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we’re not lovers
we’re just strangers
with the same damn hunger
to be loved, to be touched
to feel anything at all
So go home. Let yourselves cry. You’ll feel better. It’s just… grief… leaving the body.
Mel turns Dr. Robby’s words over in her mind. Remembers the emotion written so clearly on his face during hand off—his and so many others. An appropriate time to shed tears. Not like her; she fought to bury her feelings all day. Tried and failed.
What’s wrong with her now?
On occasion I have an emotional response to death.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of millions a statistic. Whittaker’s patient and the memories that surfaced—her discomfort and the effort it took to stop herself from fleeing into the single stall bathroom. One hundred and twelve mass casualty victims. One hundred and six lives saved. A loss of 5.36%.
Is the threshold there—somewhere between one and five? Is that why she feels so numb?
No one wants to see their doctor cry.
This is the crying time. Dr. Robby gave them permission. To feel better. To feel, period. To dispel the barriers between doctor and self, the very barriers that Mel struggles to maintain every day. Her toughness in the face of her profession’s emotional toll is no stronger than a cardboard shelter in a downpour. Today was a monsoon, and yet here she is, peeking out between the battered flaps, still standing.
As she waits at the crosswalk to the parking garage, Mel shuts her eyes tightly. She wills herself to cry as if all it will take is a little force, but nothing comes. Her brows knit as she concentrates harder. There’s something there; her hands tremble with it. Something that tightens around her lungs, sinks leaden into her belly. A heaviness, touched by weariness, that threatens to consume her completely. It’s somehow worse than the overstimulation that comes from hypersensitivity, the too-muchness that makes her want to retch to get it out.
Mel wants to get it out.
The crosswalk alerts her that it’s safe to cross, the rapid, high-pitched beeping making her wince. She does so with weak knees and rubbery ankles. They’re the reason she forgoes the stairs and hits the button to call the elevator.
Inside, Mel selects her floor. As the doors close, she calculates how long she has to shed this weight inside her—a two minute walk to her car, another four to exit the parking garage, seventeen minutes to reach the Center, and five until Becca descends the stairs to the foyer.
Twenty-eight minutes total to break down and put herself back together again. Twenty-eight minutes to grieve the loss of six lives—because she will grieve them; they’ve earned that from her—and bear witness to the trauma of a hundred and six. (More if she includes the ED staff, but she doesn’t yet have precise information on staffing to account for it properly.) Mel can’t allow this to touch Becca, so twenty-eight minutes will have to be enough.
Mel amends the schedule in her brain: 9:43 p.m. to 10:11 p.m. Acknowledge, accept, let go of your trauma.
She stares at her shoes as she exits the elevator, mentally unpacking all the usual boxes where she stores her grief: absent father, growing up too quickly, dead mother, longterm boyfriend who bailed four months into her becoming Becca’s caregiver. Just a little nudge is all she needs. Something to crack this dam stopping her emotions.
By the time she makes it four steps into the garage, Mel notices an old paint splatter that wasn’t there this morning. The walls read Level 5, and shoot, she parked on six. Rather than wait for the elevator again or take the stairs, Mel decides to walk up the ramp. Better for her wobbly legs.
When she turns the corner, Mel sees him, bathed in the sickly yellow garage lights.
“Dr. Langdon?”
He steps back from his SUV as she approaches. “Mel. Hey.”
She’s relieved to see him. To get the chance to say goodbye to him properly for the night, at least. To thank him for sticking with her today when no one else did. For checking in and encouraging her. Maybe for the first time in eight years, Mel felt like she didn’t have to have all the answers. Even in the chaos of the ED—of an MCI—she could rest her weary mind for a moment. When Dr. Langdon was there next to her, everything went blissfully quiet.
“I just… I wanted to say I-I’m really grateful,” she explains, her voice unsteady. “You made today easier.”
Dr. Langdon moves closer, stepping past the boundary of her personal space. Mel doesn’t shift or feel the urge to manipulate her fingers until she’s regulated. But she hadn’t all day, had she? No, she welcomed his proximity. His kindness. It’s as if he intuitively understands how to be gentle to her without knowing anything about her. No one has ever… not like… Mel has never felt so completely seen by someone, and it…
“You okay, Mel?” he asks, his heavy hands settling on her biceps. “You’re crying.”
