that Dr. Langdon left the Pitt abruptly after her first day and it was unclear when or if he’d return. Maybe Mel was bad luck because the resident she thought she could really get along with, the one who told her she’d made a good first impression (which she almost never did), was gone.

There was a rumor that he had a drug problem.

Apparently, he’d been snapping at people. Apparently, he’d been shaking, sweaty, on edge, all day. He hadn’t been that way with Mel.

It was silly to spend so much time thinking about a man she’d only met once, but she couldn’t help it. It had been the most difficult first day she could imagine, but he’d been a bright spot. When he was there, she felt steady. Every shift, she hoped she’d see him. Or at least get news, even bad news. 

Sometimes, after she’d said goodnight to Becca and finished the dishes, she’d lay in bed and think about what she’d say if she saw him again: blue eyes wide and focused, arms crossed over his scrubs, speaking to her like he couldn’t hear any of the chaos, like it was just the two of them. Like they were a team.

When she did see him again, he wasn’t wearing scrubs. He was sweating and on edge, but he was wearing a sweatshirt and gym shorts. He had the apartment door propped up with one foot and a cardboard box labeled “Kitchen” in his arms. Mel was coming home with her groceries. Becca was having dinner with a friend from her day center. Mel was going to make a frozen pizza and find something decent to watch on TV. She was going to go to bed early. Dr. Langdon was moving things into the apartment next to hers. 

“Dr. Langdon,” she said, and he jumped.

Mel jumped too. She nearly dropped her grocery bags.

“Dr. King,” Dr. Langdon said. He looked up at her. He looked awful. There were bags under his eyes. His hair was stringy. He looked thinner.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I live here,” Langdon said.

He set the box down inside the apartment and wiped his hands on his sweatshirt. He hunched over, one hand on his hip, the other braced against the doorframe. 

It was disorienting to see him in street clothes. He looked less confident, like he had his armor off.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I live here too,” Mel said.

He blinked at her.

“Not, uh. Not in your—I mean obviously, I uh, I live over here,” she said, pointing at the door.

She could feel his eyes on her and her face heating. She wasn’t sure why she was embarrassed. It was a public hallway. Her hallway. It wasn’t as if she’d intruded.

“Oh,” Langdon said.

“I guess we’re neighbors,” Mel said. “I didn’t know you, uh—”

“My wife and I, well, we’re separating. She, uh, she asked me to move out. I was at an inpatient rehab facility for awhile and now I’m here. I was supposed to be done with all these boxes this afternoon,” Langdon said. He rubbed his lower back. 

“Oh,” Mel said. She tried to process the tidal wave of new information and came up short. 

They just stared at each other. 

“I’m sorry. I’m trying to get better at just saying it. Instead of lying, or making excuses,” he said. 

“Thank you for telling me,” Mel said. 

Her heart was pounding. It was as if she’d summoned him with her thoughts. 

“How’s work?” he asked. “I mean, how are you Mel?”

“Good, better,” she said. “I’m uh…I’m finding my place.”

“I knew you would,” he said. “I should get back to it.”

“Oh, right. It’s good to see you, Dr. Langdon,” Mel said. She fumbled with her keys. 

“Frank,” he said. 

“Frank,” she repeated. 

“I’d really appreciate it if you could keep this between us,” Frank said. 

“Of course,” Mel said. She couldn’t imagine who she’d tell. 

That night she could hear him through the apartment’s thin walls. Pacing, or maybe unpacking. He was up late. She thought he ought to get some sleep. She regretted not offering to help him move the rest of his things. Moving it all himself had to take a physical toll. She imagined him sweaty, rolling up his sleeves to reveal toned arms. Slicking his hair back, gulping water from a bottle until it dribbled down his chin, breathing heavy. 

Mel stared at the shadows on the ceiling and tried not to think of Frank Langdon like he was some tortured, sexy, brooding rogue. She wondered if the new apartment meant he was returning to the ER soon. She listened until it was quiet next door. 

###

It was a little pathetic how few things Frank had taken from home. He wasn’t even sleeping on a real mattress. It was a futon on the floor with a sleeping bag for bedding. He could count all the pathetic things about his life these days, but he’d run out of fingers on both hands: his inbox full of angry voicemails from Abby and neutral ones from her divorce attorney, the lone Red Bull in his fridge, the cravings so bad his skin itched, being unable to sleep, being unable to explain to Tanner and Penny that he wasn’t coming home for dinner, spending every evening he wasn’t at an NA meeting alone, picking at freezer burned microwave meals from the gas station, running into the too kind, too talented intern he’d met on the worst day of his life while the pathetic mess he’d made of himself was on full display.

If it was anyone else, he’d worry about her spreading the news of how far he’d fallen. But it was Mel, so she wouldn’t.

When he couldn’t sleep, Frank watched Antiques Roadshow and Wheel of Fortune on late night cable. When all he could do was sleep he’d hobble to the kitchen between naps, open a bag of chips, and eat them face down on the futon, leaving crumbs. When he had to get drug tested or meet with his sponsor, he’d clean himself up and get out of the house, but otherwise he lived like a hermit. He kept the lights off. He only unpacked the bare minimum. He dreaded running into Mel again, though part of him had been glad to see her. 

He couldn’t think of many people who’d be glad to see him, but it seemed like she was. Her eyes had glimmered. Frank Langdon thought Mel King’s eyes were absorbing, but that wasn’t the kind of thing you said about an intern with which you’d worked a single shift. 

He’d heard her coming home with her sister, their muffled back and forth in the hall. She’d slid a coupon for free pizza underneath his door with a note about how she’d grabbed an extra for him from the stack in the leasing office. In the evenings he heard bubblegum pop and musical soundtracks, followed by the sound of the TV and water running. He imagined Mel was the type who decorated her home with the things dear to her. He imagined a warm kitchen with a fridge covered in magnets and photos. He imagined shelves full of books and board games. He imagined a couch you could doze off on. 

At night, sometimes, he’d sit in a folding chair on the balcony and look out at the city lights. The breeze felt nice. 

“Dr. Langdon,” Mel said.

He looked over at her. She was outside on her balcony too, wearing plaid pajama pants and an oversized t-shirt. Her hair was down. 

“Frank,” he said. 

“I haven’t seen you,” she said. She wrapped her arms around herself, hands hooked over her elbows. 

“I’ve been laying low,” he said. 

She looked up at the stars. He watched the pale line of her neck, the way her shoulders rolled back. She tucked her hair behind her ears and he watched that too. Mel had long, delicate fingers and pretty ears. 

“Why?” Mel asked. 

She’d come nearer to the railing between them and so as he spoke so did he. It was almost like they were on the same balcony, that way. 

“What do you mean, why? I’ve made a mess of everything. It’s embarrassing to be seen,” he said. Then he cringed. 

The only time he talked to people these days, it was during NA meetings or group therapy. Everyone was honest and forthcoming, if not weepy or bitter. In normal conversation it was a faux pas. 

“You’re working on yourself, aren’t you?” Mel asked.

Her gaze was steady. Her hair was blowing in her eyes. 

“I’m trying, yeah,” Frank said. He had goosebumps on the back of his neck. 

He was giving everything to the effort, but part of him wondered if he was worth saving. He wasn’t sure Robby would ever forgive him. He’d already lost the right to see his kids every day. He was still afraid he’d relapse, that all the things people said about him behind his back were true. 

“Then there’s no reason for you to be embarrassed,” Mel said.

Mel leaned her elbows on the railing. 

“I embarrass myself all the time, you know?” she continued.

He studied her expression. He couldn’t always make heads or tails of it when it came to her. He’d noticed she was awkward. That first day, he’d seen people walk off on her mid-sentence. She got a wide-eyed, deer in headlights look when a conversation took off in a direction she couldn’t follow. Sometimes people rolled their eyes at her. 

“No you don’t. People are just assholes,” he said. 

Mel opened her mouth and then closed it. She was surprised, he could tell. He wasn’t sure if she was surprised he was defending her in particular or surprised to be defended at all. 

“When are you coming back to the ER?” she asked. 

Frank laughed. It was a harsh, acidic sound in his throat. He’d hadn’t used to laugh like that. 

“A couple of months, maybe. If everything goes according to plan,” he said. 

“I miss having you around,” Mel said. 

“You do?” he said. 

“I look forward to learning from you, Dr. Langdon,” Mel said. 

Frank scrubbed his hands over his face. His eyes were getting damp. He didn’t know why. 

“Are you alright?” she asked. 

“You don’t need to worry about me,” he said. 

He looked over at her. Her eyebrows were scrunched. A look of deep concentration had settled on her face. 

“I’d like it if we could be friends,” Mel said. 

He sniffled, felt stupid, like a little kid. He remembered his brothers teasing him for crying when he fell off his bike and skinned his knee. He never wanted anyone to see him in pain. Pain was weakness. 

“Friends look out for each other,” Mel said. 

Mel was sensitive. Mel felt deeply. She felt other’s pain as her own. And Mel was strong. 

“Okay,” Frank said. “Let’s be friends.”

###

It was raining, a steady downpour that made everything inside feel cramped and humid. There was a knock on the door at 10 p.m. on a Saturday. It was an insistent knock. Mel looked through the peep hole and saw Dr. Langdon fidgeting in the hallway. 

“Is something wrong?” Mel asked. He looked a little out of it, pale. 

