#algae tm

Today’s day shift however was suspiciously quiet. He drifted through the hours on auto pilot rashes, abscesses, a few cuts that barely deserved stitches. He wasn’t going to complain, most of those he could fob off to Whittaker or Javadi, this is a teaching hospital after all, who was he to deny the students their lessons? Meanwhile he used the opportunity to catch up on some admin. He’s half surprised Gloria hadn’t materialised yet to lecture him about overdue safety reports, which was a small miracle in itself. When he told Dana this, she just gave him one of those perfectly arched eyebrows that said you’re pushing your luck, so he clarified, surprised, yes, but not ungrateful. They’d both agreed to drop the subject quickly, as if saying Gloria’s name three times would summon her out of a puff of smoke.

“Still no sign of the intern,” he muttered to Jack as he typed up his final note. “What is it with these kids ghosting the ER?”

Jack just shrugged, not even looking up from the board. “Probably fled the building. I would too if I had to spend a month shadowing you.”

Robby rolled his eyes, turned off his ipad, and pushed his chair back with a satisfied sigh. He checked the time, 7:03 PM, and decided the no-show was not his problem anymore.

He grabbed his bag, slung his jacket over his shoulder, and headed for the doors with a lazy wave at Dana and Jack.

So, when a voice rang out, “I’m looking for a Dr. Robinavitch,” Robby groaned like a man cursed.

He had half a mind to just keep walking, he already had one foot out the door, hand half-raised in a lazy wave to Jack and Dana one more step and it would officially be none of his business, he had a rare weekend off, and he was so close, he could almost taste the pad-thai he was going to order and feel the Egyptian cotton sheets that currently adorned his California king. He squeezed his eyes shut in exasperation, rationalising to himself that whatever question was going to be lobbed at him was nothing Jack couldn’t handle. Future Robby would apologise to him later, but present Robby, whether he had suddenly developed a stronger moral compass, or just wasn’t quick enough on the uptake turned around. Dana, the traitor, doesn’t even hesitate, she just points straight at him like she’s delivering him to the gallows.

To say that Robby’s gut found a home in his ass would be an understatement. He’s surprised his intestines aren’t leaking out of him with the way he feels his stomach fall. He knows your figure instantly; how could he forget. And when your eyes meet his he shudders, any chance of denying it was you has flown out the window. He knows your face too well. He’s seen those eyes glassy with cheap gin, and lit with a grin that made him forget, for just one night, how empty he’d felt on the third anniversary of Adamson’s death. Robby counted to ten in his head, He doesn’t miss the look Dana gives to Jack before his eyes squeeze shut, mouth twisting in what anyone would call a grimace. When Dana teases him about this later, he’s going to insist he was perfectly poised, an absolute paragon of tranquillity even, but right now he was allowing himself ten seconds of internal panic.

He sees the exact moment recognition slams into you, and at the widening of your eyes and hitch of your breath, both Dana and Jack nod to each other in confirmation of whatever silent question they had raised between them. Dana’s smirk curls and Jack goes back to silently checking the charts that Robby had just handed to him.

You hold his stare. A quick, silent conversation crackles across the distance between you, the sharp bite of: You? Here? No. God no. Oh my God absolutely not.

He remembers the night you’d slipped in with friends and past the bouncer with a fake ID. Laughing too loudly, celebrating … something. By the time you sidled up to him as he sat at the bar and ordered yourself a drink with a giggle, Robby was already three whiskeys deep and hadn’t cared enough to ask. He just remembered the way you’d admitted your age later, as you and him were already making out behind the bar like teenagers. She wasn’t far off, his brain unhelpfully supplies. God, he thought, twenty, which you’d admitted between giggles, half-drunk, and Robby had simply smiled and felt himself tip over the edge. He’d been drowning that night, desperate to numb the pain of the date. You’d been bright, easy, young, and some inane comment you’d made had eased a light chuckle from his chest, something that had proved harder and harder to do. It was because of that he’d said fuck it and brought you to his apartment anyway.

And now here you are, badge gleaming, Intern – Surgery, sober and sharp, and the weight of it presses down. Hard.

Robby’s brain betrays him by doing the math. If she was twenty, two years ago, she was twenty-two now. Well done, Einstein, he thinks self-deprecatingly. For one sick second he gives himself a pat on the back, for one sick second, before the shame rises, he feels boastful. It’s rotten at the core, but it sparks joy anyway, hot, and smug, and mean. Because if Robby was going to immolate his reputation of course it wouldn’t be with just anyone. No, it had to be with you. A goddamn wunderkind. The prodigy who slipped into a bar at twenty, laugh too loud, grin too bright, and now at twenty-two was standing in his ER. A doctor. A fucking doctor at fucking twenty-two.

And damn it, some mutinous, vile part of him clings to that, curling itself around the memory like a snake basking on a rock. He hadn’t gone home with some faceless mistake. He hadn’t chosen someone ordinary. He’d chosen someone remarkable, someone sharp enough, driven enough, brilliant enough that now, standing here, you radiate potential. And Robby’s mind twists it, just for a heartbeat, into a kind of warped victory. Like if he was going to sin, at least he sinned spectacularly.

He can hear the story in his own head, smug and caustic: Trust Robinavitch to sleep with a genius. Was it an early high-school graduation? Early med-school acceptance? A three-year MD program? Given your age Robby was sure it was probably a combination of all three and probably a hell of a lot more. He so desperately wanted to ask you, he also wanted to jump off the Alleghany Turnpike Bridge and so he compromises and reconciles to do neither.

This is what’s left of him now, scraps of pride scavenged from the wreckage of better instincts. The part of him that used to care about being good has been ground down by twelve hour shifts, endless nights, Adamson’s anniversary dates circled and crossed out and circled again. He’s been surviving on gallows humour and muscle memory so long that even his shame comes laced with competitiveness. Look, even my worst mistakes are exceptional. It’s pathetic, and he knows it, but he can’t stop the thought from flashing across his mind, bright and dirty: She’s still brilliant. She was a mistake. My mistake, mine, mine, mine.

And just like that the thought tastes like whiskey left too long on the tongue, bitter, and impossible to swallow. Possession turning to penitence. Because you weren’t a wunderkind that night. You were a kid with a fake ID, drunk on sugar-laced cocktails and the novelty of fooling a bouncer. You were twenty, celebrating God-knows-what with friends who barely remembered to check on you, as you walked away with someone three decades your senior. And he’d known. Fuck, you’d actually told him, half-giggled it into his ear like the child you were, the child you are, and he’d gone with you anyway. He’d chosen to.

That’s where the pride breaks. It snaps clean in two, leaving nothing but the hollow, crushing weight of guilt. Cold and merciless, it squeezes around his ribs, suffocating, and he has to wrench his gaze away before anyone, Jack, or Dana, catches even a glimmer of what’s carved across his face.

He forces himself to speak, voice scraping out a rough, “yeah, that’s me.” His throat burns.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••