Chapter 5
Exam Room 1 was smaller than the hallway and it made everything louder. The pale bluish-gray walls were closer. The white floor shined under the fluorescent light. The door was locked. I could hear the click of the lock even after it was done.
The woman in the white coat didn't stand over me. She pulled the little rolling stool over and sat down so her knees were lower than mine. Her light blue cuff showed at her wrist and her black watch caught the light. She kept her hands where I could see them, palms open on her own knees. She breathed slow on purpose and I could hear it.
"You did good holding it closed," she said. Her voice was low. "I'm not going to grab."
I didn't answer. My hands were still fisted in the front of my dark gray hooded jacket. The hood was still up around my head. My cheeks were wet but I wasn't making that loud crying sound anymore. It had dropped down to heavy breathing that hurt my chest a little. I clutched tighter.
She nodded like she understood that sound. She waited a beat. Then she touched the zipper on her own white coat, not mine.
"See this?" she said. She pinched her own zipper pull between two fingers. "Same as yours. It just goes up and down on tracks. Nothing sharp under it. Nothing that will touch skin if we don't want it to."
She slid hers down an inch, then back up. The sound was soft.
"I'm going to show you my hands are empty," she said. She turned both hands over. Front, then back. Empty palms. The watch shifted on her wrist. "Can I check one inch? Just at the collar. Not down where you're holding. One inch so I can see if the skin is okay for the nurse chart. You can say stop and I stop."
She didn't move her hand toward me yet. She left it in the air between us, fingers a little curled, not reaching. I watched the space between her hand and my jacket. It was maybe six inches. My breathing got louder.
I wanted to show I was listening. My right fist loosened just a little. The fleece under my knuckles went from bunched to flat. I felt the zipper teeth under the fabric. Cold. Then I thought about what was under it and my stomach turned and I fisted again, hard, both hands now even tighter than before. I shook my head once. Small.
She saw the loosening and the re-clutch and didn't pretend she didn't.
"That was a test," she whispered. "You checked if it felt safe and it didn't yet. That's okay. That's you doing your job."
She pulled her waiting hand back a little, to give me more air. "We stay closed until you say. I'm right here."
The quiet stretched. The fluorescent light hummed. I could hear my own breath in my hood. In and out. In and out. She matched hers to mine without making it obvious, just a little slower.
Then someone knocked on the exam room door. Three quick knocks, not loud because of the lockdown but urgent.
The woman in the white coat didn't stand. She said, "Who is it?" without raising her voice much.
"Marisol," a woman said through the door. The receptionist. "Camera. You need to see."
The woman in the white coat looked at me. "I'm going to open the door a crack to look at the screen, okay? No one comes in. You stay right there."
I nodded, but I tucked my chin down deeper into my hood and held my jacket with both fists against my ribs.
She turned the lock, cracked the door two inches, and Marisol slid a small black monitor through the gap. It was the parking lot camera feed. The screen showed flat pale winter light and the gray asphalt outside the clinic. My eyes went right to the truck.
It was parked near the entrance, not in a space, angled like it had pulled in fast. Light gray, maybe, with a dark smear along the side. I couldn't see the plate from the angle. I couldn't see him inside, but the driver's door was closed and the truck wasn't moving.
"He pulled in thirty seconds ago," Marisol whispered through the crack. "He hasn't gotten out. Front doors are locked, he tried the handle once. I got it on video."
The woman in the white coat took the monitor carefully with both hands and angled it so I could see too, but she didn't bring it close to my jacket. We both stared at that little screen. The truck just sat there in the winter light. The empty parking lot behind it looked too bright.
She didn't reach for my zipper again. Her hand with the black watch stayed on the edge of the monitor, steady.
"Okay," she said quietly, to Marisol and to me. "We stay locked. We don't open for him."
May you like
Marisol's voice was tight. "Police still en route."
I kept my fists locked on my jacket. The heavy breathing was back, fogging the edge of my hood a little when I breathed out. The one-inch check was gone from the room. Now the whole tension was out there, on the screen, in that truck by the entrance, while the zipper stayed closed between me and the woman who'd asked so careful.