“Sorry it’s late. I uh…I’m in the middle of making cookies and I’ve realized I’m short an egg. Can I borrow one?” he said. 

“You’re making cookies?” she asked. 

“I’m sorry to bother you and your sister this late,” he said. 

Sometimes it was hard to listen to what he was saying because the blue of his eyes was too distracting. He was warmer with her, gentler. 

“I didn’t know you had a sweet tooth,” she said. 

His face colored. “I’m trying to find new distractions,” he said. 

“Oh,” Mel said. 

“It’s no problem if you don’t have an—”

“No,” Mel said. She reached out, hands grazing his forearm. She’d hate it if he left. She thought about him alone in that apartment, trying to keep his mind at bay, hurting, feeling guilty for it. 

“I have an egg. But you should come in. My sister’s staying at a friend’s place. We could watch something. You could bake your cookies here. I’m good at distractions,” Mel said. 

“Alright,” Frank said. 

Mel grinned. She hadn’t even needed to beg. 

“What were you doing?” he asked, looking down at the game controller in her hands. 

“I was playing competitive Tetris,” Mel said. “Would you like to play?” 

Shortly, they were sitting side by side on Mel’s couch. Mel was half watching the screen and half watching Frank watch. He was leaning forward in his seat, palms on his thighs. He’d brought the cookie dough from his apartment and got up occasionally to take out one batch and put in the next.

Mel tried to keep her gaze from following him to the kitchen. He rooted around in her cabinets for a baking sheet, oven mitts, and a spatula without asking her where anything was. 

“You’re good at this,” Frank said. 

“It makes me feel calm,” Mel said. 

She met his glance, sideways. Sometimes the things that made her feel calm were strange to other people, or juvenile. 

“I used to save my allowance for the used games section. And in college we played a lot of Guitar Hero. I was always the drummer. That made me feel calm,” Frank said. 

“What else makes you feel calm?” Mel asked. 

There was a moment of silence between them. Mel was trying to figure out if it was awkward or comfortable silence when he spoke. She looked at the screen and not at him. She rotated her Tetris pieces and sat, motionless. 

“I was smoking a lot of weed back then,” Frank said, softly. 

“Oh?” Mel said. 

The rain beat against the roof and thunder rumbled low. 

“I used to play football. I was always beating my body up. Fucked up my back for the first time. Getting high helped it hurt less. And it helped me get out of my head,” Frank said. 

“Why didn’t you want to be in your head?” Mel asked.

She looked over at him. He was chewing on his lip. His eyes darted back and forth over the TV screen, which cast him in multicolored light. 

“Doesn’t it ever get too loud in there?” Frank asked. 

Mel nodded. She knew what he meant. It got too loud in her brain too. Sometimes she couldn’t control all the sound up there. 

“Getting high makes me feel calm,” Frank said. “But so does watching you play Tetris, apparently. I think I prefer Tetris.”

“So do I,” Mel said. 

She handed him the controller so he could try and got up to make them some tea. He’d relaxed, leaning back on the couch, his heels propped up on the coffee table. He put them back on the floor when she came in, but she just laughed.

She’d brought the tea out on a tray with a plate of the cookies he’d made. It was almost as if they’d planned the evening, like they were people who made plans together on the weekends. 

“You don’t have to do all this,” he said. 

“You made the cookies. I just put them on a plate. I think I’m getting the better end of the deal,” Mel said. 

“You’re doing me a favor. I might’ve eaten them all myself if you weren’t home. Apparently, I lack willpower,” Frank said. 

Mel was home every Saturday night, but she didn’t tell him that. She also didn’t say that she’d clocked his self-deprecating streak. It clashed with the blunt sincerity of his usual conversation. It was some vestigial critic in his head she hoped he’d stop listening to. She thought about how angry Dr. Robby had been. She thought about how they’d been friends. 

He readjusted on the couch, stretching his back and wincing. 

“I can get you some Tylenol,” Mel said. “Or a heating pad?” 

“I’m just being a wuss,” Frank said. 

The other day she’d treated a high school kid who’d walked on his sprained ankle until it broke and he got dragged into the ER. He said he didn’t want to look like a baby in front of his friends. A little pain was nothing compared to appearing weak in front of the tough guys. Mel wondered if Frank Langdon was like that. He was the golden boy who you never saw sweat. And then he wasn’t. 

“When I was a kid, I didn’t let anybody know I had problems,” Mel said. “My sister had a lot of specialized needs and lots of things were really difficult for her. The world’s not built for people on the spectrum, for disabled people at all. And my problems always seemed so much smaller in comparison so I’d pretend they weren’t there.”

“How’d that work out?” Frank asked. 

“I’d get really angry over nothing and I’d cry. Keeping everything pent up just made me a ticking time bomb. Or I’d just stop talking. I remember a couple weeks of my junior year of college I didn’t leave my room or speak to anyone, I was so burnt out from acting like everything was normal. I’m better at recognizing and feeling my feelings now,” she said.

He met her eyes. She hadn’t meant to be so candid. Evidently, Frank Langdon had the kind of face Mel couldn’t help but tell the truth to. When she talked to other people about her past, she tried to make herself sound more competent and in control than she felt. There had been too many instances in which she described something that was difficult to her and the person she was confiding in failed to understand what Mel found challenging. Even very kind people were sometimes dismissive.

This was the case when she told her friend in college that she only grocery shopped at night and while wearing headphones because otherwise the crowds and the noise made her so anxious she couldn’t find anything on her list. It happened when she tried to describe to her eighth grade teacher why moving assigned seats right before a test had thrown her off her rhythm so badly she’d only answered half of the questions. Her med school friends (who she thought only invited her out because she was the star of their bar trivia team) rolled their eyes and complained that she only talked about work, even after she admitted that she felt lost every time they went out together. There were too many conversational threads to follow. Everyone talked too fast and had too many perplexing facial expressions to decipher and assign value. Even when she didn’t drink a thing she wound up with a headache.

The intensity of his attention, coupled with the fact that he’d taken every eccentricity she’d exhibited thus far in stride, made Mel trust the instinct to tell him things.

“What happened?” Frank muttered.

“I had some kind professors. And I did all the work, I just didn’t go to class. And my mom had just died, so people were gentle with me,” Mel said.

“No, I mean, how did you get better at feeling your feelings?” Frank asked. 

“Oh,” Mel said. “Practice, I guess. And boundaries, better boundaries.”

The moonlight was coming in through the curtains, casting his face in a bright, pale spotlight. He looked younger like that. Mel felt like a hypocrite talking about feeling her feelings. She had the same, heart-pounding, light-headed feeling she always got when she had a delusional, impulsive crush on a man.  It was not a feeling she liked to dwell in because it had yet to work out in her favor. Men thought she was cute, on occasion, or at least worthy of spilling their life stories to before they tried to sleep with her. Men said she had kind eyes. Mel wasn’t sure what that meant. Men usually talked and talked and didn’t ask her follow-up questions when she got a word in. She wasn’t going to feel her feelings for Dr. Langdon. 

“Do you have enough time to feel your feelings in the ED?” Frank asked. 

“It’s a work in progress,” Mel said. 

Dr. Langdon wasn’t even properly divorced. And his ex-wife asked him. Maybe he had some grand plan to win her back. She could imagine a white knight routine, theatrical gestures. Mel employed a similar technique when Becca was angry with her. They’d build a blanket fort in the living room or Mel would announce it was breakfast for dinner (Becca's favorite) and everything would sort itself out. Sometimes it was a technique that led to more problems: less talking, more putting off the inevitable with big distractions. 

Mel was good at distractions. That was why Frank had knocked on her door in the first place. 

“You’ll figure it out,” Frank said.

He rocked back on the couch and then stood, hunched at first, with his hand pressed to his lower back. 

“I should let you get to bed,” he said. 

“Oh,” Mel said. “Okay.” 

“Thank you for Tetris, for uh, for letting me crash,” Frank said. 

“Anytime,” Mel said, sincerely. 

He shot her a startled look and then smiled. 

“Whenever you need a distraction,” she said. 

 ###

She hooked a bag of icy hot back pain patches on his doorknob. He made too much pasta and brought her leftovers after her shift. She told him about her difficult cases, the day shift’s highs and lows. She helped him unpack the rest of his boxes. He helped her change her flat tire in the parking lot. They got takeout, on occasion, and watched movies on her couch. They texted.

Actually, Frank was embarrassed at how frequently he texted her. He told her good morning and checked in around lunch if she was working. He asked her if she needed anything every time he stopped by the grocery store. He screenshotted his high score on Tetris and sent her links to videos of baby giraffes taking their first steps because giraffes were her favorite animal and baby animal videos were her favorite genre of YouTube video.

Mel: It’s like a zoo in here today. And not one with adorable baby giraffes :( 

Frank: The day’s just starting. You could find yourself a baby giraffe.

Mel: I think they go to the veterinary hospital. :)

Frank: You never know. 

Mel: I know I’m going to be here late charting :( might need to cancel dinner 

Frank: That's okay. Swing by when you’re off. I’ll save you some lasagna. 

Mel: Will do :) 

Frank found Mel’s consistent use of emoticons charming. Her texts sounded like her. Her emotions were always written on her face. 

He made lasagna and did the dishes and sat down on the couch to finish the crossword he’d started that morning. He must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he knew he was startling awake to a knock on the door. 