“Oh, I…”
Mel touches her cheek with her fingertips, the warm wetness smudging her skin. Her eyes quickly seek out his—blue eyes a little glazed over, eyelids heavy—as if he might be able to explain what’s happening to her—when it started and why. While she ought to know herself, her brain refuses to supply the answers, ones lost in the sudden fog of her mind. Where was the dam break? How can she release these tears and still feel so numb? Her lips tingle like she’s applied peppermint chapstick.
“I have to be done crying by 10:11,” Mel says nonsensically, sniffling.
She needs to get Becca. And it’s Friday night, which means Becca will expect them to go out to eat and watch a movie. Even though Mel isn’t certain she can muster up the energy to do that, she has to. Not doing so means throwing off her sister’s schedule. When that happens, nothing goes smoothly for forty-eight hours. The math is simple—she’s calculated it for eight years now—expend the energy now to preserve it over the weekend. Nevermind that she can hardly think clearly. Becca needs stability, and Mel is the only one who can provide that.
“No, you don’t.”
When his arms envelop her, Mel’s caught off guard. She allows him to draw her against him, his chest hard beneath her cheek.
His strength wrecks her. The dam bursts, and Mel sobs against the rough fabric of his scrubs. Tomorrow she’ll walk around with a permanent blush, embarrassed by the way she clutched at the sides of his shirt and shuddered against his body. Tonight, Mel burrows closer. Dr. Langdon rests his chin against her crown, holding her steady.
“I wanted t-to tell you… a delivery I… a baby boy, but y-you…” Mel tries to smother her sob, but it’s little use. “...were gone. You didn’t… didn’t say… goodbye. And then again… j-just now. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”
Mel focuses on the vibration in his chest, barely registering the care Dr. Langdon takes not to mumble.
“Y-you left me,” she whimpers. “Everyone…”
Dr. Langdon shushes her kindly. His fingers card through her bound hair as much as they’re able, and Mel feels the faint urge to tug it free of her braid. It would be nice. If only her limbs weren’t so heavy. If only it didn’t mean leaving the security of Dr. Langdon’s arms. She needs the weight to anchor herself. Needs him.
Another minute or so passes as she breaks down against him. When the worst of the crying abates—and that’s all it ever does, eases, rather than disappear completely—he shifts back. The air that rushes between their bodies feels good against her flush skin, but the rest of it doesn’t. Mel scrambles for his touch.
In the fog of her grief, she forgets they’re meeting on borrowed time. Of course he needs to go. Dr. Langdon has small children and a wife. He’s already late getting home because of the MCI. Missed dinner. Probably won't get to tuck his children into bed.
Knowing she only has a few more moments with him, Mel searches for something to say that could even begin to describe the significance of his mentorship. Something more than her pitiful expression of gratitude. When she opens her mouth—praying the right words will come (even though they never have before)—Mel releases a sob.
His brow pulling with concern, Dr. Langdon opens the door to the backseat. He guides her to sit, hands light on her hips as she climbs in. Her foot slips a little, his fingers curling around her hipbone. A wave of heat spreads from there, pooling between her thighs; it does nothing to make her legs any less feeble.
When she settles facing the door, it comes as a relief that Dr. Langdon doesn’t move away. Instead, he lifts a battered box of Kleenex from the floor and pushes several tissues into her hand. The nice gesture does nothing to stop her tears, her shoulders shaking with them.
Mel doesn’t know how to explain it. Maybe there aren’t words. Maybe it’s only the bone-deep exhaustion sinking its claws into her. But here in the back of his SUV, Mel lets Dr. Langdon see her, all the ugliness and weakness hidden beneath her smiles and optimism. The parts of herself that she’s most ashamed of. The ones that make her feel like a bad sister, a bad daughter and doctor and friend. The facets of the person she’d been before—more realistic, more level-headed—that make themselves known when she’s at her worst—telling her to sleep, reminding her she can’t pour from an empty cup, begging her to admit that she might not be able to do all of this alone. She hasn’t shown this side of herself to anyone in nearly ten years.
