Chapter three

Chapter three

Eveline.

DR. LUCIAN VALE. NEUROSURGERY. VALE MEDICAL INSTITUTE.

I read it one more time, like reading it again will change what it says.

I slowly set the badge down exactly where I found it. Carefully. Like disturbing it any further might set something off.

I look at him — still asleep, chest rising and falling, completely unbothered by the universe, and I feel the strangest mix of things. Last night he was grey eyes and a deep voice and hands that made me forget I was supposed to be someone's fiancée. This morning he's a name I can't fully place. I want him to remain a stranger. 

But vale?!

Fuck me.

Who is he?

What ties does he have with the Vales?

How is he a doctor in Vale Medical Institute, and I know nothing about him!?

I may not be overly close with the family, but I am close enough to know every doctor from the Vale family that works in Vale Medical Institute, but I don't know HIM.

I grab my dress. Force my shivering self to wear it as quietly, and quickly as possible. I don't wanna wake him up. 

I can't have any conversation with him. I pray we never meet. I hope the surname is a coincidence, and he just happens to be bearing the same surname as the owners of the company he works for.

I am a psychology student, I barely go to the family hospital, except for my Uncle's check ups. I doubt that I'll ever run into him. 

I find my heels. My clutch. I check to make sure I'm not forgetting anything, and I quietly leave the room, without looking back.

My heels are quiet on the carpet in the hallway. I find the elevator, step in, watch the doors close, and for approximately thirty seconds I stand in a mirrored box and stare at the woman reflecting back at me. Last night's dress. Last night's hair. This morning's expression, which is the face of someone trying to do the math of something she doesn't have all the numbers for.

He said he just came back into town. He said he missed this place. That means, he's not new here. Oh God! Why didn't I think about all of that before going to bed with him?!

Last night…was the best night I've had since my Dad died. He didn't fuck me because he found out that I've not done it before. His reason “I don't want your first time to be a random guy you know nothing about… and, when I fuck. I fuck hard.”

But the way he kissed me, it felt like I was living in heaven on earth. The way he handled my body, ate my pussy like he knew me, and was ready to worship me. I felt every inch of my body wanting more of him, I wanted his dick in me so bad. My body wanted him. My pussy throbbed for him. 

I would kill to be able to relive last night, and then I'll make sure he fucks the shit outta me.

The elevator opens. I walk through the lobby. I push through the glass door into cold morning air.

My phone screen lights up.

Fourteen missed calls.

I stop for a minute.

Harold— six times. Julian — four. Linda Vale, twice. Two numbers I don't recognize.

Six calls from Harold? Harold doesn't call six times unless…

My stomach drops before my brain fully catches up.

I call him back. It rings once.

"Eveline." It's not Harold's voice. It's Mrs. Jen, our housekeeper. Her voice is tight in the way of someone managing panic on behalf of someone else. "Where are you? We've been trying to reach you all night."

"I'm… I'm on my way home, what happe…"

"It's your father." She interrupts. "He collapsed at the party. After you left, nobody could find you, and he…”, her voice shaky, “he just went down. They called the ambulance. We're at Vale Medical Institute”.

The pavement goes solid under my feet. The cold air hitting me, I feel my legs shaking.

“I'm on my way” I stretch my free hand for a cab.

                               *** 

I’m in the back seat of the cab. Ten minutes away from the hospital, after my episode of scolding the driver to drive faster. 

My mind is running through every version of Harold I've ever known. Harold at the dinner table, telling the same three stories he always tells. Harold in the garden on Sunday mornings, the only time he ever looks fully at peace. Harold's hand on my shoulder the day he told me I'd be staying with him for good, his voice doing the thing it does when he's trying not to let it shake.

Apart from him being uptight — letting me be his only family, while what he's known for the most, is the fact that he raised his best friend's daughter as his own. Harold has been my father since Dad died.

He's been tired. I noticed that months ago and told myself it was age. He's had headaches — twice he mentioned them and waved off my questions before I could finish asking. Last week he knocked a glass clean off the kitchen counter and laughed it off, blaming his hands.

I catalogued all of it. I did nothing with it.

The cab pulls up outside the hospital. I'm through the doors before the driver finishes telling me the fare.

The lobby of Vale Medical Institute is all glass and white marble, the kind of place built to make dying feel expensive. I don't take any of it in. I go straight to the front desk, give Harold's name, and a nurse points me toward a private waiting area on the third floor.

Julian is already there.

He stands the second he sees me, and for one unguarded moment his face does something real — fear, plain and unrehearsed, the kind he doesn't usually let show.

"Where were you?" he asks, low, careful.

"I needed air. How is he?"

Julian exhales, drags a hand through his hair. "They've had him in tests since they brought him in. Nobody's told us anything definite yet." A pause. "He kept asking for you, Eveline. When they wheeled him back, he kept saying your name."

That lands somewhere I don't have a name for.

“Where's Mrs. Jen?”

“She has to take care of things at home, so she left five minutes ago”.

I sit. Julian sits beside me. We don't speak again until the doctor comes.

“Hello Julain” The Young doctor walks up to us. “I'm assuming you're Ms. Eveline” he stretches his hand for a handshake.

“Yes!”

“I'm Dr. Harry, nice to meet you”. 

I nod.

"Mr. Hart has been diagnosed with Pontine Glioma," he continues. "A rare, aggressive tumor in the pons — the lower brainstem. It explains the symptoms; the headaches, the fatigue, the loss of fine motor control. It's been growing for some time.”

The room goes very quiet.

"The location makes it inoperable through standard methods," he continues. "The pons controls the body's most basic functions — breathing, heart rate, consciousness. Conventional surgery carries catastrophic risk."

"So what do we do?" Julian asks. His voice cracks slightly on ‘we’.

"There's one surgical approach that's shown success with this specific presentation," Dr. Harry says. "It's highly specialized. Very few surgeons in the world perform it." He glances at his tablet. "In this country, there's exactly one.”

“Who?” I say in a panic tone, “I'm willing to do anything”.

"Dr. Lucian Vale," Dr. Harry says. "He's been practicing abroad for the past several years. Our records suggest he may have recently returned to the country. If we can locate him and confirm availability"

I stop breathing.