Bitten by the Doctor

the night, which was the first reckless thing I had done in

back, pale in the light from the parking lot. Snow ticked against the window. I sat on the edge of the mattr

had ordered a coffee and then changed her mind and ordered whiskey instead. I had been sitting two stools away with a beer I did not want. She had asked me if the salmon was

es. It stood up behind my ribs and paid attention, a

he was starting at the clinic on Monday. I told her I worked there, nights, and she looked at my hands and said, "You are the

green in the bad light, with small lines at the corners from squinting into weather. I said something stu

happened the way it happens when two people have been alone a long time and neither wants to talk about it. She had a small scar on

ble thing, to leave before she woke. A man with a secret gets out of the bed, gets

door. The clock said one forty in red numbers, and the room s

e wind

salt off the water, the wet wool of somebody's coat downstairs. Underneath all that was something else. Something clean, like bir

g from the coat on

so fast that I put a hand on the mattress to steady myself, and it did not argue with m

not a thing you decide. It is a thing that happens to you,

t that was the same thing. It was not. This was like standing too

mall and silver. I had noticed it at the bar and thought it was a hospital badge. It was not a hospital badge.

same time, and they did not fit toge

as my

as a

ss her and she made a small sound, the sound of

ice was rough.

two tries because my finger

to go,

ch it. Her hair was a mess of chestnut brown and her eyes in th

n called in sick and Mira wil

grily. She said it the way she might have told m

clawing at me from the inside, screaming at me not to walk out of that door. It wante

doctor," I said.

is r

We will be wor

kno

ld, and her coat was right there next to me, an

est a different

hen she said, very quietl

of it was the loneliest sound I have ever heard. I went down the stairs, throu

hours before my shift. I had a clinic to go to and an Alph

d she was going to walk into my clinic on

in my face. I had been lying to my pack for twelve years. I had gott

how I was going

now her last name, and I had to pull ove