As she chances a glance up at him, the worry in his blue eyes makes her feel like showing him her soft underbelly was worth it. He makes her feel seen.
“You looked after me,” she admits, voice wet and fragile. “No one… y-you’re really good at it. It was… nice.”
Shame crawls up her throat like bile. How could anything about today be nice? Mel subtly shakes her head as if to dislodge the thought.
And then I asked myself… like… what do I do with this kid? Where do I put this feeling?... And I’m looking at all those mausoleums and those crypts. And I’m thinking to myself…okay, well, that’s what I need. I just need a safe place where I can put these feelings.
That’s what she’ll do. Just like Dr. Robby said, she’ll bury these feelings. The good memories. After tonight, she’ll let them go. Not in some box with the rest of her grief, but lay them to rest for good. When she goes home tonight—
“I’m a fuck up, Mel. I don’t know how to take care of anyone,” Dr. Langdon admits, resigned.
“That’s not true!” she says suddenly. Mel takes another pass at her cheeks with the Kleenex. “You… you know how to take care of me.”
Silence hangs between them, intense and heavy. Dr. Langdon’s gaze drops from her eyes to her lips and back up again.
“I need you,” she whispers.
(No! No, she meant to say needed. As in, she needed someone like him in her corner today. Yes, that! Not… oh jeez.)
Dr. Langdon shudders his next exhale. He doesn’t blink. And she wants to curl up for fear that she’s misinterpreting this. Social cues are hard; sexual ones are harder. But the heat lingers in her pelvis—how could it not when he’s looking at her with those eyes—and Mel, so worn down, takes a risk.
When she leans forward, he meets her halfway. Her lips hesitate against his still ones. As she sighs into it, Dr. Langdon steps forward, cradling her face between his palms. Mel spreads her legs, allowing him to get closer. It’s apparently all the invitation he needs to escalate things. His tongue flicks across her lips, and Mel opens her mouth with a groan she never expected.
As the seconds tick by, everything begins to feel so insignificant—Pittfest, her responsibilities, her mother’s death, his family. When Dr. Langdon touches her, the worst parts of her life—the worst of what they’re doing now—fade to the background. It’s as if she feels whole again, a heady, unfamiliar experience after all these years.
He kisses her lips, her chin, down the delicate column of her throat where her pulse jackrabbits against his mouth. Nothing matters. She can fall apart, and Dr. Langdon will hold her together. Mel needs this desperately. Craves it as if she’s been touch starved, waiting for him all her life. Her mind swims with take care of me, take care of me, take care of me…
Maybe she’s not just thinking it but saying it.
Dr. Langdon climbs in the back with her, both of them shuffling across the seat until he’s able to shut the door behind him. As soon as she opens her legs, he lies between them and begins kissing her again. Mel’s so distracted by the feeling of him hard against her center, exactly where she wants him, that her mouth turns clumsy. She accidentally bites down on his bottom lip. Heat rushes to her cheeks, a frantic apology on her tongue, when he moans and bucks against her. Dr. Langdon nips at her lip in turn, awakening something wild within her.
“Please, I need…” she begs.
His hands begin shoving at her jacket, her shirt. Mel helps him get both off. Assumes that that will be enough for this, but Dr. Langdon reaches for the band of her sports bra too. It’s barely over her head before he paws at her breasts, his large hands massaging her and his thumbs swiping over her hardening nipples. For a moment, Mel wants to cover herself for fear of not measuring up. But how can she when he’s staring at her like that—with some misplaced reverence for her half naked body?
“Mel,” he says, choked.
How is she supposed to respond to that?
Mel plucks at his shirt. “Not fair.”
He pulls it over his head and tosses it into the front seat. Mel has a moment to take in his chest. There’s so much hair, which has never been a point of attraction for her before. But now? Jeez, she just wants to feel it all over her body.
Mel guides him back down to her with a gentle hand to the back of his neck. The hair scratches against her breasts, heightening her senses. She wriggles beneath him, and Dr. Langdon slowly thrusts against her, his head buried against her neck.