He checked his phone: two missed calls from Mel. Fuck. 

“Holy shit, Mel. Are you okay? What happened?”

One of her eyes was wide, the other was badly bruised, almost swollen shut. She had a cut on her cheekbone and an ice pack, limp, in her hand. 

“I’m okay,” she said.

Frank’s hands were reaching out to cup her face before he realized what he was doing. 

“I got elbowed in the face helping Dr. Whitaker, Dr. Santos, and Dr. Robby restrain a patient,” Mel said. “I’m fine. I got checked out. It’s just a bruise and a mild concussion,” Mel said. 

His hands were still on her. He could feel her pulse quicken in her throat. He let her go. 

“I’ll get you some more ice,” he said. 

“I’m fine,” she said again. She stopped him with a hand on his wrist. “Can you give me a ride to Becca’s day center? I’m not supposed to drive and I’m the only one who can sign her out.” 

“Of course,” Frank said. “Let me put on real pants.”

She held onto him too. He looked her up and down. Her shoulders were hunched. Her posture was tight. She was rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. 

“Do you want a hug, Mel?” he asked. 

Her head bobbed and he put his arms around her. 

“I’m sorry,” Frank said, with Mel’s face pressed to his shoulder. 

“It’s just been a long day,” Mel said. Her exhale was shaky. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Frank said. 

He could feel her pressed against him, how warm she was, how she was trying to keep herself from shaking too hard. She smelled like rubber gloves, panic, and the irony tang of blood. He resisted the urge to hold on too tight.

“I don’t usually let other people pick Becca up. She’s not…she likes routine…my car, at the same time, no surprises like uh–like me getting…I’m not sure she really understands the risks of our work and I don’t want to scare her or make her think I can’t handle–” Mel was speaking so quickly Frank was afraid she was going to hyperventilate.

He drew back and put his hands on her shoulders.

“Take a deep breath for me, okay?” he said. It was his doctor voice, which startled him.

He’d practiced speaking gently, calmly, and confidently around patients. His rapport with people who were injured and afraid was something he’d thought about a lot in med school. He’d been confident in his surgical knowledge and his ability to think and act under pressure. He knew he’d be a good doctor, he just wasn’t confident in his ability to convince patients that they were in good hands. 

Once, when he was in middle school Frank tripped on the stairs and split his head open at the eyebrow. He remembered being terrified. He’d never gotten stitches before. The only time he’d been in a hospital was when his grandmother died. The nurse held his hand and distracted him with jokes until his face was stitched up. Partway through he’d forgotten he was scared.  

He felt Mel’s inhale. 

“It’ll be okay. You’re okay. Becca’s okay. I’m not going to leave you alone,” he said. 

He could hear his blood rushing. Holding Mel made him feel light-headed, which made him feel guilty, and in turn more visibly embarrassed. 

In the car, Frank cleared the trash off of his passenger seat and then threw more trash from the backseat into the trunk. 

“Sorry,” he said. “No one rides with me anymore.”

“That’s okay,” Mel said. 

She stood with a fresh ice pack pressed to her eye. Her other arm was crossed over her chest. He noticed that her elbow was bruised too. She was wearing a cardigan with the sleeves rolled up, but she pulled her sleeve down over her elbow when she caught him looking. 

She put the address into his phone. He handed her the zip up binder he had of his car CDs. She looked confused for a moment, but when she opened it she smiled. 

“Maybe there’s something in there Becca will like,” he said. 

“I didn’t know you were so old school,” Mel said, flipping through his collection with her free hand. 

He shrugged. “They sound better. The kids like picking their own music. When I was in college I brought my portable CD player everywhere,” he said. 

She looked over at him and he looked at the road before he started blushing in earnest. He stopped short of giving her a more complete image of himself in college: his residual teen acne, his partying, the burgeoning drinking problem, his semester on academic probation before he got his shit together and realized he’d never be the doctor he wanted to be if he didn’t start taking himself seriously. That CD player had provided the soundtrack for many a walk of shame across campus in last night’s clothes. When he saw photos of himself back then, he got embarrassed. It was that reckless, entitled, hedonistic kid Abby had fallen for. 

Frank wondered what Mel had been like in college. 

“Becca and I used to make each other mix CDs. Well, she’d write down the songs she wanted and I’d help her with it, Mel said.

“Yeah? What kind of music?” Frank asked.

He looked at the CDs in her lap. She’d stopped on the sleeves of kids CDs. Tanner had given them nonsensical titles in Sharpie, his letters thick and wobbly: “Party Time Dad Car,” “Super Music,” “Daddy Angry Songs.”

“Disney songs, musicals, some pop as long as it was the clean versions. My mom would check,” Mel said. 

“Oh?” Frank said. He couldn’t keep the grin off his face. Collecting tidbits of Mel’s life and her interests felt like a game. There was something supremely satisfying in filing mental notes about her. Sometimes she was skittish when it came to talking about herself, like she was afraid he’d lose interest in what she was saying partway through. She got an intensely guarded look on her face sometimes, when she was admitting something he thought was mundane. 

Yes, she proofread conference papers for fun.

No, she didn’t think she was up the staff cookout at Dr. Abbot’s, even if she was technically invited.

Yes, she’d seen all the X-men movies at least twice.

No, she didn’t think it was a requirement to dress up at the Ren Faire, but she always did because it was more fun that way.

“Was that hard?” he asked.

Her nose scrunched. She removed the ice pack from her eye momentarily and squinted her injured eye. The Mel signs of confusion. He’d tracked the quirks of her body language too.

 “Did you have a rebellious phase? Was it hard to stick to the clean versions?” he said.

“Oh,” she said. “I guess sometimes. I don’t really remember. The angstiest songs I ever listened to were like…Avril Lavigne and Gwen Stefani. I wanted a pink streak in my hair, but my parents wouldn’t let me use real hair dye so I got one of those clip in extensions at Claire’s. And these black and white striped fingerless gloves. Becca loves those. I think she still has them.”

“I dressed like Billie Joe Armstrong. I wanted to bleach my hair,” Frank said.

Mel’s face scrunched again.

“The lead singer of Green Day,” Frank supplied. “That’s most of ‘Daddy Angry Songs.’”

It was Mel’s turn to grin. “Did you wear eyeliner?” she asked.

“Oh yeah, surest way to piss my folks off,” Frank said.

Mel settled on a CD with Penny’s unicorn stickers on it and extricated it from its clear plastic sleeve with the same care with which she dealt with road rash or blisters.

“Do you still have any of those mix CDs?” Frank asked.

“Uh, no. We don’t have a lot of stuff from growing up. When my mom died everything we didn’t sell went into storage. There was an accident at the storage facility and most of the boxes got water damaged and had to be thrown out, the photos and papers and stuff,” she said.

They’d pulled into the parking lot. Frank picked a spot close to the visitor’s entrance and turned off the car.

“I’m sorry,” Frank said.

“We got compensated,” Mel said. Her voice had gone a little high and strained. Her shoulders tensed.

“Money doesn’t make up for things like that,” Frank said. 

“Yes,” Mel said. “You’re right about that.”

Her shoulders relaxed. She undid her seatbelt and held out her ice pack. He took it from her. This was another quirk of hers he liked. It reminded him of surgery: handing off surgical instruments with an efficient, automatic ease. It also reminded him of holding his high school girlfriends’ purses. He liked the sureness with which Mel presented things for him to hold. He liked being useful to her.

“Does it look too bad?” she asked. 

Her eye was still very purple. The ice had brought down the swelling a bit, but she could only open it to squint. Her pale eyelashes stood out against the bruising. Mel had pretty eyelashes too. Frank was glad for the opportunity to stare. 

“Better than earlier,” he said. “Do you want me to come in with you?”

“No,” she said. “I’ll just be a minute. I’ll sign Becca out and explain what’s going on. I’ll be in and out.”

“No rush,” he said.

He watched her careful steps up the sidewalk and inside. He slipped the CD she’d chosen into the player and turned down the volume. He unbuckled his seatbelt and turned over his shoulder to reassess the condition of the backseat. He ran his hands through his hair and peeked at himself in the rearview mirror. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see. It was just his own tired eyes and messy hair. He’d seen Becca in passing, in the hall. She’d probably seen him too. He had the inexplicable, nagging urge to appear suitable. 

“Dr. Langdon, this is my sister Becca,” Mel said, when she climbed back into the passenger seat.

Becca sat in the backseat with her backpack in her arms. 

“Hi Becca. It’s nice to officially meet you,” Frank said. 

She blinked, briefly looking him up and down. 

“If you’re injured does that mean you’re not going to work tomorrow?” Becca said, to Mel. 

“No, I’ll be alright to work tomorrow. The swelling is going down. My eye will still be bruised tomorrow, but I should be able to open it like normal,” Mel said. 

“But if you’re so hurt you have to get our neighbor to help pick me up it must be bad,” Becca said, seriously. 

“That’s just because I can’t open my eye all the way,” Mel said. “And he’s not just our neighbor, Dr. Langdon’s my friend. We work together,” Mel said. 

They didn’t technically work together, at present, but he was glad she’d said it. It made him feel less like he was in the doghouse and more like he’d be back where he wanted to be soon. 

