Something Borrowed

Chapter 3. MRIs of you

Chapter 3. MRIs of you

(Lucas)

Lucas looked at the MRI again, a frown marring his feature, his eyes sharp on every single detail. He didn't miss anything as he scanned it from every angle. His phone rang in the silence of his office. Lucas saw it was his mom and he ignored it. He had his hands full with work here and the ensuing custody case in the court, all thanks to June.

He didn't need his mom's constant quip and subtle barbs about how he was the one to blame, because he was the one who chose to marry June. As far as his mom was concerned, marrying June was like willingly walking inside the incinerator or making a burr hole in your skull for no apparent reason. He agreed, but what could he do now? It was done and here he was, still bearing the brunt of June and her skillful manipulations.

But his mom didn't know the whole story.

I don't have time to think about her anymore. I just wish I can get my son back from her grasp.

Thinking about Joel made Lucas' heart twist in pain and yearning. His eyes, a beautiful golden brown, the boy was Lucas' mini version. He turned one just two months ago and when Lucas went to see him on his birthday, the boy looked at Lucas like he was a mean stranger, though Lucas couldn't blame the little guy. He was almost a stranger to his own son, again all thanks to June.

June, f*cking June. Why did you come into my life?!

His head pounded when he stood up from his chair and walked out of his office. He felt like he would suffocate in the bitterness and rage if he sat there any longer, thinking about June and everything June destroyed. June was like a raging hurricane. She came into his life, and upended everything and when she left, he had to stay and pick up the debris she left.

"Doctor Turner, the patient in 204, Rayden Haines, he woke up." Nurse Esme said as she saw him walking out.

She had a thick patient history file in her hand, and a small smile on her. "His vitals looks normal. And he seemed to be recovering quite well," Esme said before she scanned him. "Are you all right, doctor?"

Trust Esme to see everything from just a look on his face. "I am good, just a headache, Esme. Thank you and I will go and have a chat with Mr. Haines,." Lucas said with a smile in her direction.

Lucas never talked much with anyone in the hospital except his only friend in this hospital, Chase Mitchell, paediatric surgeon.

He was always cold and curt, and he was not the warm and cuddly type, he had never been. The nurses mockingly called him Mr. Clinical and most of the doctors envied Lucas and his steady, unshakeable fingers.

"Can you check Patient in one-oh-six and make sure to note his O2 stats and BP in the chart, Esme." Lucas said with an uncharacteristic smile in her direction, which would always made young nurses in the hospital sigh with envy. They had yearned for that one smile and they had never gotten it from Lucas.

Lucas had a soft spot for the hospital's head Nurse, Nurse Esme. The woman must be only a little bit younger than his own mother and she knew everyone in the hospital. She had kind eyes and kinder smile, sometimes he wondered whether her patients got better just by looking at her. Esme knew everything that comes in, goes out and walk around in this hospital—she was so good. The way she did her job, meticulous and careful with a bit of kindness made her his favorite. He had worked with so many and he had never admired any, but he admired Esme for her gumption, for her experience, and for the way she dealt with sometimes adamant patients, it was something of an art.

"Hello Mr. Haines, you are looking well rested. How are you doing?" Lucas asked as he walked in and started looking through the chart in his hand. The young man with a bandage around his head looked up and smiled at Lucas and nodded his head.

He was admitted a week ago with persistent headaches, seizures and violent outbursts. His mother had told the doctors that he was usually so kind and timid, but in a month, his anger had become explosive and his headaches had become constant. After extensive tests and differentials, he was diagnosed by Mercy Memorial's diagnostic team with Tuberous Sclerosis, a rare genetic condition that caused benign masses or tumours to develop in brain and other body organs.

Rayden had one in his brain, that was starting to affect his day to day functioning, causing epileptic seizures and the diagnostic team had called on Lucas for a consultation and Lucas took one look at the MRI and he wanted that tumour gone from Rayden's brain—non-cancerous masses were easy to remove and they had clear margins, but even the benign tumors in the brain was a risk he didn't want to take.

The brain is one of the most complex organs in the human body. It is made up of more than 100 billion nerves that communicate in trillions of connections and one single blip, one single wrong synapses and everything, everything will collapse. Lucas had always been so enamored with the way human brains functioned and there was no was he could have become anything other than a neurologist.

"For someone whose skull had been just opened, I feel pretty okay, Doctor Turner." The man smiled loopily up at him, high on morphine and pain medications.

"Any blurred vision?" Lucas took a step closer and shone a torch into his eyes. He blinked and nodded no. "Difficulty in speech?"

"No. I feel better. I feel like myself again." He grinned again. "The pain is gone."