“I want to taste you.”
She nods frantically.
They both realize too late that there’s not enough room. Still, he kisses his way down her chest, his tongue circling her nipples and sucking lightly. When she feels his hand slip beneath her pants and underwear, it comes as a relief. His fingers are careful but confident; Mel can’t help but think he knows her sexual needs as well as he knew every other one she had today, those she’d been aware of and even the ones she hadn’t.
Dr. Langdon strokes her with just the right amount of pressure to build her up, requiring minimal movement on her part to get him where and how she needs him. Mel feels a bit faint and floaty, her breaths jagged as he gets her close. Then he plunges a finger in her, thrusts a few times, and adds another.
“You’re so wet, sweetheart.” He groans as his fingers push inside again. “I’d spend hours between your thighs. Jesus Christ, how are you even real?”
Mel wonders the very same thing about him. Considers whether he’d ever make good on that promise. For a moment, she almost tells him that he can have her whenever he wants her. That after their shift tomorrow, she will gladly follow him to his car, to a hotel, spread her legs for him and let him feast until he nearly drowns between her folds.
But before she can utter that embarrassing confession, Dr. Langdon removes his fingers from her and puts them in his mouth. Mel watches him work his fingers over, notices the way his eyes close and hears the long moan muffled by his sucking.
It’s the hottest thing she’s ever seen.
Her trembling hands start to push his scrubs and underwear over his ass. She needs him more than she needs oxygen. Mel doesn’t want to be separated from him any longer. She wants him inside her. Wants him to fundamentally change her in a way that he can never take back, until there’s a before-Dr.-Langdon and after-Dr.-Langdon demarcation in her life. Heal her if only for a little while—just a few minutes when she no longer feels the weight of the world on her shoulders.
“Mel,” he whispers, brushing a thumb across her cheek once more, her tears mingling with her fluids. “I got you, baby. Everything is okay.”
Despite not knowing this man, Mel falls a little bit in love with him. Even if his words are a lie, it’s the most beautiful lie anyone has ever told her. Just now, she’d give him her heart if he asked for it.
In the limited space they have to work with, they manage to get her undressed but for her socks. Dr. Langdon still has his pants and underwear around one ankle, jammed up by his shoe, but it’s enough.
Mel cradles him between her thighs, the length of him slipping between her folds. His mouth opens, a punched out breath escaping, when he catches her entrance. Tiny, aborted thrusts tease her into a frenzy until she breathes life into her dark desires.
“Fuck me,” she whispers.
Dr. Langdon doesn’t hesitate. His immediate response—obeisance to her command—makes her light-headed. As he pushes inside her, Mel wonders if she might be split in half; it’s been so, so long since anyone has had her like this.
But for all that she thinks she’s coming apart around him, Mel can’t ignore how unbelievably whole she feels—an obtrusive thought piercing her psyche for the second time tonight. Not just back to being the old Mel, but newly transformed as if reuniting with a part of herself she never knew was missing. Dangerous given the circumstances. Not the kind of woman she ever thought she could be, not until now.
With a gasp, he bottoms out. For a long moment, Dr. Langdon keeps himself still, his inhale and exhale carefully controlled as he shuts his eyes tightly. Mel wonders if this is for her benefit. Some small tenderness that has no place in a backseat hook-up.
Mel touches his cheek lightly.
“Please, Dr. Langdon,” she begs.
“Oh fuck, baby.”
He stares down at her suddenly. The intensity there makes her feel strangely beautiful.
Drawing back, Dr. Langdon thrusts in again. It’s a lot—not just him, but all the sensory information, her nerves backfiring with every stroke. Inevitably, she tears up—had she ever really stopped?—and it’s enough to give him momentary pause.
Mel shakes her head. “It’s okay.”
“You’re a sensitive person,” he says, immediately understanding.
She hiccups, nodding, and wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him closer.
Dr. Langdon kisses her gently, but Mel doesn’t think it’s because he assumes she’ll break. Maybe he thinks—wrongly—that it’s what she deserves. His hand slips between their bodies, his deft fingers finding her clitoris and rubbing. It doesn’t take much before she feels the sudden build up, her stomach muscles pulling tight. Mel crests and clenches around him, her gaze locked on him as sobs wrack her body.
