WHIT
The door to the diner seemed heavier today. Was it actually weighted? Who knows. Between my head and my heart, everything just seemed heavy.
I focused my tired eyes towards the back and saw my girl, Jazzy, sitting in our usual booth.
The one constant in my life I could be grateful for. The diner, BBMC Diner, located across the street from the hospital I was a resident in, was our meet-up spot. Jazzy’s late nights at clubs and artist studio sessions as an A&R left her with unconventional work hours, much like mine. So, whenever we could, we used the 24-hour diner as our recharging station.
When I was close to our booth, I sighed, threw my bag onto the booth’s chair, and slid in right after.
“Your hair!” Jazzy exclaimed, eyes bright, smile fixed on her lips until she got a good look at my face. “Oh, damn. Are you aight?”
I collapsed my shoulders in my seat and dropped my forehead to the table. The impact of my head hitting the surface made a dull thud.
“You dyed your hair,” was what she said next, smoothing her hand gently over my slicked-back bun. “It’s so cute, Whit! I love it. What inspired this upgrade?”
I rolled my eyes with my eyes closed. Do you know how fed up a person has to be to roll their eyes while they’re closed?
Well, I knew and I was at my limit at that hour. Tired physically and emotionally. And I couldn’t understand why I kept doing this shit to myself.
“Stress,” I said low, forehead still to the table. “I went into the salon for a trim after a really bad shift. Thought a fresh color might change my mood. But it turns out, burnt caramel doesn’t cancel out burnout. I kept dozing off the entire session. Kept waking up only when my head bobbed forward while sleeping. Only saw the final result when my stylist woke me up when she was done. Thank God she could be trusted. ‘Cause shit, I’m still tired now.”
“Rough night?” Jazzy asked next.
“Rough life,” I mumbled.
Things had been… interesting these past three months. For one, my best friend was now with my brother and they were happy. And I was happy for them, but still, what a change to adjust to, right? Then there was my ex who was at the hospital I’ve been completing my resident program in for the last four years. Why he was here, I still didn’t know.
“Well,” Jazzy started, placing her phone down on the table. “Wes says hey, and not to keep me long. He also said you need the rest, so we should eat and go home right after. Doctor’s orders.”
My face twitched like my mouth wanted to support a smile but my ass was way too beat, too exhausted to do something as easy as smile.
“Hey, Whit,” Sandra, the diner’s server who had been here, in my opinion, forever. At least as long as I’ve been coming here. “Coffee and your usual?”
“You’re an angel,” I said to Sandra just as I lifted my head off the table. “Yes, please. You know how I like it.”
“Same for me, Sandra,” Jazzy said with a smile. “Thank you.”
“You’re glowing,” I noted to Jazzy once we were alone again. And that made a small smile pull at my lips. “It looks so good on you, tramp.”
Jazzy tipped her head back in a laugh, and that made me snort.
Already I was starting to feel like myself, despite still wearing the scent of antiseptic and adrenaline.
The inside of my nose still stung from hours of wearing my N95. The kind of sting you only feel after back-to-back trauma codes.
I looked through the window beside us and at the beautiful structure of Brooklyn Bay Medical Center.
I’d ranked BBMC first when it was time to rank residencies, deciding where I would apply for residency programs. BBMC was my first choice when I submitted my rank list during Match. And I got it. Four years ago, I thought that was fate. Now? I think fate’s just a little bitch with a dark sense of humor.
Because years prior, as crazy as it could get in there, it was my home. Now it was starting to feel like a sore spot in my day. And not because of the traumas…
Because of one person.
“I’ve done twelve shifts in ten days. Lost two patients. And my ex is haunting my rounds like a ghost with great skin. I’m tapped the fuck out.”
Jazzy made an exaggerated sad face.
“And speaking of the ex… can I call the nigga my ex?” I said, shaking my head. “Can I?”
Jazzy shrugged. “I mean… technically? Yes.”
“Yeah, technically.” I scoffed. “Stressed over an ex by technicality. Never was in a real relationship with him, but I was left with the baggage of getting over a relationship that never was.”
I ran my hand over my slicked-back bun. “I forgot to pee twice in my shift and almost peed on myself, thinking and caring about everyone but myself. And by everyone, Deion included.”
The buzz of the diner at 7 a.m. swarmed around Jazzy and I as we sat in the booth.
“I can’t stop thinking about him. And not in the cute, romcom way where I miss the way he used to smile at me in the middle of a shift. No. I think about that nigga like an unpaid bill. Like a toothache I keep hoping will go away on its own. But no. Still there.” I dropped my head into my hands. “And it’s not like I get an opportunity to not think about him. He’s just here, there, everywhere, ugh! In my face, on shift boards. Just… there! And I don’t understand it. He was at Langford University Medical Center. After Columbia-Presbyterian, he chose there and I chose here. That was supposed to be it, especially after we ended things. That was his track. This was mine. So why the fuck is he here, swerving in my lane?!”
“Questions you should ask him?” Jazzy posed.
“I’d rather swallow hot paint with a sore throat while on my cycle.”
