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“Dr. Mohan, are you okay?” Abbot asked. They had just performed a miracle, saving the life of an MVC victim who had, moments before they intubated him, confessed his love to his best friend, to her complete surprise. Javadi and Princess were practically swooning over how romantic it had been, but Samira had only gritted her teeth and stormed out of the trauma room once the patient had been transferred up to the OR.
Abbot had followed her to the break room, concerned about how his favorite resident was reacting. Samira was pacing back and forth, still too upset to form any words yet. Abbot closed the door behind him and leaned against it, preventing anyone else from entering. He crossed his arms and waited, knowing her well enough by now to know that she would talk once she was ready.
He took the time to observe her. Even with her eyebrows drawn into an angry slant and flared nostrils, she was still beautiful to him. He loved her passion for medicine and for her patients and one day hoped to be added to that list of things she was passionate about. One day when there wouldn’t be this unequal power dynamic between them, when loving her publicly wouldn’t be a threat to everything she had achieved and wanted.
“It’s bullshit,” started Samira without any preamble.
“Excuse me?” He wasn’t used to hearing her curse.
“Wasting all that time, loving someone, and then only declaring it when you think you might die. It’s bullshit,” she repeated. “This isn’t Grey’s Anatomy.”
He uncrossed his arms and stood straighter. “I’m sure he had his reasons….”
“And she had no idea. None!” Mohan stopped directly in front of him, her eyes a little wild with intensity. “How is that even possible?!”
Before he could answer, she continued.
“Even if he had never told her, he must have shown her. Little things. Like…like always being the first person he looks at in a room. Always bringing her a cup of coffee exactly the way she likes it.” Samira started pacing again as she listed off more examples. “Offering her rides home and walking her to the door. Making sure she’s eaten real food or gotten enough sleep.”
Her pace slowed as her examples became more specific. “Trusting her with performing novel, life-saving measures even if they’re not standard of care. Offering to pay for an Uber to deliver her patient’s medical supplies to him. Writing a letter of recommendation for her that could almost be read as a love letter if one knew how to read between the lines.”
She was standing in front of him again, breathing heavily. Her big, brown eyes begging him to understand what she was trying to say. He felt too stunned to speak, caught in her gaze and trapped by her words.
“Dr. Mohan, I…”
“Because if someone were to do all those things, you’d have to be really, really stupid not to realize that they’re just ways of saying ‘I love you’ even if you can’t say it yet for a very, very good reason. And what do you always say about me, Dr. Abbot?”
His brain scrambled for an answer. “That you’re the future of medicine?”
“No, the other thing.”
“That you’re the smartest of us all?”
“Right, that one.” She blinked up at him, giving him a moment to catch up.
He closed his mouth because there was nothing left for him to say. So he just nodded at her. No grand confessions needed then. Just a quiet understanding, for now. God, he loved this woman.