“Gorgeous, sweetheart,” Dr. Langdon sighs.
His thrusts turn urgent and brutal. His hands and mouth everywhere. The heat of his skin engulfing her. The smell of sex and sweat lodged in her nose. The seat buckle digging into her back hard enough to ache.
“Mel,” he chokes. “Mel…”
It’s a heady feeling, hearing her name on his lips like this. So different from the last fifteen hours. Mel floats, imagining all the undiscovered ways he might call out for her. She wants to collect each and every one of them.
“Again,” she begs.
“Mel.” He sounds pained. “Sweetheart. Baby…”
Her heart encases each endearment. Her name sounds like a prayer.
“I’m—”
Dr. Langdon spills inside her.
He ruts against her until he’s spent, moisture gathering at his temple and dampening his dark hair. So sweaty. Mel has never met anyone who sweats as much as him, and she’s overcome with the sudden urge to turn her head and lick a stripe up his forearm. Inhibitions low, she does. Her tongue comes away salty. His hips twitch one final time.
Mel isn’t sure what she anticipated the end of this to look like. Maybe that there would be more shame? She certainly felt enough at the start of all this, though not exactly for the right reasons. Maybe that she wouldn’t be able to look Dr. Langdon in the eye? No difficulties there either.
Still, she doesn’t know what to say to him exactly.
He peppers soft directions with unspoken gestures. Offering her his shirt to clean herself up. Turning her clothes right side out and passing them to her as she slowly rights herself. By the time she shrugs on her jacket, Mel’s hands begin to shake.
“Turn around,” he whispers, and she listens as well as she did in the ED.
With careful movements, he removes her hair tie and unravels her disheveled braid. Using his fingers to comb through her strands, Dr. Langdon does a good job of making her presentable, rebraiding her plait and tying it off. She smooths her hand along it. Not as tight as she’s used to—a few pieces still free—but better than she could have managed herself.
“Thank you.”
Mel doesn’t expect the light kiss. The way he slowly draws back and searches her face. She allows herself to touch his neck, to feel his carotid artery beating beneath the pads of her fingers, strong but a little slower than expected. Taking her hand into his, he brushes a kiss against her wrist.
Together, they slip out of the backseat. An awkward pause hangs in the air, Mel running her knuckles across her sternum and Dr. Langdon shoving his fists into his pockets, rocking back on his heels.
“I can walk you to your car,” he offers.
“I’ll be okay,” Mel says with a shake of her head.
He nods.
“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then?”
His smile is tight. “Yeah, tomorrow.”
***
Later that night after dinner and Elf, Mel will examine herself in the mirror, taking note of the bruise on the left side of her lower back—a blossoming reminder of her night with Dr. Langdon.
When she shows up for her next shift, Dr. Langdon won’t be there. Nor for the next or the next. And so on and so on.
She will mark the passage of time by pressing her knuckles into the bruise to keep the proof that he’d been with her—that he was real—alive. It will be the only evidence she has. As it begins to fade despite her best efforts, Mel will visit a tattoo shop in Southside and ask for a small aster and morning glory bouquet—September flowers—where the bruise once was.
As September fades into October and the temperature cools, Mel will wrinkle her nose at her lunch and fall asleep sitting up in the breakroom. Dr. Langdon’s voice will play in her mind, reminding her to take breaks because the ED is tough for people like them. She will add another mental tally mark to her list—thirty-two days since she last saw his face.
At thirty-five days, Mel will stop at Walgreens on the way home and stare at shelf after shelf of pregnancy tests. At thirty-seven, she’ll finally buy one. At thirty-eight, she’ll buy two more to be sure.
Forty-eight days after having sex with Dr. Langdon—forty-eight days since he held her in his arms—Mel will place her feet in the stirrups of her OBGYN’s exam table and allow the transvaginal ultrasound to confirm what the three tests and her body already knew: she’s carrying his child.
At sixty, she will decide to keep it.