The coolness of the windowpane against his forehead soothed his aching brain. Dr. Nicklaus Hart stood alone on the fourth floor of the hospital, one of the few dark and quiet corners of the medical complex. As he stretched his aching hands across the glass, he caught the scent of his scrubs and winced. They smelled of a hard day laboring in the Operating Room. He sighed deeply, and his breath fogged the window.
Lights from the softball field next to the hospital gave a translucent glow through the fogged glass and evening mist. He heard the players better than he saw them. His breath, the mist, and large oaks swayed by the wind made the field lights dance like flames from a campfire.
Suddenly, a bat cracking a ball into right field pierced the rumble of the game, and laughter and cheering burst from the crowd. Nick wiped the window with the edge of his hand and saw the runner round the bases for another score as the team’s bench erupted in celebration. He knew everyone on the hospital team—nurses and techs of one kind or another and one doctor, a dermatologist who worked nine-to-four, four days a week.
Lucky son-of-a-gun. But who wants to look at nasty skin all day?
He made ten times more than any one of the players, except for the dermatologist. His heart longed for the fun and fellowship they enjoyed, and he wondered what it would be like to put in your shift and then leave.
Freedom. He bounced his head against the pane.
He noticed his Rolex tied to the cord of his scrub pants and remembered he hadn’t eaten dinner. It was already quarter past eight. He’d barely seen the light of day in the last three weeks, and his call shift that evening made for a long forty-eight hours. He bounced his head gently against the glass again, trying to remember why he’d gone into medicine, especially into a surgical field.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t know what he was in for. After all, he’d watched his surgeon father struggle through the rigors of medicine. He was reluctant to go there, but his angst was overcome by his desire to please his father by following in his footsteps to become a fourth-generation physician. How could he have imagined doing anything different? Secretly, he had always wanted to be a forest ranger.
The final nail in his decision to pursue medicine came when his best friend, John, set his sights on medical school. Always competitive, Nick could never let John one-up him.
Nick heard another round of laughter from the group below as the game appeared to wind down.
He’d followed his destiny, life had been good, and here he was. But then there was the ever deepening whisper of his heart—a call that told him that there was something more—something more meaningful in life. He closed his eyes and remembered the last time he’d heard that call. He was standing at the base of the towering Mission Mountains in Montana.
He looked at the softball field again and saw the players high-five and hug. A wave of loneliness swept over him.
Nick saw his tired reflection in the window and rubbed his eyes. His sleep cycles were askew and he was sleep deprived. He’d been grateful to one of his nurse buddies for slipping him some weed. It had worked like a charm, and he’d been reinvigorated by a restful night’s sleep. But he knew such dependence was a dangerous, slippery slope.
Is this what depression feels like?
His stomach growled, and his tired brain asked his aching feet to find something to eat when a vaguely familiar perfume filled his nostrils and a pair of warm hands encircled his waist. He dropped his arms to his sides and stood up straight.
“I hoped I would find you up here,” a young woman’s voice murmured. “I looked for you down in Emergency and the OR, and when you weren’t there, I thought I’d find you here.”
Nick tried to turn, but the woman tightened her grip.
“Oh, no you don’t. You have to guess first,” she said and pressed her body into his.
He looked at her hands.
White. That narrows it down a bit.
He thought for a moment and made up names. “Shakala? Henrietta? Brunhilda?”
“Funny.” She head-butted his back.
The woman loosened her grip enough to let Nick turn to face her. She pursed her lips and pressed her chest into his stomach. Her bleach-blond hair was highlighted with a band of pink that matched the color of her scrubs and her streak of naughtiness.
“Hey, Melody. You need something?” he teased. She was one of the nurses from the orthopedic ward.
“So glad you asked, Dr. Hart.” She stopped, mid-sentence. “Wow, your eyes are blue.” She pulled him close and tucked her face into his chest. She held him for a moment and then playfully pushed him away. “Phew. I need to get you out of these scrubs. You stink.”
He sighed. “You know I’m on call?”
She pretended not to hear. “When I saw you on the ward earlier, I couldn’t get you off my mind,” she said, rubbing against him.
“Shouldn’t you be down playing softball?”
“That silly ol’ game,” she drawled. “I’d rather play hard ball.” She laughed at her own joke. “Anyway, it seems like a month since we’ve been together.”
Nick’s head spun. He knew what she wanted, but he was tired and hungry. He longed for intimacy and love, but the closest he seemed to get was a quickie in the call room. He also knew sex was the best anti-stress drug around, and despite himself, he felt his brain succumbing to its allure.
Melody untucked Nick’s scrub shirt from his pants and ran her fingers over his toned stomach. “Let’s me and you step into the call room, and I’ll help you relax.”
The spell was cast. Nick looked up and down the empty hallway, pulled her into his call room, and slammed the door. Warning sirens rang in his head, but they were soon deafened by pounding desire. Only heroin was slightly more addicting.
Melody shed her scrubs, revealing skimpy lingerie. She held Nick at arm’s length, then jerked him to her and ripped off his scrub top, mussing up his thick blond hair. Admiring her prize, she sighed, “Lordy, you’re gorgeous!”
He was about to return the compliment when his beeper went off. He looked at the message, and then at her. His shoulders drooped.
“Noooo,” she whined.
“I’m sorry, gotta get downstairs.” He pulled on his shirt and reached for the door.
Melody watched him pull himself together, rolled her eyes, and shook her head, “You sure know how to show a girl a good time.”
“Sorry,” was all Nick thought to say as he took one last glance at her and left the room.
Geez, what am I doing?
A sense of relief washed over him as he shook his head and headed to the Emergency Department.