Becca took a beat to process the new information and then nodded, definitively. Frank looked between them. There was a particular, private exchange of energy that happened when two people knew each other very well.  It struck Frank, not for the first time, that Becca was all the family Mel had. Becca looked from her sister’s bruised face to the ice pack in Frank’s hand and back again. He had a feeling the King sisters didn’t trust easily. He’d have to prove he was worthy of Mel’s friendship for Becca to believe it. 

He imagined Mel younger, young enough to have pink streaks in her hair, holding Becca’s hand, or, as in the Pitt, putting on a brave face when she felt like crying.

Frank lifted the ice pack back up to Mel’s eye. She startled for a moment and then smiled, fingers skimming the back of his hand as she took over holding it up. Something warm was stirring in the bottom of his stomach. He wanted to take care of her, as much as she’d let him. He wanted to look out for her. He didn’t think Mel was used to that.

Becca clicked her tongue and Frank’s eyes slid up and away from Mel’s face.

“Okay. Nice to meet you, Dr. Langdon,” she said. “We can go home now.”

It was hard to fall asleep that night. He tried to school his brain into practical ruminating: where to take the kids when he had them Saturday afternoon, buying groceries to kick his takeout habit, setting himself up for a decent first week back at work, heat patches for his back, the peanut butter protein bars that weren’t too chalky, ordering Penny’s birthday presents from the disorganized folder where he’d been bookmarking links, writing down notes for his apology tour so every conversation didn’t become anxious word vomit, figuring out how Mel took her coffee so he could bring her something she liked (instead of politely pretending she did).

When he closed his eyes, and tried properly to quiet his brain, all he ended up with was Mel. He pictured her on his couch with her knees up, reading a book. He imagined bringing her a mug of tea and a blanket, rearranging the couch cushions so she was more comfortable, her feet in his lap so he could massage them, and the tension seeping from her, her hair loose and staticky around her face. He rolled over and buried his face in his pillow. God, he was pathetic: half hard thinking about looking after her. 

He took a couple deep breaths and sat up. He scrubbed his hands over his face. The room was dark until his phone lit up on his bedside table.

Mel: Thank you again :) you were a life saver tonight…

Frank: No trouble at all. I’m getting rusty in the life saving department. :) 

Mel: Becca wants to invite you to movie night. I told her I’d run the idea by you, but no promises. 

Frank: I’d love that, Mel. Thank you. 

Mel: I didn’t wake you, did I? 

Good grief, Frank thought. Instant karma. His hands were sweating. He tugged at his briefs 

Frank: No, no, I’m a night owl. 

Mel: You mean you can’t sleep?

He knew she knew he’d been an insomniac these past months. Their walls were thin. 

Frank: Don’t worry about me. How’s your eye? 

Mel: Much better. I had a headache, but I took some aspirin. I think my brain’s riled up. I can’t get it to settle down. It’s like the nights before exams in med school. 

Frank: I remember nights like that. Me and my roommate always ended up at a late night drive-thru. 

Mel: Oh yeah? 

Frank: Large fry, chocolate shake, slept like a baby. :) 

Mel: That sounds good. I’d go for strawberry, though. 

Frank: I think that can be arranged. 

Mel: ??

Frank was up and rooting around in his closet for clean clothes. It was a stupid idea, but he was in a stupid mood. 

Frank: The burger place down the street’s open all night. I can drive. Milkshakes on me. 

Mel: Okay!! If you’re sure :) 

Frank: See you in the hall in 5?

Mel: I'll be there. 

She was wearing her pajamas and slippers, and made a fuss about going back inside to change when she saw he wasn’t, but he waved her off. Her eye looked better. He stole glances over at her as he drove. The reds and blues of late night neon caught the angles of her face. Shadows slipped over her features. 

“Are you still riled up?” he asked. Her eyes had glazed over. She was looking out the window. 

“No, I’m…you, car rides calm me down I guess. It was that way when I was a baby,” Mel said. 

“Well look at that, no milkshake necessary,” Frank said. 

“I don’t know about that,” Mel said. 

They pulled up to the speaker and he ordered. She tried to pay, but he insisted. Soon they were parked, staring out at the highway, with matching cartons of fries and two milkshakes in the cup holders. 

Mel licked whipped cream off the top of her strawberry milkshake and Frank tried not to blow a fuse. 

“I understand the appeal of this,” she said. 

“It was a regular activity, back in school. Probably too regular. I must’ve gained 15 pounds that first semester of med school. My friends were real dicks about it,” Frank said. 

Mel frowned. “That’s awful,” she said. 

Frank fished a couple fries out of the bottom of the bag. He shrugged. 

“I got a gym membership and some self-control. At least for a little while. Willpower isn’t my strong suit, as I’m sure you’ve heard,” he said. 

Her disapproving expression has morphed into something more complicated that he couldn’t confidently read. He bit the inside of his mouth. He didn’t know why he kept feeling compelled to confess the cringing, regrettable, awkward parts of himself when she was around. She was always kinder than he thought she’d be. 

“I wish you wouldn’t talk about yourself like that,” she said. 

“Like what?” he said. 

She shook her head vigorously. “Like it’s about willpower. Like addiction is some sort of moral failing and it happened because you were weak. It’s a disease, Dr. Langdon. You’re so tough on yourself. I wish you could see how good you are,” she said. 

“Good?” he said. The word got caught in his throat. 

He’d had a recurring nightmare in rehab that Robby was yelling at him in Trauma 3 while his patient bled out on the table. In the nightmare, Frank’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking and Robby kept repeating the same insults. You’re a junkie. You’re a disappointment. You’re worthless. 

He wondered what it would take for Mel’s faith in him to falter. 

“I haven’t told you all of it, Mel,” he said.

“What haven’t you told me?” she asked.

She was rooting around in the bottom of the bag for the leftover fries. She was distracted. It would be better to rip the band-aid off now.

“I was stealing pills from my patients. I was lying. I was chewing out Santos because she was onto me and I needed a fix. I couldn’t come clean and get help. I had to be dragged out kicking and screaming,” he said.

When he came back, there was nothing to hide behind. There would just be him, an enflamed nerve. 

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Mel said. 

He looked over at her. She was very still. Her good eye was focused on him, intense. 

“I don’t know if I deserve to be forgiven,” Frank said. 

He hadn’t said the thought aloud before, though he was sure it was in everyone else’s heads. He’d lied before. How was anyone supposed to believe it wouldn’t happen again? His sobriety still felt like a fragile thing. He remembered the look Abby had given him when he’d gotten all of his things out of their house. Her lip was curled up and her eyes were hollow, like she was looking at a stranger. She’d monitored him while he packed things from the bathroom, leaning on the wall beside the medicine cabinet with her arms crossed. 

It would be worse back at the Pitt. He didn’t know what else to do. There was groveling and there was pretending, and he seemed incapable of doing either properly in front of Mel King. 

When she put her arms around him he settled into her touch without a second thought. It was like his body reacted before his brain did. It felt good to be in Mel King’s arms. It felt good to have her face pressed to his neck. She was warm and small and he could feel the care she had for him in the way she held on. 

“I don’t talk well, sometimes. I don’t convey what I mean in a way people can understand,” she said, close to his ear, half-whispered. The late night traffic thundered over the highway in front of the lot. 

“I don’t understand people’s jokes or I bore people and they just walk away. But that never mattered when it was you. You listened to me. You saw me. You taught me. You took care of me. You’re a good doctor, Dr. Langdon,”

She squeezed him tight for a moment longer and then let go. Frank wiped his eyes with his fingers. He started the car with a shaky hand.

“I’m sorry. Was that weird?” she said. 

“No,” he said. He hadn’t been held like that in a long time. “I’m sorry. I keep losing my cool around you.”

“You don’t have to be cool around me,” she said. 

He looked over at her. The earnestness of her expression, the serious furrow of her brows, was almost too much to bear. 

On the drive back they were quiet. Mel looked out the window and Frank stole glances at her hair, freed from its usual braid. It had more dimensions up close: pale shades of blonde, deeper browns, strands that almost looked reddish in the light.

###

“What’s with you and Langdon?” Dr. Santos said. 

It was really more of a flirtatious whisper, as Trinity Santos was half draped over Mel in their booth. They’d done a duet and two solos a piece at karaoke. Mel wasn’t sure what time it was other than late and Santos has talked her into two shots on top of her uncharacteristic three drinks. Mel was usually done after half a cocktail if it was strong. She hadn’t been drunk since she was in college. But the Fourth of July in the Pitt  had felt a million years long and Mel was a little giddy at the prospect of being invited out. Unfortunately she was also drunk enough to be tactlessly honest. 

“Whaddya mean?” Mel said. 

Santos shot her a look followed by an exaggerated eye roll. “He just got back and you’re already joined at the hip or whatever,” she said. She tipped her vodka soda back and crunched on a mouthful of ice. 

“I just can’t trust him. What’s his move, y’know? Robby certainly doesn’t want him back,” she said. 

“Robby’s on sabbatical,” Mel said. “And Dr. Langdon’s sober. He’s going to the meetings and getting the drug tests,” she said. 

“You don’t have to be besties, though. That’s what you’ve got me for,” Santos said. 

Mel smiled. She didn’t care if it was just the alcohol talking, she was glad to hear Santos call them friends. 

“Whittaker’s your best friend. I’m second best at best,” Mel said.

“Of course you want to get technical about it, Melatonin,” Santos said. 

Mel was sure she wasn’t his, but Frank was certainly her best friend. He was the only person she opened up to when she was out of sorts. He was the only one who texted her.

