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The fireworks were long past done, but Samira Mohan was still on the rooftop. Everyone else had left already. Dana and Perlah had checked in to make sure she was okay, but she reassured them, saying she just wanted some alone time.
She leaned over the railing, looking out over the city. What a fucking day. Maybe she should have gone home like Robby had told her to. If she had, maybe someone else would have caught Austin Green’s triple-A in time. Maybe someone else would have been able to save Orlando when he returned. She wondered if what Robby had said was true, that his mistake was not “picking a higher spot to jump from”.
She knew she wasn’t going to jump, but she couldn’t help leaning over a little more, just to see if she’d be able to feel something from seeing how high she was above the pavement.
And of course, that would be the exact moment she heard footsteps behind her. From her current position, it was easier to peek under her arm to see who it was than to turn around. The upside-down visage of Dr. Abbot walking towards her with his bow-legged lope almost made her giggle.
“Dr. Mohan, do I need to be concerned that you’re still up here? Alone?”
She finally straightened up and turned around. “Not alone anymore, am I?” She tilted her head. “Aren’t you supposed to be downstairs?”
“Dana mentioned you were looking for me earlier and that you were still up here.”
“Oh, yeah. I was going to ask you…”
He was so close now, she could try to describe the color of his eyes if she wanted to. They were looking at her with such concern that it made her lose her train of thought. What a difference he was from Robby.
“Ask me?” he prompted.
“Sorry.” She shook her head to break the reverie. “I was going to ask you for a letter of recommendation. I was all set to move back home to Jersey, but now…now I need to scramble for a fellowship, and I thought if you wouldn’t mind, a letter from you would really help.”
His face did something she couldn’t quite decipher. “Of course I’ll write one for you, Mohan. But wouldn’t it make more sense for Robby to write it?”
She exhaled all at once. So he hadn’t heard about her panic attack or how Robby had yelled at her yet. Well, she wasn’t going to be the one to tell him. “Isn’t he gone already?”
Abbot leaned from one side to the other, switching the leg he was putting pressure on. “Fair. Consider it done then, just send me the details.”
“Thank you.” She waited for him to leave, to go back down to be with his nightcrawlers, but he didn’t move.
“Did something happen after I left this afternoon?” he asked.
She couldn’t lie to him, not when he was looking at her like that. So she turned around again before answering, “Nothing that you need to worry about.”
With her back to him, she couldn’t see the look on his face. How he wished that she would be something that he was allowed to worry about. But he wasn’t ready to go there, not yet. He respected her too much. “I have something for you,” he said instead.
Curiosity got the better of her, and she turned around. In his hand was a hair claw clip. She didn’t recognize it as one of hers though.
“That’s not mine.”
“Oh, I know. I, uh, noticed that you like to let your hair down at the end of shift.” He gestured to her hair’s current condition. “I thought maybe you’d like this new type of clip from Korea. It’s soft you see.” He demonstrated by giving it a squeeze. The entire clip gave way in his hands but regained its original shape after he let go. “Anyway, my niece says it’s the most comfortable one she’s ever tried so I thought….”
“Oh!” She reached out to take the clip from his hand and gave it an experimental squeeze. He was right; it was soft, unlike the cheap, plastic ones she owned. “Thanks, you really didn’t have to.”
He shrugged. “Consider it a thank you, for earlier.”
Her mind was still pondering the strangeness of him thinking about her enough to gift her with a claw clip, so she missed his reference. “Earlier?”
“Yeah, you know. ‘Our little secret’?” The boyish smile on his face was a stark contrast with the rasp in his voice when he quoted her. It did something inside of her that she didn’t expect. She must be crazy; this day had put her through the wringer, and she must be imagining things.
But, another voice inside of her asked, would it be so bad? To lean into this, even if it’s not real, to just feel something—something that wasn’t based on medicine, her career, or being a good daughter—all the things that have defined her thus far? Because look at where that had gotten her. A panic attack, death on her hands, and an unknown future.
Suddenly, she wanted to know what it would feel like if he touched her. Not like that, not here, at work, even though they were up here alone up. But something small, something innocuous. Harmless.
She held the claw clip out to him, and at first he thought she was rejecting his gift and he knew it had been a dumb idea and he shouldn’t have given it to her, but then she just turned around and said, “Would you?”
Little did she know how many times he’d dreamed of this. Ever since he had seen her let her hair down in the park after the PittFest MCI. Even before that, when they had worked side by side on the pigtail catheter aspiration. How he had longed to be able to brush the hair in her face behind her ears. Wondered how it would feel between his fingers. Wanted to be the one to massage the tension out of her scalp at the end of the day.
He took a step towards her. Gathered her hair together. When he brushed her neck, he could have sworn she trembled. Was the sharp inhale hers or his? He couldn’t tell over the loud beating of his heart.
Her hair was thick and unruly; he could lose his hands in them if he wanted. He leaned in and stole an illicit sniff, memorizing the coconut scent of her hair products. Then quickly, before she could notice the pause, he twisted her hair up and clipped it into place.
Now that her hair was out of the way, he could clearly see the long slope of her neck. It mesmerized him, and before he knew what he was doing, his fingers were gliding down her skin. He definitely felt her shiver this time. His hands settled on her shoulders, tentatively at first, but when she didn’t tense up or step away, he gave an experimental squeeze. Her head rolled back with pleasure, and she leaned into him, taking a deep inhale and exhale.
Encouraged, he continued with the massage. Neither of them said anything, fearful of breaking whatever this was. His fingers dug in firmly in all the right places while his thumbs kneaded her trapezius muscles with strong, repetitive strokes.
She closed her eyes and let herself be fully in the moment. Receiving a shoulder rub from Dr. Abbot had not been on her bingo card but by god was she going to enjoy it. Even over two layers of clothing, she could feel how warm and strong his hands were. Each time he pressed his fingers into her, rubbed his thumbs across her tight muscles, it erased a barb from the horrible day and healed a part of her.
Eventually, he stopped, and she had to face the reality that the moment couldn’t last forever. She turned around to face him. “Thanks, I really needed that.”
“You’re welcome.” She had no idea how much he had needed it too.
He looked like he wanted to say more but the silence stretched between them until she finally took a step forward. “We should probably….”
“Yes, you’re right, of course. After you.”
Propriety restored, they both made their way back downstairs in silence. They both knew that they would never speak of what happened. It was too far removed from their realities, too much of a fever dream. They would both look back and wonder if it had truly happened or not. The only physical proof would be the claw clip that Samira uses for the rest of her R4 year.