The Man Who Saved Me

“So he’s probably gone trying to put somebody’s bones back together.”

Shonali nodded again.

“You don’t think he’ll call you?” prodded Malia.

Shonali shrugged.

“I don’t know. I mean, I did sit up in bed and shriek ‘fire’ when his thing rang.”

Malia snorted an atypically inelegant laugh.

“Oh, that must’ve been something. Well, he’s an upgrade from Fred, at any rate. But Shon, don’t jump into anything. You know that, right? It hasn’t been that long since you and Fred broke up. The last thing you need is to jump into another relationship, a serious one. You should just chill and let yourself enjoy this, whatever it might be. Don’t try to over think it.”

Shonali knew that was wise.

“That’s what I plan to do,” she assured Malia.

“If,” she added, “he calls me. Or comes by. I don’t have his number, and he doesn’t have mine. He knows where I live, though. So he might come by.”

Malia’s eyes were shrewd.

“Do you want him to?”

Shonali shrugged.

“I would like to spend some more time with him. He’s… Oh, he’s different, Mal. I mean, he’s not how I expected him to be at all. When he was so embarrassed when I tried to thank him. And he doesn’t, you know, have a savior complex or anything. And he told me about the time he was shot in the ass.”

Malia chuckled again.

“He sounds like an interesting guy,” she said.

Shonali giggled.

“Oh, he is. So I do hope he comes around. But if he doesn’t, well, I guess I can live with that, too. I mean, I wanted to thank him. I got to do that. And a lot more. Now, look at my tattoo and tell me how wonderful it is.”

Malia dutifully admired it.

By the time Shonali really got down to work, she was feeling a lot better.

Adam was still on her mind, of course. But he wasn’t a distracting presence in her thoughts anymore.

She could deal with it now.

*****

Adam, on the other hand, wasn’t feeling particularly happy.

When he worked, he blocked everything out. That was an essential skill.

He might not talk about it, but he had worked with gunfire in the background, knowing that there might be hostile fire at any moment.

You had to learn to block it all out and work, because people depended on you.

It had been his choice to go to dangerous places and do the work that was necessary there.

It hadn’t all been because of a sense of duty, either. Maybe that was why he didn’t brag about it.

Adam was from a wealthy family. He hadn’t had to become a doctor. But he had always wanted to be one, and his wealth and connections had always opened doors for him.

He’d known that, and he had always been intensely aware of it.

For a while, he hadn’t paid attention to that. All that mattered was that he was good at what he did.

But at some point, he had begun to doubt if his skills were really responsible for his reputation. Would he have had that reputation even if he hadn’t been so good?

Was he so good?

So he had made the radical and drastic decision to leave that privilege behind and go somewhere where he wasn’t known, and where his family’s name and connections meant nothing.

Bullets didn’t care what your name was.

He could still remember how his family had reacted to that. They had been incensed, and they had put every roadblock possible in his path, trying to dissuade him.

When that only made him more determined, they had tried to bribe him.

They hadn’t known him at all, not really.

But Adam knew that he hadn’t done it all out of pure altruism, as many of his colleagues had done. He had met so many truly good people that he couldn’t claim that goodness for himself.

He had met so many brave people in the places where he had gone. In Afghanistan, where he had gone soon after Shonali’s surgery, he had met such brave people – women who defied those who would kill them for just existing, men who protected their families with nothing more than their bare hands.

People who had claimed themselves not badly hurt so that precious supplies would go to loved ones.

Children who had pretended not to be hungry so that their younger siblings could eat.

Oh, he had seen such grace under such sobering conditions that he could never look at himself as a hero.

So he never bragged.

Especially because he knew that his purpose in going there had been self-serving.

But that didn’t seem to stop people from looking at him as a hero.

He shook himself out of his reverie and looked at the X-rays again.

The surgery was over. It had almost been a relief to work. When he was in surgery, he could block everything out. He didn’t think of anything.

The usual chatter in the Operation Theater was blocked out, as was the music that played.

Most people liked being in surgery with him. He didn’t insist on silence. As long as they did their jobs, he didn’t care how they dealt with it.

But once he was out of surgery, he hadn’t had an excuse to avoid the topic.

Shonali Wilde, thought Adam, giving up on the X-rays for the moment and leaning back in his chair.

What were the odds?

Astronomical, he assumed.

And what were the odds that he would spend an entire day with a stranger the way he had?

He had never done anything of the sort before.

And the night. He couldn’t forget the night he’d spent with her, either.

She had been passionate, intense, giving and so generous.

So very beautiful, thought Adam. Thinking of her was enough to make him want her again.

That was a problem. She was distracting him.

Firmly, he pushed all thoughts of her away from his mind and turned back to work.

He managed to do it for a while, but the moment his concentration relaxed, Shonali was right back in his mind.

With a growl, he got up and walked to the window.

He was lucky to have a window, of course. He was an asset.

That probably had something to do with his family name, too, thought Adam, scowling.

He didn’t feel like he liked much of what he saw.

Shonali was a distraction. He didn’t want any distractions in his life.

His work was the most important thing in his life. He knew that women didn’t accept that very easily, even if they claimed that they understood.

He’d never felt a real connection with anybody he had dated.

Honestly, since college, he couldn’t think of a single really serious relationship that he’d had.

That was a sobering thought.

And yet…

There was something about Shonali.

She was just so ready to embrace life and take whatever it threw at her.

She hadn’t agonized for weeks about getting a tattoo. She had decided that she was going to get one, decided what she wanted to get, and then she had gone ahead and done it.

He had spent ages wondering about it.

It was just a tattoo! He’d finally gotten it done and the world hadn’t shattered into a million pieces.

He always had had a habit of over thinking things.

Adam thought, with a wry grin, that he was definitely not acting like a man who’d just gotten laid. He should be a lot more cheerful than he was.

But it was a complication. Adam wasn’t sure if he could handle a complication like Shonali in his life.

Because he had no doubts that Shonali would be a complication. There was no middle ground with her. She loved life, and she believed in living it to the fullest.

She had even gotten him to act impulsively! He never did that.

And that was yet another reason why he should definitely not call her, thought Adam.

Not that he could, he realized, suddenly – he didn’t have her number.

He did know where she lived and worked.

But he couldn’t just go and drop in on her, could he?

Sighing, he went back to staring at bones and planning how he could fix them.