“What do you care if we get along?” Mel said. 

On stage, someone was singing “Total Eclipse of the Heart” off key. Mel wondered what Frank would sing at karaoke. She wondered if he was a good singer or confidently tone deaf. 

“He’s kept staring at you today,” Santos said. 

“Was he?” Mel said. She could feel her face warming. 

She’d been anxious about him. She wanted him to have a good first day back. She wanted to look out for him the way he looked out for her. If Santos noticed anyone staring, she thought it’d be her staring at him. 

“Why are you looking at me like that? Do you have a crush on him or something?” 

“Do you want to do another shot?” Mel said. 

“Oh my god, you do!” Santos said. 

She slapped her palm dramatically on the table. 

“What the hell, Mel? Spill! It’s been like two shifts and you’re already down bad?”

“I’m not,” Mel muttered. 

She’d spent the parts of the day that weren’t bloody, frantic, and overwhelming watching his hands and the way his hair fell in his eyes. She’d been surprised the first time she saw him in street clothes and now seeing him in scrubs again had the same effect. Ever since they’d gone for fries and ice cream in the middle of the night she’d been thinking about the way he felt in her arms. 

“He’s just nice to me. We work well together, that’s it,” Mel said. 

“And you think he’s hot,” Santos supplied. 

“I have eyes, Trin,” Mel said. 

She made a face. “Alright, more than I wanted to know. Just be careful, Melodrama, I don’t want to see you get hurt by some jerk,” she said. 

“I won’t,” Mel said. “I’m not going to tell him. He’s not interested in someone like me anyway,” 

“If by someone like you, you mean smart and pretty and surprisingly good at karaoke?” Santos said. 

Mel meant sensitive and awkward and sometimes fragile. She meant lonely. She had a feeling he didn’t know loneliness the way she did. For him it was a temporary state. He was good with her now, but it wouldn’t last.

“We’re friends,” Mel said.

“Whatever,” Santos said.

“Why do you care?” Mel said. She wanted another drink, though she was already a smidge past too drunk. 

Something pained passed over Santos’ face. 

“You don’t even know all of it,” she said. 

“You don’t know what I know,” Mel said. 

Santos just gaped at her and after a moment went to get them drinks. 

The rest of the night was blurrier. She remembered Trinity dragging her to another bar to play pinball and a third to dance. She remembered leaning on her while they waited for their Lyft and holding her hand as she showed her upstairs to her apartment. Santos was going to crash on the couch so that in the morning they could get hungover delivery breakfast and watch rom-coms at Mel’s all day. 

“Shush, I don’t wanna wake up my neighbors,” Mel said, fumbling with with the assortment of items on her carabiner (her library card, an old library card from before she moved, her rewards card at the froyo place, her car key, a beaded macrame giraffe Becca made her last Christmas, her apartment key etc.) 

For some reason it wasn’t going in the lock. Mel giggled. It was like a nightmare she had, where overnight the locks got changed and everything she had disappeared from her apartment. 

“This is the right apartment, isn’t it?” Santos said and Mel realized her mistake just as the door to the lock she’d been loudly messing with opened. 

“Mel?” Frank said. He rubbed his eyes. He was wearing a gray t-shirt with holes at the collar and a red plaid pair of briefs. His hair was a tangled mess and there was drool crusted on the side of his mouth. “Are you okay?”

Mel could feel Trinity’s hand fisted in the fabric of her shirt, dragging her back from the door. 

“Loverboy’s your neighbor?”

Frank’s hands brushed her arms and then he looked over her shoulder at Santos and released her. 

“Santos?”

“I got mixed up. I thought your apartment was mine,” Mel said. “I’m sorry to wake you, Frank. Do you know what time it is?” 

She felt herself swaying forward. She put her hand on his chest, partly to steady herself and party to see if he was warm. She thought he ran hot, that he was the type to kick off the blankets in the middle of the night, but she didn’t have any evidence to support the claim. He was warm, and his heart was beating hard. 

“I scared you, didn’t I?” she said, words a little slurred.

She could tell the moment he realized she was just drunk and nothing was wrong because he smiled the tight, close-mouthed smile he put on when he was trying not to smile too wide or laugh out loud. 

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Mel said, seriously. 

She lifted her hand from his chest, inexplicably, to his hair. She’d wondered if it was as soft as it looked. Now, she reasoned, was the prime time to find out. He wouldn’t put gel in it to sleep. She pushed some stray strands out of his face and he kept smiling that restrained little smile. 

“Did you guys have a good night?” He asked. 

“We were at karaoke,” Mel said.

“Let’s go to bed, Mel,” Santos whined behind her, and Frank’s expression shifted. 

“I’ll text you tomorrow,” Mel said, untangling her hand from his hair. It was soft and a little damp from the shower. She needed more data on how his hair felt. It probably felt different when he styled it or when it was greasy or when he’d anxiously been running his hands through it all shift, or when it was longer than he liked.

“Goodnight, Mel,” Frank said.

She loaned Trinity some pajamas and got her some sheets and bedding for the couch. In the dark, when they said goodnight, Santos’ voice got hushed and earnest. Mel was standing in her doorway, hugging a pillow.

“How long’s he been here?” she asked.

“Months,” Mel said. The cat was out of the bag. Mel figured Trinity wouldn’t gossip, but she’d probably tell Whitaker. It would get out one way or another, sooner or later.

She felt guilty. She hadn’t meant for Santos to find out Frank lived next door, and all that implied. She hoped Frank wouldn’t be angry with her, or keep his distance after she’d embarrassed herself.

“Is there a reason you didn’t tell me?” she asked.

“He asked me not to. I don’t think he wants to tell everyone about his divorce yet,” Mel said.

“He’s divorced? Geez, how the mighty fall,” Santos said. “So you two are—together?”

“No!” Mel said, shaking her head vehemently in the dark. “We’re friends. It’s a stupid crush. Forget I even told you, really. How I feel about Dr. Langdon is really the least of anyone’s worries, most of all his—”

“Mel,” Santos cut her off. “You’re allowed to like him. I know I’m not his biggest fan, but you can talk to me about anything, including Dr. Loverboy. You know that, right? And don’t start talking like your feelings are a burden on people or more trouble than they’re worth. Frankly, I think you’re way out of his league, but if you see something in him then I’m sure it’s there.”

Mel held the pillow tighter to her chest. She wasn’t sure when precisely she and Dr. Santos had become friends, but it occurred to her that they were, undeniably. They stayed late charting together and swapping horror stories of the day. Trinity invited Mel over to play Just Dance 2 in her and Whitaker’s living room. At work, Santos was her usual prickly self: driven and sarcastic and unable, even when Mel could tell she was trying to resist the urge, to let her guard down and show the love she really felt. 

On late nights, though, she admitted to things. She told Mel about her teen years as a gymnast, about how she was bound for the Olympics, about how she trusted her male coaches, idolized them even, and then they’d hurt her. She’d been tricked by powerful, talented men who were really liars and scumbags. That first shift, when she’d caught Frank, she’d decided he was one of these men too.

Privately, Mel thought Frank and Trinity would get along. They both had tough exteriors and boundless ambition. They both lit up when they were talking about tricky, thrilling surgical maneuvers. They both thrived on Dr. Robby’s praise. They both had self-destructive streaks. They’d had about the rockiest start a friendship could have, though. 

Mel wondered what Frank saw when Santos was in front of him. She was the catalyst for the utter implosion of his facade. She was the wake-up call, the rock bottom, the reason he’d gone to rehab. Was he embarrassed? Did he hold a grudge? Did seeing her make him feel like the person he was back then? Did it make him feel like he had something to prove?

“You’re a good friend, Trinity,” Mel said. 

Santos scoffed, rolled over, and promptly fell asleep.

###

Frank reminded himself that it was none of his business who Mel had sleep over at her apartment. He reminded himself as he tried to get back to sleep after her 3 a.m. visit. He reminded himself in the morning, when he didn’t immediately hear from her. He reminded himself when he heard them giggling in her living room all afternoon. 

There was another knock on his door around 2. By then, Mel had texted him at least. 

Mel: Sorry I woke you up last night! Do you want to come over later? I want to hear more about how your first day back went.

He’d agreed to come over, but he was nervous he'd have a hard time looking her in the eye. He thought about her hand in his hair all day. He was starved for touch, apparently. It had been a long time since someone had touched him gently like that, like they meant to touch him some more. 

He put the thought out of his mind. It wasn’t him she’d been out with or taken home. That was Santos. 

The knocking grew louder. Frank opened the door.

“Dr. Santos,” he said. 

She was wearing last night’s clothes. 

“Dr. Langdon,” she said. 

“Can I help you with something?” he said. He folded his arms protectively over his chest. 

“You know Mel’s a fucking treasure, right?” Santos said. 

Frank laughed. It came out kind of strangled and undignified with surprise. 

“I’m aware, yes,” he said. 

“Then you know that if you’re playing around with her you’ll have me to answer to, right?” she said. 

“Playing around,” he repeated, dumbly. 

“You should quit wearing that wedding band at work, if you’re serious. It’ll make her look bad if you two intend to fawn over each other on shift,” Santos said. 

“Fawning,” Frank repeated. 

Santos rolled her eyes. “You’re hopeless. Never mind.”

She started down the hallway and he had to call after her. 

