Two Slabs of Ice Apart

*WINTER MEDICINE*

“Made it out alive, but I think I lost it, said that I was fine, said it from my coffin-”

I sing along to one of my favorite songs currently, playing loud in the speaker of my beat-up truck as I drive into work, just as the sun sets, leaving behind a beautiful blend of orange, yellow, and red shades in the sky. It looked as though a skillful artist was playing around with the colors on his canvas, carefree and just moving the brush, oblivious to just what a masterpiece he was creating.

I think the reason why I loved this song so much was because I actually related to it so much, it surprises me. I don’t relate much with things, to the world. Maybe to some extent, people were right, I quote, you’re uptight Winter, life isn’t that serious. But that’s perceptive, right?

Today is the first day of my 72hrs on-call rotation and I am excited about it, and it’s a Monday, I loved Monday. And you don’t have to say it, I’ll say it for you, yes I’m weird because I love Monday and I love being on-call, that’s because I love everything medicine.

Or maybe I just liked the escape it offered.

I shrug at my thoughts as I pull my car into parking.

The music died down from the speaker when I turned off the ignition, transferring to my phone so I put on my AirPods and started gathering my stuff, my customized Royal Grace tote bag, my purple stethoscope, and my laptop bag. With all my stuff in hand, I walk into the hospital’s front door. I wave a greeting hand at Maya and offer her a sweet smile.

She’s over 40 years old, one of the oldest patrons at this hospital, probably one of the few people who have watched Royal Grace Hospital grow from a mere clinic to the best hospital in the United States of America, and undoubtedly, she was among the nicest receptionist I’ve ever come across, that’s why I loved her.

I continue humming the song on full blast in my ears as I walk into an empty locker room. I change into my scrubs. I don’t see Gavin approaching behind me until I see my locker slam shut in my face, missing my fingers by some centimeters.

“Gavin Turner!” I plant my glare on him, willing my palpitating heart to slow its palpitations.

All he does is give me his godforsaken charming smile. My eyes widen at how unbelievable he is, I’m tempted to wipe the smile off his face with my fist.

“A little sorry would be nice, you almost broke my fingers off.” He rolls his eyes like I’m being dramatic and pulls the accused hand and kisses it softly, keeping his annoyingly sultry eyes on me and beaming like an idiot. He continues his cheap assaults with an occasional pause of, “Sorry.”

When I try to keep up with my scowl, he lets go of my hand and takes my face into his hands and steals my breath away with a kiss.

I try to stand on business and play my role as the upset girlfriend but of course, this ass would make me fumble. I fail dismally, finding my fingers running throw his golden hair while my other hand fiddles with his scrub knots. He breaks the kiss, chuckling on my lips.

“I’m scrubbing into Dr. Claire’s open-heart surgery, I’ll meet you here when I’m done?” he says as he fixes himself. He stares into the mirror and fixes his precious ‘award-winning hair’ while admiring himself, something he does a lot, he’s obsessed with himself. Sometimes I wonder how he was able to break into med school when he spent more time obsessing about his hair and his looks than he does memorizing the cranial nerves but then the wise part of me reminds me that not everybody is like me, things are that easy.

“When I’m done, I should find you in that pink bikini on this bed, I’m going to blow you away,” he says on his way out of the room.

A sudden feeling of gagging overcomes me at his words, I have to slap my hand over my mouth and my head mentally, because what the hell is that?

Ignoring it, I decide it’s best I start my rounds of the night before I could think more about my weird reaction.

~

“WINTER,” Megan whisper-yells, beaming so bright. She was in a good mood for sure.

She gives me that I know too well, she’s got something up her sleeves and I’m sure I’m not going to like the sound of it so I act like I didn’t hear her and pick up my pace, as best as I could to finish up checking my last patient of the day before I go home.

She picks her pace to keep up with me. “I know you heard me, Medicine!” she calls me by my surname whenever she wants to get my full attention.

I sigh, honestly exhausted and ready to go home. I try to allow the exhaustion sipping through my bones to wrap around my face so she understands me when I say, “Meggy I love you to death but no, I’m not extending my shift to cover yours.”

She hooks her hand around mine suddenly, startling me. “Good thing I didn’t need you to cover for me.” She pulls out two tickets from her back pocket. “I’m on my off day and Gabriel’s team is in town, they have an away game today and he begged me to be there to watch.”

“NO!” I don’t wait to hear anymore. That alone was a big no, and she knew.

I walk away, leaving her jaws on the ground. “Hey!” she runs after me.

“Win, please!” she bats her ridiculously long eyelashes that I envy so much at me like I’d fall for that today. Not only was I, not even the least bit interested in football, I didn’t even understand it.

And I was on-call, with two more days to go and only 5 hours of sleep after every shift.

“And how are you even on leave? You just came from a vacation.” I’m not even sure why I asked that question. Her mom was a major stakeholder of Royal Grace, she could do whatever she wanted, hell, go on a year-long vacation if she so wished, but I couldn’t.

