Page 9 of Meet Me in the Blue
“I think mouths can be nice.” His gaze dropped to my lips and a thousand fireflies took flight inside my stomach.
“Maybe…”
I stared back at him, at his mouth, the patchy growth of hair above his lip. He’d started shaving last month. I thought maybe kissing could be okay if you knew someone well enough, knew them like you knew a best friend. Like how they smelled after a shower, or in the rain, and if they liked orange soda better than Coke. I thought sharing something like that would be okay.
• ••
I was stuck in a memory as the alarm blared from my bedside table. Luka and me at fifteen, the smell of wet pine, and the salty harbor air blowing through the small fort. The details were still sharp even though it seemed like a lifetime since we’d been that close. I blinked away the fog of sleep. The sound of rain tinkling against my windows threatened to pull me back under, but a quick look at the clock was enough to get me going. I had a scheduled c-section at seven, and a full day at the clinic after that. I didn’t have time to dwell in memories, or for the ache in my head. I’d stayed up too late last night, running over everything Luka had said, how different he’d looked, how angry I’d been. I hadn’t realized how deep his absence had cut me until I saw him there, in our spot, not quite a stranger but close enough. I was angry. Hurt. But he was here, and he still smelled like rain.
Maribelle scratched at my bedroom door, and I stole another look at the clock again. It was a quarter past five, and if I had any hope of getting to work on time, I had to stop wallowing. Luka was home and I tried to focus on that. Everything else. This knot in my stomach, this simmering something, this itch under my skin could wait. Yeah, I was definitely angry. But he’d missed me too.
“Hey, Belle.” I raked my fingers through her curls as she jumped, punching her paws against my chest, and licked my chin. “Want to go outside?” She dropped down, rubbing against my legs like an overgrown cat. “We have to be quick.”
I threw on my rain jacket by the back door, flipping on the lights to the kitchen as Maribelle circled me like a shark. Her nails clacked against the wood floors, faster and faster the longer she had to wait on me. I laughed when she whined and decided I’d have to make coffee when we got back from our walk.
“Alright, alright. Let’s go.”
Maribelle didn’t hesitate, taking off toward the dock as soon as I opened the door. The light rain didn’t deter her for a second. I reached down and grabbed her rope off the back porch and made my way down the pebbled path, tossing the dog toy as I called her name. She came like a bat out of hell, charging toward me before juking to the left where I’d thrown the rope. She dropped it at my feet, and I threw it again. We did this a few times before she started to sniff around and did her business. I let her be, finding my way out of the canopy of pines and hemlocks surrounding my house. My bare feet were damp, the tiny gray pebbles scratching at the arch of my feet until I found relief on the dock. The water lapped against the jagged rocks of the shoreline, much calmer than the crashing waves and cliffs on the northern shore. As much as I loved to watch the water shape and pull at the earth, it scared me sometimes too. I’d always known I wanted to live close to the ocean. Something about the tides and the moon and how the sun warmed your skin as it bounced off the water. Hemlock Harbor was my home, and now I had a place of my own. I turned to look at my house with its dormer windows lit with a warm yellow light, and the tightness in my chest, that pinch I hadn’t been able to get rid of after seeing Luka last night, eased.
I had a life here. All packaged up inside the mossy wooden siding of my home. Years of being on my own, making my way, creating my practice. My life. I was alone, and it wasn’t perfect. But I’d chosen it. I was happy enough. Happy despite the fact a piece of me had been missing for a long time. But I thought, or maybe hoped, I’d found it again.
• ••
“You’re late,” Morgan snapped as he pushed the clipboard into my hand. “This is new.” He flipped his dark brown hair out of his eyes. “Your dad is already in the patient’s room, going over everything, just need her to sign these consent forms.”
“Shit, he’s in there already?”
“For the last fifteen minutes.” Morgan’s smile widened. “Did you at least do something fun last night… you know, to make his wrath worth it?”
“His wrath?” I raised a brow as I sifted through the paperwork. “That’s overdramatic.”
“He’s on one today.”
I lifted my head and stared at the patient’s room door. “Shit.”
“Yeah, shit… Maybe you should just scrub in, and I’ll have him consent the patient without you?”
“It’s my patient. He shouldn’t have gone in without me, he’s—”
“Not her doctor. I know. I know.” Morgan waved his hand. “But you know him. He has a schedule to keep.”
My father was a good man. A good doctor. The first Black doctor in Hemlock Harbor to have his own practice. He was proud of his accomplishments, and after Luka’s dad joined the clinic, he hoped I might join one day too. When I’d decided to become a certified nurse-midwife, he wasn’t exactly not pleased. We could still share a practice together, and I had my doctorate. I hadn’t gone to medical school like he’d wanted, but I was an advanced practice nurse. Sometimes, though, when I had to have him help with something out of my scope, like a c-section, or I had to consult with him on a high-risk pregnancy, he’d make comments likeif you’d only gone to medical school. On those days, I’d reminded him he had to consult with Luka’s dad all the time, that medicine was a team sport, but he didn’t always listen.
“Want me to come with you?” Morgan asked and I shook my head.
“That’s okay. Thanks, though.”
Dad sat on the edge of my patient’s bed, laughing about something, while her partner hid in the corner looking ashen.
“Don’t worry, Curtis, you don’t have to watch the surgery if you prefer not to.” My dad smiled as I shut the door. “Well, look who decided to show up for work today. I thought I might have to deliver this baby all on my own.”
I forced a smile. He was joking. I knew he was joking. But it hit me in the gut all the same.
“Hey, Abbey… Curtis… You ready to do this?” I tried my best for a half-hearted chuckle and hoped no one in the room noticed I’d ignored my father entirely.
After a few signatures and a whole lot of questions, my father and I wheeled the patient back to the operating room with her partner in tow. As hoped, the c-section had gone without incident, and despite my earlier tardiness, I’d headed to the office on time. I’d been busy enough that I hadn’t had a chance to talk to my father much, and it wasn’t until lunch time that I braved my way toward his office and knocked on the door.
“Feel like grabbing a sandwich at the diner?” he asked, pen in hand, scribbling away on the piece of paper in front of him. His eyes never left his work. “And maybe a coffee? You seemed tired this morning.”