The Outcast by Eve M Riley EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Eve M Riley
- Language: English
- Genre: Contemporary Romance Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
KATE
My phone buzzes as I’m standing by the desk looking at the patient
list. As I glance down at the screen, the word David flashes across
it. I don’t hear from him often now, but he still sometimes calls.
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“Hello.”
“Kate!”
His familiar warm voice fills my ear like he’s pressed against me
whispering right into it, my hands on his warm skin and in his tousled hair.
My chest aches, and I close my eyes.
“How are you?” He says, his voice a soft rumble. “How’s it feel being a
proper doctor?”
I don’t want to talk to David. But you knew that before you picked up
the phone, Kate. That’s me, always responsible and buttoned down, doing
the right thing. And I’m not a real doctor yet, I’m part way through the first
year of a four-year residency to get my medical license. I roll my lips
together and stare at the computer screen.
“Oh, you know.” I give a fake laugh. “Real patients, rotating around
different specialties, that kind of thing.”
“Sounds like fun, and it’s what you’ve wanted your whole life. That
must be great. And how are you doing otherwise?”
So polite after everything—it’s like we’re strangers. And medicine no
longer feels like what I’ve wanted to do my whole life.
“Did you call for a reason?”
There’s a long silence on the other end of the phone.
“Just to say hello, to stay in touch with you, Kate.” I hear a long,
controlled breath on the other end. “After everything, it would feel very
weird not to even be in touch with you.”
I fiddle with the stethoscope around my neck. It’s been two years since
David and I ended things, and I’m over him now.
“Ms. Thurman.” A nurse appears at my side, face slightly flushed.
“I’ve got to go. I’m at work.”
“Call me later, Kate, yeah? It’d be good to catch up.”
There’s a rosy-red tint of dawn in the sky as the bus rattles over potholes
and through green lights, and every bone in my body screams at me to lie
down. Coming home from the nightshift is the best part of my day: The
streets are empty, and there’s seats on the bus. But my normal quiet
contemplation of Manhattan is impossible this morning. Last night was
nonstop carnage.
Someone came in with an axe wound on his head and his
back. A dispute with another guy, he said. Who does that? But that wasn’t
the worst incident of the night by any means: six cardiac arrests, four of
them we couldn’t save. Time stands still during an arrest: It’s just you, a
body, and the equipment.
All the medical rotations I did during college were fine, but working in
emergency medicine is shining a cold harsh light on every decision: Get it
right. There’s no time for thinking or planning; just surviving on my nerves
and minimal skills. Confronted with symptoms I don’t understand, ice
freezes my insides and my thoughts disappear down a rabbit hole: Did I
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