As if to prove my point, an insuppressibly yawn burst from my lips. I had to cover my mouth so I didn’t look weird.

“Winter, come on, you know I’m seeing him for the first time in 6 months,” her voice drops, quivering and pulling at my heartstrings unintentionally.

I groaned internally because I hated knowing that she’d won. I hate myself for knowing I will give in and I hated my best friend since my first year of med school because she fell for a childhood crush and boyfriend who turned out to be the biggest douchebag who she can’t find it in her to walk away from even though news tabs always eat up scandal about him and multiple women like free candy on Halloween.

In short, I hated everything Gabriel Eventon. I hated footballers. I hated all athletes because they were honestly self-obsessed gym gigs with a God complex, I’d know because I’m dating a failed athlete turned doctor. Thank God he found salvation when he did.

“Fine,” I give in and she jumps with joy, smothering my cheeks with her lips. I pretend to wipe her kisses off, earning a weak slap on my shoulder.

“Thank you,” she adds, her tone is now genuine and humbled. I offer her my sympathetic smile and return her hug.

Megan and I were two worlds apart in every sense, we were two completely different people who hadn’t always been good friends, or friends at all, a story for another day. But she was undoubtedly one of my favorite people in this world and I would be there for her anywhere she needed me.

Even if that meant I spend the whole night on my feet, and my only few hours of rest accompanying my best friend to her dick boyfriend’s football game.

After hours and hours of debating which scarf was the perfect match for Megan’s outfit, a pair of skin-tight blue boyfriend jeans with Gabriel’s ridiculous face printed all over them and a red Crescent Moon Fc jersey, we’re finally ready to leave.

We then have another argument because I decide to wear a hockey team jersey instead. She argues that we were going to a football game, not a hockey game but my winning point is simply the fact that I’m not interested in the game to begin with, so what I wear doesn’t matter, and that I’m was doing her a favor by going, I’m not obliged to wear anything for her boyfriend’s team like those fan girls.

To top it all, I didn’t even like Crescent Moon Fc.

And her parting words to me are a raving, ‘hateful bitch,’ which we laugh off on our drive to the States Stadium.

In truth, we both know she just doesn’t like me wearing the jersey because it has the signature of her star-boy crush of all times, Rashford Gibbs.

“No fucking way!” I turn my gaze to her from the steering wheel, she has a defeated look on her face as she reads her phone screen. “What?” she turns her phone to me to read instead, tears rushing to her eyes.

The game we were going to was apparently postponed last minute because Crescent Moon Fc private plane was pulled back from take-off due a sudden bad weather condition and of course, she had to find out from the news. Gabriel couldn’t even offer her the grace of telling her himself so she didn’t waste her time.

It didn’t come as a surprise to me though. He always did this. Megan had to find out that he was moving halfway across the world during the transfer window from the news. He never bothered to talk to her until he was settled in.

Like I said, dick!

My mind internally celebrates though because I think it’s a good thing she doesn’t have to meet him. I’m also not sure I’d have been able to keep my pure unfiltered dislike for him off my face and fake a smile like Megan always begs me, much less resist the urge to punch him across the face for humiliating my friend like that.

But with the tears in her eyes, I can’t make her see the good in this ‘bad’, note the quotation marks there. It’ll only upset her more. So, to console her, I decide to do something I know we both least expect.

“Let’s go watch the last NHL pre-playoffs game, the Legion Dragons are playing and you know who’s going be there,” I suggest.

Her incredible emerald almond eyes light up at the mention of hockey but her jaws betray her, a scowl takes over her joy in an instant. She gives me this accusatory look, I have to look away because it’s almost like she can read through my soul.

“Wait, how do you know the Legions are playing? You don’t like hockey or sports,” I only smile and turn my attention back on the road, my silence an answer enough.

There were some aspects of my life that I’d had to burn and bury deep, so deep, no one could get a whiff about. Not even my best friend.

“Hurry!” the car has barely stopped and already my best friend is out and running through the throng of people to the arena. Her pain for Gabriel long forgotten, I like that for her.

A slight headache sizzles as my temple due to no rest but I just bite it down and take it like the big girl I am and gracefully walk into the fully packed NHL arena.

“Win!” Megan waves her hand at me on a seat in the Upper bowl section. The Arena is full to the brim, I’m surprised how she was even lucky to find an empty seat.

I proceed to join her just as David McAllister, America’s well-known top commentator’s voice fills the arena, screaming Rashford Gibbs’s name.

With an assist from his left defender Ethan, he ‘swings the puck straight home’ giving Legions a lead of 3-2 against Knights, with only a few minutes left until the end of the game.

The whole arena goes wild, you’d think the whole audience were Legions fans. I have to put my hands over my ears because it is just too overwhelmingly loud, and Megan’s voice that is over the top not helping either.

I’m worried it will be gone tomorrow.

This isn’t my type of space. Noisy places aren’t my type of place. So me being here today, regardless, is like a stone in a pot of rice. Okay maybe that’s the worst example, but you get the idea.