"If you have any discomfort or just any concern, you can ask for me, okay. Now, I will stop disturbing you and let you go back to your sleep." Lucas said as he put the chart down, checked his vitals, his eyes, everything.

"Thank you, doctor Turner. The nurses assured me that you are the best there is and they told me I should be lucky to get your fingers."

Lucas smiled and shrugged. "Oh, only the best for our patients." Though he looked polite, his voice held a hint of arrogance, but then when you were working with something as complex as brains, a bit of arrogance would become a necessary part of life, just as necessary as the steady fingers and nerves. Holly often said he had God complex, and he had always chuckled at that.

He left his patient and rubbed his stomach when it gave a loud sound.

Diagnoses: Hunger. Treatment course: Le Seinè cafe's buttery scones and Pasta Alfredo.

Lucas was so busy he hadn't eaten since this morning and his stomach was making weird noises, as if it was screaming at him to feed it already. He pulled off his coat, hung it over his shoulder and walked out of the hospital and instantly closed his eyes with a sigh of relief when chill air cleared his mind and softly embraced his body.

Le Seinè was a small cafe near Mercy Memorial hospital and it was one of Lucas' favorite place to eat. The small cozy place made him feel like he was back in his small town. It lacked the usual Los Angeles bustle and noise and that was what he liked best. It felt like somewhere he could relax and not be bothered with too many people.

But when he got nearer to the cafe, his eyes narrowed in irritation, when he saw people, so many people, bustling around, talking, shouting, with cameras and light reflectors.

No lunch for me today. Who the hell are these people? He thought grumpily.

It was either no lunch or he should brave his heart and buy something from the hospital cafeteria. And he chose to brave his heart. After all, he married June and she was worse than the cafeteria food.

There was something really true about what they said about hospital foods. Maybe it was the general heartbreak and the smell of blood, tears and grief that hung in the air, but hospital foods always tasted the worse.

"Tammie. Oh, damn. You give me heart attacks." A man voice said.

Lucas stopped when he heard that name. His eyes were quick in searching the place for Tammie. He was almost sure it was Holly's Tammie.

It had been so long, but he could still remember those days when she followed—or more like stalked—him and tormented him with every chance she could get. That woman had been a thorn on his behind all through his teenage life.

He looked through the glass windows of the cafe and there he saw the most beautiful sight.

Of course, it was Holly's little sister, who was not so little anymore. She hadn't been little for a while. Lucas had last seen her during his nightmare of a wedding with June. She had left halfway through the ceremony and he had seen how her eyes looked angry and he had wondered what June had done to make her mad.

Holly said she was an editor in the fashion magazine, she didn't say her sister is also a model. Lucas thought as he took another look at the beautiful woman—his eyes were instinctively drawn to her like a moth to the flame. He just hoped he wouldn't burn. He couldn't afford to burn. His whole body was already covered in first degree burns, that were invisible.

She was in a deep red dress that looked like it was made just for her, just to embrace her softness. The dress hugged her curves—dangerously tempting curves—and draped her body in a way that made everything hidden much more desirable. It was like a sweet seduction, the way the dress swished as she turned, the way it molded her body, the way it danced to her tune.

It was made to torture unsuspecting men, like him and then trap them.

Tamara was laughing at something the man standing next to her was saying, and the wind carried her breathy laughter, gentle, like wind chimes tinkling in the air and Lucas felt something stir underneath his skin. It was like desire. And he hated it, hated that feeling of hot pulsing need. Lust brought along unwanted complications and Lucas didn't need any more complications in his life. It was already a twisted, tangled mess of iron and steel bars.

I don't need a secondary disease aggravating an already existing one, do I, now? He thought with a frown, but God, he couldn't look away. His eyes refused the order of his brain, but how could that be possible? Brain should always be the master!

She looked delicious. She looked innocently sinful, wrapped in temptation and he was so ashamed that he was thinking of his best friend's little sister like that.

Oh, she is not little, she is a woman now...

Get a grip, you i***t. He cursed himself and turned away from the distracting sight of Tamara and her gorgeous body and sighed deeply.

He almost instantly remembered that one kiss she had stolen from him when she thought he was drunk out of his mind—he wasn't.

Of course, he wasn't. He just pretended.

It had taken him a long, long time to forgot that kiss.

***

(Flashback)

"Holly, do not bring me to my house. My mother will kill me." Lucas warned as Holly drove the car. Lucas was on the passenger seat, his head lolling from side to side as the car jerked forward. Holly was a very bad driver, but Lucas was in no state to drive.

"And what the hell are you doing? Drive properly."