“Thank you for looking after her,” he said. 

She rolled her eyes again and sighed. 

“See you around Dr. Loverboy,” she said. 

That night he showed up at Mel’s with a Gatorade and a frozen pizza. 

When Mel answered, she looked a little weary. 

“Still hungover?” he said, gently. 

“A little,” she said. “But mostly fine. We ordered breakfast this morning and sat around all day, which helped.”

Mel’s hair was in braids again, not loose like the night before. He’d have liked to see her at karaoke. She didn’t seem like the type to like that sort of thing, but Santos had probably asked, and consequently he was sure Mel had given it her all.

They sat down on her couch, which still had the remnants of a hungover movie marathon: additional pillows, blankets, a half empty bottle of pedialyte, and an extra pair of slippers on the carpet. 

“I didn’t know you and Santos were…” he trailed off. 

It occurred to him that he was being rather stupid, and maybe had been for a while. Of course she was making connections at work. It was Mel. She was kind and she was honest and though maybe her quirks were perplexing to some people, they were also endearing. It hadn’t crossed his mind that she could be seeing someone.

“Were what?” Mel said, cocking her head to one side.

“You don’t have to tell me, obviously. It’s none of my business,” Frank said. He could feel his face warming. “I just didn’t realize the two of you were…”

“Frank, It’d help me figure out what you’re trying to say if you could finish your sentences,” Mel said.

“I’m sorry,” Frank said, blushing ridiculously. He felt the same cocktail of mortification and dread he felt when he’d asked Abby out the first time. He’d been so certain she’d say no, but she hadn’t. “I’m trying to ask if you and Santos are dating,” he said.

“Oh!” Mel said. She looked genuinely surprised. “No, I uh, I like men. I’m not…we’re good friends is all. She slept on the couch.”

“I like men too. Or, no, I mean I like women! I’m straight too. Well, bi maybe. I’ve never been with another man, but I have been attracted to…this isn’t what I meant to talk about. I’m just trying to say that if you were dating Santos or anybody, you could talk to me about it. I know Santos and I don’t have a good track record, but I’d be there if you needed any…I don’t know what I’m blabbering on about. I just want you to know that you can tell me anything,” Frank said.

“I know,” Mel said.

Frank shifted in his seat. “Is Becca at her boyfriend’s?” he asked.

Mel stiffened. She nodded. 

“Are you alright?”

Mel smiled. “I thought we were going to talk about you,” she said.

“I’m alright,” Frank said. “I’m more than alright.” 

“Really?” Mel said. 

Frank laughed. “Oddly yes. I missed putting out fires,” he said. 

He’d felt a little useless when he wasn’t taking on cases at a breakneck pace, being pulled every which way. Useless and bored.

“Good,” she said. “I’m alright. I’m just…processing. I don’t like that she kept it from me, but of course I’m happy for her. It’s just that I always thought it would be just us two.”

She looked up at him and suddenly it was difficult to take a full breath. 

“I can understand that,” Frank said. 

A quiet fell between them, in which Frank could hardly look at her so he kept his eyes on the floor. 

“I don’t want to be all alone,” Mel said. 

“You’ll never be alone,” Frank said. He couldn’t stand to watch the way her shoulders scrunched. “You’ve got your friends and your sister and your career and me.” 

He was going to add that he would always be there for her, but it didn’t sound like a very platonic thing to say about a friend, neighbor, and colleague. 

“My friends and you? Aren’t you included in my friends?” she said. 

“Why are you so convinced you’ll be alone?” he said. 

“I’m always alone,” Mel said. 

He put his arms around her. 

“Mel,” he said. 

She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch. 

“I’m sorry I was falling all over you last night,” she muttered.

“You weren’t,” he said. “I was glad to see you. I was happy that you were having fun.”

“I don’t usually drink that much. In college I did, sometimes, but when I was really drunk I’d just start crying. I’d have to take a car home by myself,” Mel said. 

“Nobody took you home?” Frank said, sharp splinter of annoyance slicing through him like he’d tweaked his back again. 

“It wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t even know why I was crying, really. It was like my feelings were too big for my body. It feels like that during surgery sometimes. I felt like that the first time I saw someone cut open,” Mel said. 

“I would’ve taken you home,” Frank said. 

“Thanks,” Mel said. “I didn’t cry at all last night though.”

She hadn’t let go. She hadn’t made the slightest move to end the hug. He was accustomed to the pat on the back that preceded the withdrawal of closeness. When he was a kid, he was always the last to let go. 

He tucked his face in the crook of her neck. She sighed. It was a very gentle, vulnerable sound. He could feel her pulse quicken. His lips grazed the soft skin of her throat. It was not the sort of hug that friends gave each other. It was more intimate than that. 

“What changed?” Frank asked. 

He felt himself relaxing into her. Mel held on. She rubbed his back. He was dizzy with the nearness of her. 

“I think back then I was always worried I didn’t have real friends. I thought I got invited out of politeness and when I got drunk I convinced myself that that was the way it would always be. But now I’ve got real friends. I’ve got Santos at least, and you,” Mel said. 

She released him. He missed her touch immediately. He stood up. For a moment he was afraid he’d do something nonsensical, like kiss her.

“I can put in the pizza,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

###

When Mel was little, her mother collected fabric to make quilts. She’d made squares out of Mel and Becca’s baby clothes and their father’s flannel shirts. She found fabric with sequins or beads or ribbon so Mel had something to fidget with when they were watching movies on the couch. Mel remembered the popcorn bucket between her mother’s knees. She remembered that her mother liked extra buttery popcorn. 

One quilt had survived in Mel’s possession. She’d brought it to college. Now it lived in her and Becca’s living room. There was a photo of her as a kid with one of her mother’s quilts draped over her shoulders. She was wearing neon yellow sunglasses and her hair was in pigtails. It was a camping trip, she thought, because in the background of the photo you could see trees and the piled twigs for a campfire in the background. Collecting sticks was always Mel’s favorite campsite task. It made her feel like a travelling adventurer or particularly helpful scavenging fairy.

The kid Frank was operating on had come in with a quilt draped over his chest. He was a 17-year-old named Nico and on a camping trip with friends. There were many common camping injuries: burns, cuts from wayward axes or Swiss army knives, tumbles from hiking, spider bites, animal attacks. This was an overdose on pain pills. Nico’s friends didn’t know he had any pills on him. They were celebrating his birthday. Nico’s friend Alice, who was sobbing so hard Mel had to take her out for a cup of water, tissues, and some deep breathing exercises, said he’d been down lately. The trip was supposed to cheer him up. 

Mel made special note of things people came in with. It was a bad habit, sometimes, because when things got lost or cut off the patient’s body or ruined with blood or other bodily fluids, Mel felt other people’s sentimental attachments. There were too many stories in the ER that never got told. Stories you didn’t even know were there if you weren’t looking: the matching beads threaded through the shoelaces of a volleyball player who was injured in a game and her sister who had to watch from the bleachers, soft and tattered wallet photos, medical ID bracelets with the patient’s real name and pronouns carefully written, ash covered stuffed animals from house fires, rings on chains over people’s hearts, bouquets of only sunflowers, lucky baseball caps, friendship bracelets. The Pitt was teeming with precious things.

Alice had taken the quilt. She had folded it up into a small square and was hugging it tightly when Mel had to leave her to attend to another patient. 

“Is Dr. Langdon still in surgery?” Mel asked Dana, when she had a moment to catch her breath. There were three hours left in her shift and it felt like she’d be limping to the finish line.

Dana shared a look with Emma, who looked stricken. “Kid didn’t make it. Langdon’s taking a minute in the ambulance bay,” she said.

Mel stiffened, her shoulders rising to her chin. “Has the family been—?”

“Dr. Langdon told Nico’s friends and called his parents. They’re on their way,” Emma said. 

The image of the quilt draped over Nico’s limp body flooded Mel’s senses. She wondered if his quilt smelled the same way her mother’s did. Her mother’s quilts always smelled like lavender soap and a little like mothballs. Nico’s quilt probably smelled like bug spray and burnt wood. Maybe it smelled like him. Maybe no one would wash the quilt again because of that.

Dana looked Mel over. 

“Why don’t you go out and check on him, Dr. King. I think he’s having a hard day,” she said. 

Frank was sitting on the curb with his head in his hands. He looked the way he sometimes looked when a shift was slipping through his fingers. He had dark sweat stains on the armpits of his scrubs. There was blood in his arm hair.

Mel had been keeping track of this too. At work, Frank was less likely to lose his cool the way he did when they were alone. His emotions were harder to read. He had a stiff, professional mask over most of his actions these days. It had been like that since he’d gotten back. At work it was more like a slow unraveling. He drummed his hands on desks. He chewed on his bottom lip. He ran his hands through his hair and started sweating through his clothes. He could always put a wall up with her when they were in the Pitt. It was disorienting how good he was at it.

“Hey,” Mel said.

He stuck his head up. His eyes were red. 

“Mel,” he said.

“Dana told me what happened. Are you alright?”

She knew that the normal thing to do would be to sit down beside him, but she felt something in her chest squeeze when he looked at her and she ended up squatting in front of him and putting her hands on his shoulders.

“I’m fine,” he said, but he leaned into her. She could smell the blood and antiseptic on him. He was buzzing in his skin.

“He was just a kid, you know? Like his little friends in there. One of them still has braces,” Frank said.