The rising trepidations of my heart that started from the moment I chose this dumb idea of coming to this game are getting overwhelming and I know I’m ready to leave so I poke my best friend. She looks too damn focused, it’s like she couldn’t even hear me.

I roll my eyes, pulling out my phone that just pinged with a message. It’s from Gavin.

Gavin: I’m exhausted but not enough to not ride that sweet ass of yours, lol. My place or yours?

It comes again, now in waves, that feeling of disgust and I’m officially concerned because I know it’s not normal to feel like this towards your boyfriend. I make a mental note to see a therapist at work after my on-calls.

A shudder ripples through my skin as I think about Gavin.

About the fact that I react like I hate my boyfriend. Like he repulses me. Like he disgusted me, I feel sick even more now.

Shit!

“Megan! I’m leaving,” I scream to the top of my voice in her ear. The joy on her face turns into somber and she gives me those stupid puppy eyes I swear to God I’m not going to fall for this time.

“Come on, the game is almost finished and I can get you to meet Ashley, he’s cuter than Gavin.” She gives me a stupid hopeful smile and I return it with an even bored expression on my face.

“First of all, I’m not interested in your guys or hockey. And who the fuck names a guy Ashley, of all the names in the world, they had to call a boy Ashley? Seriously?” she rolls her eyes, “You’re such a hater, babe.” She grinned nonetheless, deep in her gut knowing I’d stay until the end of the game.

I groan! I hate everything.

Myself, my best friend, sports, everything! Seriously, who calls a guy Ashley? That’s going to red flag #301 why I hate athletes.

The referee’s whistle sounds, filling the air particles of the arena, and just when I stand to my feet, ready to walk out of the area, thinking the match is over, everybody is up on their feet, watching Rashford Gibbs tackle a Knights member down onto the ice and start throwing punches at his helmet covered face.

There is too much commotion now, some ladies are screaming, and referees are skating into the rink to break off the fight. I’m stuck in one place now, slowly feeling the panic rise to my throat along with the food I ate yesterday.

Shit! Not the place, not the place, not the place, I chant to myself.

Hot tears rush to my eyes as I take in the chaos in my environment. Suddenly, I’m stuck in the moment again. The chaos in the arena is slowly blending into the background and I hear prominent screams of terror, her once rosy voice breaks in the pain, it’s strained and struggling, like she can’t breathe.

She can’t.

My eyes are stuck on Rashford, throwing punches one after another but my head is replaying a different event. A different scenario. I’m hearing cries of terror that I knew too well.

I am grateful that Megan is too busy fixated on Gibbs and wincing whenever the other guy returns an equally painful punch at him to notice my state, I don’t need anyone seeing me as anything short of a strong independent woman who worked her ass off from rock bottom to be final year intern at one of the best teaching hospitals in the United States of America.

In the midst of my panic, rises another feeling of anger, one I thought I’d buried. Towards this, memories of my past. This was awakening feelings I’d buried, reminding me why I hated sports, especially those that were male-dominated, like football, like Hockey. Why I hated entitled, spoilt, egotistic players like Gabriel, players like Rashford Gibbs.

A female voice pierces through my daze. I squint my eye in her direction, noticing an elderly man down on the floor, people start swarming around him. On instinct, I bolt, ignoring Megan calling my name behind me.

“Move!” I exclaim, pushing the crowd that was swarming over the poor man. “Who are you?” the disgruntled young girl who must have been his daughter eyed me with an accusatory look, it didn’t bother me, not anymore. I was used to such looks of uncertainty from people by now.

“Dr. Medicine, call for an ambulance. I think your father is having a heart attack.” My tone has shifted to action, my body is on high alert and adrenaline is pumping into my system. I pull the curly strands of my hair back into a ponytail.

The girl frowns, looking confused. “He’s not my dad, he’s my boyfriend.”

My heart drops, and I forget to breathe for a good 2 seconds before schooling my features back to neutral professionalism. It wasn’t my job to judge, even if she probably looked my age or less. My job was to save the old man whose pulse was getting fainter by the minute.

In a few minutes, the NHL’s paramedics team rushed in with a stretcher to take the old man.

My eyes subconsciously trail to the rink, falling straight into Gibbs’s grey eyes. Eyes as chaotic as a stormy sea, holding both calm and tempest within their depth, eyes as soft as the misty morning, the glimmering grey in those thousand headlights of the arena was like a thousand stars reflected in a still lake. Details so deep, I’d taken such devotion in studying for such a long time like my life depended on it, I was stupid, I hated it, I hated myself and above all, I hated him. I hated him because even after it all, I still remembered every slight detail about his eyes, the specks of green that looked like they’d been sprinkled there carelessly with a paintbrush.

I make sure he could see in the look I give him. The big fucking, ‘I hate you’ written in bold on my forehead’. Because I do.

With every beating fiber of my body, I hate Rashford Giveon Gibbs, as much as I love medicine. I hate him with passion.