“Here you go,” Sandra said, setting both Jazzy’s and my coffee down in front of us. “I’ll be back with your food.”
“I love you,” I said to Sandra.
She giggled. “Love you back, darling. You okay?”
I allowed a genuine smile to pull my lips up. “I’m sure after I get this caffeine in me, I’ll be.”
Sandra placed a hand on my shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “You’re doing great.”
I rolled my eyes closed. “Hmph.”
“I’ll be back,” Sandra added before walking away.
“She’s right,” Jazzy commented, sipping her coffee. “You’re doing great. You’re my superhero.”
“Don’t feel like that today,” I mumbled.
A career in medicine had been the thing I wanted to do the moment I watched season one of Grey’s Anatomy. Miranda Bailey was my inspiration. Hard as nails but really good at what she did. I wanted to help people, especially the ones who looked like me. I wanted to be the doctor who knew how to say all the right things and to make everything better.
But shit, dreams and reality are a funny thing.
Because never did I imagine having to share air with Deion Greene again.
Fine ass Deion Greene.
Even the nurses noticed how fine he is.
“You see the new resident in trauma?” one of them whispered to me.
I didn’t answer. Just stared down at my chart until the letters blurred.
Because not only did I see him, I knew him in the biblical sense and still was in shock he’d walked through BBMC’s doors in black scrubs and an official hospital badge.
Deion and I had met during our clinical rotations at Columbia-Presbyterian. We had the same schedule and kept running into each other until we decided to run into each other on purpose. One unplanned, unimportant dinner led to us hooking up that same night. And we just kept hooking up and seeing each other for an entire year until I accidentally told him I loved him while coming really hard one night.
Then he ghosted me.
“You know what?” I snatched my bag closer to me and dipped my hand into it, immediately finding my phone. “I’m about to ask his ass why he’s here, once and for all.”
“Wait,” Jazzy said, “You haven’t asked him at least that yet?”
I laughed cynically. “Asked him? Have you not been listening? I haven’t even spoken to him since he’s gotten here, Jazzy.”
“It’s been three months, babe.”
“Don’t remind me,” I said, navigating to my contacts. But the moment I went to his name I read my note I’d put in parentheses beside his name.
(DO NOT TEXT, CALL, OR ANSWER CALLS FROM HIM. YOU KNOW BETTER!)
I twisted my lips to one side and sighed.
Kissed my teeth, then dropped my phone back in my bag, dropping my head back against the booth’s back.
I’d seen that note more times than I could count since Deion showed up at BBMC.
The first time I saw him at the hospital, after three years of not seeing him, I nearly swallowed my tongue. I honestly thought I was seeing things.
I’d just finished a consult in Observation. It wasn’t anything too bad, just a patient with an asthma exacerbation. I walked out into the hallway and there he was. Like a bad memory dressed in black scrubs.
He looked exactly the same. Fine as hell. Heavier. Not physically. Physically he was still the perfect broad shoulders to narrow waist tall drink of everything bad for me… plus tattoos.
Emotionally, though? He appeared different. And I was too in shock, too still very pissed, that I didn’t ask the cordial, “how are you?” I didn’t even say hi. I just blinked away, then walked away next.
And for the past few months, he didn’t say anything to me either. We’ve just been there, at the hospital, walking past each other without addressing each other like we were strangers… and we weren’t.
But shit, we might as well be.
Jazzy and I drank our coffee and ate our usual burgers and fries. Conversation switched from my exhaustion to her excitement about her artist, Saint, finally working on his album. Jazzy was so excited about life, and in my state, I needed to see that. I needed to know there was a feeling other than what I was feeling in that moment.
“I got the check today,” Jazzy said, scooting herself out of the booth.
“No, I got it,” I insisted, reaching for my bag.
Jazzy leaned over and slapped my hand away from my wallet, making me laugh.
“I said it first,” she said on her feet. “You’ve had a day, it’s my treat. Let me go settle the bill and I’ll be back.”
Alone in the booth, I turned once again to peer through the diner’s window at the hospital.
Inhaled a deep breath and released it all the same. The sun had finally managed to peek through the clouds. It was finally a new day.
So why was I still hanging on to yesterday.
To Deion.
My eyes moved to my bag before my hands were reaching into it again.
With my phone in hand, I navigated to my contacts once more, Deion’s to be specific.
Stared at his name and my note about not texting, calling, or answering his calls.
I bit at my bottom lip like doing so had all the answers to my questions.
Why the hell was he here?
My finger hovered over the call icon.
I could just… press it. Listen to the phone ring, ask him why he was here, then demand he get his Black ass out of my hospital.
Or I could just delete his number, really be done with him. Because why did I still have his number after all this time? After everything?
I kissed my teeth as I pushed the button to darken my screen, tossing my phone back into my bag.
“Dammit, Whit,” I whispered to myself. “Get it together, girl.”
If only.
Cameos
Jazmine “Jazzy” Reeves – I Hate That I Love You
I Hate That I Love You is now complete and available in eBook for Brookelynite Daily subscribers. Read Episode 1 below!