“You did everything you could,” Mel said.

“I’ve got to go give my urine sample for the drug test in an hour,” he said. Then he burst into tears.

Mel rubbed his back.

“It’s okay, Frank. Just let it out, okay? Feel all the things you need to feel and then we’ll go back in together,” Mel said.

He was shaking. He cried like a little kid, like every sob was tearing through him. Mel could feel hot tears on her shoulder.

“I don’t think I’m cut out for this, sweetheart,” he said.

He’d never called her that before. He’d called Dr. Garcia sweetheart in a joking cadence before, the same way he called her Yoyo. She’d heard him call Penny sweetheart on the phone. On occasion, maybe, it slipped out around a patient.

“You are,” she said. 

She took a wad of tissues out of her pocket and started dabbing at his face. 

“We need you in there,” she said. “I can take you to the 8 o’clock NA meeting if you want?”

He nodded and wiped his face on his sleeve.

“You always come to rescue me,” he said. He sounded small. He looked as if he might say anything.

“You come to rescue me too,” she said. “We rescue each other. That’s what doctors do.”

“I think I like you too much. I don’t know what to do with it,” he said.

“Oh,” Mel said.

“Oh,” Frank repeated. He sniffled. He looked like a mess. Mel’s heart was pounding. 

“I should probably go back in. You should too, when you’re ready,” she said.

She stood abruptly and power walked back to the entrance without looking back. She’d been too stunned to look at him straight on. She threw herself back into the chaos of the ER for the next three hours and didn’t see him until she met him at his locker.

“Do you still want to stop by a meeting?” she asked.

He’d cleaned up a little since she’d found him outside. His face was clean and he was back in his street clothes. 

“I texted my sponsor. We’re going to go tomorrow morning. I need to sleep, I think. I’ll be in better shape in the morning,” he said.

“Good,” Mel said.

She threaded her fingers together and rocked back and forth on her feet.

“I didn’t mean to make things awkward between us,” he said. “I’m sorry if that’s what I did today.”

“No,” Mel said. “It’s not that, I just…I just don’t know what you mean when you say things like that.”

Frank looked around. They were alone. He crossed his arms over his chest and she watched his biceps. 

“I mean that I like you. I think we’d be good together. We have good chemistry, I think,” he said.

“Chemistry?” Mel said, turning scarlet.

“You don’t think so?” he said. 

“I think so. I like touching you. Or, well, hugging and holding your face and brushing up against you,” she said. “I laugh at all your jokes once you’ve explained them, so we must have compatible senses of humor,” Mel said.

“Humor is an important element in chemistry,” Frank said. He had a funny look on his face, like he was connecting dots in real time. 

“You don’t want to go out with me,” Mel said. She shook her head vehemently and he frowned.

“Why not?

“Because you’re my best friend, and it would be a shame to ruin that. I don’t have that many friends to begin with,” she said.

“We can still be best friends,” Frank said.

“You just got divorced,” Mel said.

“My marriage has been over for a long time,” Frank said.

Mel looked at him. He ran his hands through his hair some more. His blue eyes had a wild quality. Mel remembered what Dana said about him having a long day. He was probably coming undone before Nico and his friends and his handmade quilt even came in. She couldn’t blame him for clinging to the closest source of comfort in reach. She couldn’t blame him for saying things he probably didn’t mean. 

“I’m still going to come find you in the ambulance bay when you need me, regardless of whether you go out with me,” Mel said. 

“I know that,” he said. There was an edge to his tone. “You don’t think I’m serious.”

“I just think it’s been a long day,” Mel said. 

His face crumbled and Mel’s mouth tasted sour with guilt. 

“You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Mel said. 

The silence between them hung, awkward and excruciating for a moment before Santos, Whitaker, and Javadi came in and filled the room with their easy camaraderie. Trinity shot Mel a look, but Mel gave her the don’t worry about it smile. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Mel said.

“Yeah, ‘course. Have a good night, Mel,” Frank said.

###

He replayed the conversation in his head over and over on the way home and while making dinner and in the shower.

It was no wonder Mel had turned him down. He’d  probably sounded manic. He’d cried on her in the afternoon. It was perfectly reasonable that she’d think he was out of his mind. It just also pissed him off. It pissed him off that he’d finally gotten the guts to ask her at the most inconvenient time. He was pissed off at the immediacy of her assertion that he didn’t want to date her, really. He was pissed off that he desperately wanted to talk to her and she was right next door.

She said she liked touching him. Frank paced in his kitchen. He started the kettle to make tea and pinched the bridge of his nose. She said she liked touching him. He’d always been hypercognizant of personal space around Mel. He knew that sometimes he stood too close. The other day, in Trauma 2 they’d been pushed up against each other. She’d pressed closer to get a better look at the patient’s open chest and Frank had felt guilty for how badly he’d wanted to grab her by the waist or run his fingers down the slim length of her arm. 

Maybe she’d wanted to let him down gently. She liked him fine, but it wasn’t a good idea. She’d said the divorce, but it was probably also the pills and the working together and the fact that she could do better. 

He stretched out on the couch and sipped his tea. He lay there, looking up at the ceiling and tried to keep from dozing off. The gory remnants of the day flashed through his mind. It was a dizzying feeling: mind and body catching up, exhaustion coming in like the tide. How many times had he fallen asleep alone on this couch? How many times had he woken up in the dark? It would be this way forever, maybe. The couch would get harder and his back would get worse. Shifts would get longer and more grueling. His apartment would get messier and Mel’s texts would get scarcer and more clipped. This was what he deserved: a slow slide into monotonous oblivion, working himself to death like Robby, keeping his head down, putting on a good face for the kids, returning to a quieter and quieter apartment.

When the knock came, he nearly jumped out of his skin.

Mel was wearing pajamas again.

“Can I come in?” she asked as he stood there, gaping at her. 

“I thought I was going to see you tomorrow,” he said.

Her eyebrows rose. He loved this Mel expression: incredulous, bordering on genuinely miffed.

“So I can’t come in?” she said.

“No, no, come in,” Frank said. 

He opened the door wider and she slipped past him. 

“I’ve been texting Trin,” Mel said, gravely.

“Alright?” Frank said.

“My least favorite part of rom-coms is the part right before the end when there’s a big, dramatic misunderstanding where the two characters who are supposed to be together have a conversation that one of them thinks means one thing and the other thinks means something else entirely. Do you want to know why I hate that part?” Mel said.

“Yes,” Frank said. He was trying to piece together how Santos and Mel had gotten on rom-coms.

“I hate it because that’s the kind of thing that happens to me all the time. Except when it’s real life and when it’s me, there’s no second conversation where all the miscommunications get untangled and the people who are supposed to be together kiss,” she said.

“And Santos said—?”

“Trinity said that it sounded like we had one of those conversations and that I had to put my big girl pants on and fix things because in the real world it doesn’t just happen. And I told her that I knew that because of how many times it hasn’t happened. And she said she thought I should sleep on it, but I can’t sleep when I can hear you over here and I can always hear you because these walls are thin and I like to listen,” Mel said.

“So these are your big girl pants?” he said.

They both looked down at her polka dotted pajama shorts.

“And slippers,” Mel said. “The slippers feel important.”

“What misunderstanding did we have, Mel?” Frank asked, swallowing thickly. 

“I told you that you didn’t want to date me,” Mel said.

“I remember,” Frank said.

“It was rude of me to tell you what you want,” Mel said.

Frank shrugged. “A little,” he said.

“I said that because everyone I’ve ever dated has told me that I’m a difficult person to be in a relationship with. I know that, you know. I know that I’m sensitive and awkward and I don’t always understand what people are trying to say to me. But I also know that none of that has been a problem with me and you. And I also know that you can do difficult things,” she said.

She met his eyes. He had some choice words for whoever had told her she was difficult in the first place. He wondered how many times she’d had to hear it before it became true in her mind.

“I thought maybe you were upset about your patient and it was making you say things you didn’t really mean. I thought it was all about the Pitt, really, and not about me and you,” Mel said.

“Maybe it was a little about the Pitt,” Frank said. “Whenever I lose a patient like that, I get to thinking about how fragile and unpredictable life is. It makes me want to hold onto the things I have, the things that are precious to me.”

He took a step closer to her and reached out. He traced the inside of her wrist with his fingertips.

“I think about you all the time,” she said.

He moved his hand to her hip and then her waist. He could feel her warmth through the silk of her pajamas. 

“Do you?” he said. 

“When you moved in, I thought I’d manifested you from thinking so much,” Mel said.

“I dream about you,” Frank confessed. 

She smiled in a way that was entirely distracting.

“What am I doing in your dreams?” she asked.

He was caught for a moment between suave banter and the truth. He figured Mel would appreciate honesty over flirtation. 

“Laying on my couch, letting me rub your feet and bring you things,” he said.

She blushed. “That’s not what I thought you were going to say,” she said.

“What did you think I was going to say?” Frank asked. 

He hooked his arm all the way around her waist as he asked, so she was pressed flush against him.

She pressed her mouth to his jaw, a hesitant kiss at first that deepened. She kissed the side of his face and then his temple and the space between his eyebrows.

“Mel,” he said, but it came out breathy, almost a whine.

Her hands were teasing at the hem of his t-shirt.

“I’m not misunderstanding, am I?” Mel muttered. 

She was still pressing light kisses to his face, exploring. 

