And that is a lot easier said than done since I haven’t looked at another woman since I first laid eyes on Cora when she was eighteen.
2
Cora
It’s been a couple days since I met with my therapist, but I’m still unhappy with the advice I was given. I don’t know how she can believe it’s just going to be a simple thing to forget a man like Patton. She obviously doesn’t understand what kind of man Patton is if she thinks I can just forget about him... I mean, it’s been a year since I’ve seen him in person, but I still think about him every day.
Focus on your work, I tell myself. School and work are what has gotten me through the years, and I know that’s what I need to do now. My patients deserve my complete attention. My dream is to one day be a psychologist that works with veterans, helping them with all their mental health needs. But until I can do more schooling, I’m a case worker that helps them with employment, housing, and making sure they get all the care they need... I do everything I can to help them. This is something I’ve always known I wanted to do, but ever since my brother passed, it has become a passion for me.
“Hey Cora, I hate to ask, but is there any way you can take over one of the new patients that was assigned to me?” my coworker Brenda asks as she stands in the open doorway of my office.
I blow out a breath and rub my hand across my face. Brenda tends to try and get out of the more difficult patients that are assigned to her. I usually take them not to help her out, but because those are the patients that deserve and need the most help. I hold my hand out for the file in her hands. “Can I take a look?”
I flip through the file of the patient, Troy Nelson, before I agree to it.
“Who’s the referring doctor?” I ask when I’m unable to recognize the scribbled signature in the file.
“The new one. I forget his name, but he seems to be a good one. You won’t mind working with him at all. He’s hot. Capital HOT. What do you think?” Brenda asks further, trying to hand off the new patient.
With a quick scan, I see that he is confined to a wheelchair, and I know this is the reason Brenda is trying to hand off the patient as she has an aversion to wheelchairs since it requires her to rearrange her office.
Sometimes I can’t help wondering why some people work in this field.
“No problem.” I agree to take the patient, Troy Nelson. I figure it’s high time I go and meet with the new doctor since it seems he is referring patients to all of the other case workers in the facility except for me.
Brenda no sooner walks out of my office than I walk next door to the veterans’ hospital and am directed to the office where the new doctor has been assigned. I go thinking that I’ll be able to read the name off the door or a placard on the desk, but when I get there, the new doctor is just leaving his office and bumps into me.
I’m so shocked, I can’t breathe.
“Patton?” I ask, not believing my eyes. His hair is longer, and he has a beard now, but it’s the same piercing blue eyes staring back at me.
“Yes, excuse me,” he says steadying me with his hands on my shoulders. He releases me quickly and looks at me completely void of any emotion.
I point to myself dumbly. “But… it’s me, Cora.”
He doesn’t recognize me?
“I know who you are, of course,” he says without a hint of a smile, but the direct eye contact lets me know he’s telling the truth. “I was just on my way back to the floor.”
“I’m here to talk with you about a patient that was just given to me, Troy Nelson. Is there a time I can come back—”
Patton turns and opens his office door. “I can discuss the patient with you now. I didn’t realize he was referred to you.”
“He wasn’t. He was just passed on to me since I’ve yet to receive any patients from you, but I’m sure that’s because you didn’t know I work with this hospital. Right?”
I can’t stop staring at him. He looks more serious than the sexy soldier who kissed me, but he’s just as attractive, if not more so than he was then. His face is covered in a beard, and there are gray hairs sprinkled throughout. He’s bigger than I remember; even his shoulders are broader. He’s even more appealing than I remember.
Patton doesn’t answer my question, but I can’t help but notice he doesn’t seem at all surprised to be running into me. What is going on with you, Patton?