"Yeah, not my fault. Your truck is older than my dead great grand father." Holly commented as she swerved and narrowly missed the tree.

"I hope you are not driving me straight to the graveyard."

"Haha, look, you are a real funny guy."

"I'm funny how? Like I'm a clown? I amuse you?" Lucas smiled at her through half closed eyes and Holly shook her head with a sigh.

"Goodfellas?! God, how much did you drink?"

"Only this little glass." He put two fingers together and he was not actually lying. He only took one vodka shot and his head was already killing him. This was why he never drank before. It was all Holly's fault for taunting him about how much of a wuss he was.

"The girl in this house... don't want to go in. She will..." Lucas whined and then started to sing something in a loud voice and Holly shushed him.

"You are going to wake up my parents. Quiet down."

"Is he drunk?"

Oh, here she is. The little devil. Satan's big sister, with big, big gray eyes.

"Tamara." He gave her a lopsided smile. "I am not drunk. See, I can stand straight." He pulled away from Holly and almost stumbled. His face would have met with the stairs, but Tamara caught him before he could do a meet and greet with the floor. He blinked up at her and she smiled.

"You are funny when you are drunk. You should drink often." She said as she stared at him, her dark grey eyes laughing. Amused. He loved how she smiled, with her whole face. The small wrinkle at the side of her eyes... the way her grey eyes glinted... the way her lips would pull up and tilt just at one side... the way her dimples winked on the left side of her chubby cheeks... It was an experience to be felt.

"Can you please get him to my room? I need to go and eat. I am so damn hungry and I can not deal with the moron."

"Sure." Tamara said to Holly. "Hey, Luc, can you lean against me? I will walk you to Holly's room and then you can sleep, okay?"

"Ooookaay." He said in a sing song voice as she grabbed him around his waist and he followed her like a good boy.

As soon as he reached Holly's room, he fell in her soft bed with a thud and closed his eyes. He loved the way colors danced behind his eyes and he could feel Tamara gently pulling his sneakers off and then removing his socks.

His lied there, afraid to move. His whole body felt like heavy lead as she bent down and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead.

"Goodnight, Luc." She whispered and her breath, hot and warm, gently caressed his cheeks. He almost groaned aloud, but he didn't. He knew she was doing it because she thought he was already asleep.

Go away, Tammie... He screamed inside his head, but Tamara didn't go away. She sat next to him and started pushing his hair back from his forehead.

"You will never kiss me when you are awake. But I don't.... I just want to kiss you, Luc, one time. It is so wrong, isn't it?" She whispered as she bent down next to him and his brain was screaming at him to stop this, to wake up.

Push her away. Push her back. She is your best friend's little sister.

But he didn't. He couldn't. Must be the alcohol running through his system. He was frozen and his heart ran wildly inside his chest and there were thousand thoughts, million feeling running through every bundle of nerves cells in his brain.

She gently touched his face, traced his nose, his eyebrows before she bent down and placed her soft lips on his.

She tasted like strawberries and honey, she tasted so sweet, so innocent. He knew it was her first kiss. First kisses were supposed to be special. And he simply lied there like a dead rock, feeling like a p*rvert. But he couldn't move.

He felt like such a bastard to have stolen her kiss away from her.

He wanted to kiss her back. To let her feel everything you could feel from a first kiss if the kiss was just right. But he didn't open his eyes or move. He couldn't.

She pulled back too soon. "I am sorry, Luc," she said and her voice was soft with guilt.

And then she walked away and he opened his eyes.

(Flashback ends)

***

Lucas mindlessly rubbed his lips, before he walked away from the place. He didn't want to say hi to her, not when he had just been thinking about her that way. That would be uncomfortable for him and he didn't want uncomfortable.

He rather liked his life as it was now, trouble free and uncomplicated. Lucas walked towards his hospital when his phone pinged, again.

He pulled it out of his pant pocket with a sigh, and saw that it was a message from Holly.

Hols: How r u, blah, blah... You didn't attend your mom's call, stupid. She was trying to talk with you for a while now... and she called me and complained about how you always ignore her calls. oh, and Luc, June is DEAD.

Lucas stared at the message once again, trying to understand Holly's word. He rubbed his eyes and read it once again, but the words didn't change. It was still there. And his brain wasn't playing tricks on him.

Just like that?! June is dead? Only Holly would throw life-changing event like death as an afterthought, like some sort of freebie for the things you have bought!

Lucas stopped on his track as he read the message. The first thought in his head was,

Now my boy and I can be free from her grip.

But poor Lucas.

Knowing June, he should have known she wouldn't have made it easier for him.

Oh, she wouldn't. She had big plans...

___