“You’re not,” he said. 

He kissed her and she sighed into his mouth. Kissing Mel was easy. It felt like something they’d been doing for a long time anyway: feeling around each other, testing what worked, figuring out what made the other person feel good. 

He felt her hands on his ribs, and then she was pulling him toward her, reversing their position, taking charge.

Mel pushed him back onto the couch. He fell in a flail of limbs and landed at an odd angle and winced. It didn’t matter, though, because Mel was on top of him, straddling his waist.

“Did I hurt you?” she said, head popping up.

“I’m fine,” he said. He readjusted. He tucked a pillow underneath himself.

Mel kissed him some more. She sucked on his neck and trailed kisses along his collarbone. 

“Is this alright?” she asked, before she peeled off his shirt and then her own. 

All he could manage was an enthusiastic nod, and then a croaky but emphatic yes and a thumbs up when she repeated the question. He was embarrassingly hard and sure she could feel his cock against her thigh. 

“Mel,” he said, as her hands roamed. She tangled her fingers in his hair and nibbled at his earlobe. Her breath was hot and sweet. He was too aroused for complete sentences. 

She drew back again. “Too much?” she said. “I’ve been told I turn into a vampire when I’m uh…when I’m really turned on I uh…I’m sorry. I’m making it weird already,” she said.

He propped himself up on his elbows and grinned. “Vampire, huh?” he said. 

There was a spot on his neck that tingled. She’d probably leave a mark, lots of marks if she kept going the way she was. He thought about what he’d look like, how obvious it would be that she’d claimed him. 

“You’ve got a gorgeous neck,” Mel said. 

“I didn’t realize,” Frank said.

Mel’s head bobbed.

“You can kiss my neck all you want,” he said, dazed. “It’s not too much. You’re not too much. It’s just this couch and my fucking back.”

“Oh,” Mel said softly. “Well, I think we can relocate, can’t we?”

“My bedroom’s a mess, sweetheart. I wasn’t expecting company,” Frank said. 

He didn’t want to shatter the fantasy of her being here, of feeling her legs around him and her mouth on his skin, with his bedside table covered in coffee mugs and empty takeout containers. He didn’t want her first romantic impression of him to be of a floor covered in dirty laundry and a streaky window with a dead plant in the sill. He wanted to be better for her. 

“That’s okay. I actually live next door,” Mel said, feigning surprised delight.

He laughed and then she laughed.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

Mel reached out and took his face in her hands. “You’re beautiful,” she said. “We don’t need to go to my place if you don’t want to. I’ve been told I come on a little strong. And other men don’t like the way I uh..I take charge,” she said. 

“Take charge,” Frank repeated, thickly. He was sweating and painfully hard. 

“I’m trying to tell you it’s alright if you want to hit pause,” she said. 

“I don’t want to hit pause. I just want to wash my face and put on a clean shirt,” Frank said. 

“Okay,” Mel said. She was beaming. She kissed him again. 

“And I don’t mind you taking charge,” Frank said. He cleared his throat. 

There was something intensely arousing in the thought of her bossing him around. He imagined her telling him just how she liked it and praising him when he’d done well. He imagined her manhandling him. He imagined her teeth in his shoulder. He imagined falling to his knees the second she ordered him to.

“God, Mel,” he groaned. “Just give me ten minutes and I’m all yours.

###

“I see you and Dr. Loverboy finally figured your shit out,” Trinity said. She was charting, eyes focused on her monitor despite the shit-eating green.

Mel looked across the ER at Frank, who was talking to McKay about something. He had his elbows on her desk and his attention on her clipboard. She’d helped him cover his hickies with concealer that morning, but he was already sweating it off. He ended up sleeping over last night. She’d never seen anyone sleep so soundly. He had his arms around her all night. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mel said and Trinity rolled her eyes.

“I don’t want to hear all the gory details, but I do want to be in the loop, Melatonin,” she said.

“He said he thinks we have good chemistry,” Mel said.

He’d said a lot of other things, but Mel kept them to herself. They kept stealing looks at each other. At lunch, he’d brought her a bag of pretzels from the vending machine.

“And so you ate him for dinner?” Trinity said.

Mel slammed her folder down on the desk and Frank looked up from McKay’s clipboard at her.

He raised his eyebrows at her and Mel tried not to think about how he’d looked beneath her: hair mussed, lips pink and kiss-swollen, pupils blown. 

“I don’t know what it is, yet, but I think it’s something,” Mel said. 

It kept being something. They started carpooling to work and getting late night dinners at all the trendy places Mel found on TikTok but never had anyone to go with. Frank bought a pair of elf ears, a tunic, and a bow and arrows to go with her to the Renaissance Fair. He joined her and Becca for movie night. She met his kids on a trip to the zoo. He’d introduced himself as her boyfriend on several occasions, usually when other men were hitting on her at a bar. At work, they were both very professional, but still slipped up enough for Trinity to have a “Pet Names Jar” that Mel and Frank had to put a dollar in every time they slipped up and called each other darling or sweetheart or baby. Mel was maybe worse than Frank in this respect. The other day she’d called him Dr. Baby in front of a patient and when she realized what she’d done, launched into a protracted explanation of how nobody was engaged in an HR violation. She’d put two dollars in the jar for good measure. Trin said she thought she was going to have enough money in the jar to buy a cookie cake on her birthday. Mel told her she was happy to buy her a cookie cake, regardless. 

Mel kept finding new and fascinating things out about Frank. He was ticklish, for example. And he talked in his sleep. When he was really tired he put his t-shirt on inside out. He picked Penny up and spun her around in the grass at the park even when his back was bothering him. He watched Quantum Leap with her attentively, even more attentively after she’d confessed that Scott Bakula had been her celebrity crush since high school. He hummed, loudly, and off key, along to the radio when he made pancakes. When he was feeling poorly, he always tried to hide it. She held his head in her lap and massaged his scalp when he had headaches. She caught him by the arm or the shoulder when he got that faraway look on shift and wordlessly convinced him to take a minute to breathe. He made the nicest sounds when she bit the place where his neck met his shoulder. He liked to get on his knees for her, his arms around her thighs and his dark mop of hair bobbing. The first time he’d told her he loved her, it had come out by accident, mid-orgasm. This embarrassed him so thoroughly that he hid his face in a pillow for several minutes until his face returned to a normal color and he had the wherewithal to clarify that he did mean it, he’d just meant to say it in a more romantic fashion. 

Trinity and Whitaker were going to one of the free concerts in the park and had invited Mel and Frank to join them. Frank complained that Trinity only invited him because Mel made the best picnic snacks, and she knew that they were a package deal on Friday nights. 

“We can do something else,” Mel said, as she spread mustard and mayo on either side of the turkey and swiss sandwich she was constructing. She had a big cookie cutter to turn the sandwich into a giant star. Frank’s arms were around her waist and his chin was on her shoulder. “I just thought it would be fun.”

“No, if you want to go then I want to go,” he said.

At the park, the sun was just beginning to set. The sky was a marbled mess of oranges and pinks. Frank’s hair was messy and sticking out from under his backwards baseball cap. He’d braided her hair before he left (another thing Mel had learned was that he liked doing things for her that she could do herself if it meant he could run his fingers through her hair or kiss her knees while he tied her shoes or press his palm to the small of her back as he took grocery bags from her hands) and consequently the braids were loose and unevenly parted. Mel didn’t mind. 

“Hey guys, Trinity’s getting bug spray from the CVS across the street,” Whitaker said, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand. He squinted at them and accepted the massive picnic basket Mel had brought. 

“And you’re holding down the fort?” Frank said. 

Whitaker was squatting, with his hands on his knees. The only things he’d brought with him were a water bottle, his keys, and a brown pair of sandals, all of which were planted in the grass around him. “She said she was going to borrow lawn chairs from Dr. Garcia,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I guess she had other plans for them.”

“I brought a blanket,” Mel said. 

She unfolded her mother’s quilt and spread it out on the ground. When Trinity returned, the three of them had spread out atop it. Trin sprayed Mel’s arms with bug spray and Whitaker passed out the parchment wrapped sandwiches she’d made. When the music began, they’d settled into two rows: Trinity propped up on one elbow next to Whitaker who had his legs stretched out in front of him, and Frank and Mel in the back. Mel lay down on her back and put her head on Frank’s thigh. She felt the patches of fabric beside her. There was the lace from Becca’s childhood nightgown and the faded sea otter on Mel’s mother’s favorite t-shirt. There was a patch of denim worn soft. 

“Hey,” he muttered, half-whispering. He leaned down so his face was nearer to hers. “I made you something.”

“Did you?” she said, as he pulled something out of his back pocket.

It was a CD. On it, he’d written “Music 4 Mel” in purple Sharpie. 

“For car rides, I thought,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said, pulling him down further. She liked the muffled sound of his surprise when she kissed him. She liked how easily they slotted together. 

“Cool it, Dr. Loverboy,” Trinity said, turning around.

“She started it,” Frank said, pulling back. He looked smug.

Trinity snorted. “What a nasty rumor,” she said in the tone Mel recognized as toothless teasing. 

Frank looked down at her. Mel was trying to pay attention to smaller details. She was trying to catalog everything, like the dark fullness of his eyelashes when he blinked in the sunshine, and the razorburn on his throat. 

“I can vouch for the veracity of that claim,” Mel said.