Chapter 6
By Monday, I had developed a sophisticated strategy for not thinking about Alexander Reeves.
It involved thinking about him constantly while insisting I was not.
I sat at my desk with a highlighter in one hand and a pharmacology textbook open in front of me.
“Mechanism of action,” I read aloud. “Selective inhibition of—”
I enjoyed tonight.
I shut my eyes.
“No.”
I tried again.
I enjoyed tonight.
My forehead met the textbook with a soft thud.
“What is wrong with me?”
A knock sounded, followed immediately by Mia entering with two mugs.
“Emergency hot chocolate.”
I lifted my head. “You know knocking traditionally includes waiting for permission.”
“Not in emergencies.”
She handed me a mug, sat on the edge of the bed, and looked at me with the predatory patience of a woman who had come for information.
“So.”
“No.”
“I haven’t asked anything.”
“You were about to.”
“Tell me about the General.”
“Nothing happened.”
“You went to dinner with the country’s most intimidating bachelor and have been staring into walls for two days. Something happened.”
“It was dinner.”
“With a man.”
“People eat, Mia.”
“They don’t usually smile at dirty spatulas the next morning.”
I turned back to my notes. “I was pleased with the cleanliness of the kitchen.”
She leaned over my shoulder.
“Grace. Your book is upside down.”
I looked.
It was.
Mia folded over laughing.
“I knew that,” I said, flipping it around.
“Of course you did.”
She recovered long enough to point toward my dresser. “You still have his handkerchief.”
My eyes betrayed me by flicking toward the top drawer.
Mia’s smile widened.
“There.”
“There what?”
“The look.”
“There was no look.”
“Throw it away, then.”
“Fine.”
“Go on.”
I stood, opened the drawer, and reached for the navy cloth.
Mia reached too.
I moved faster.
Before I understood what I was doing, I had the handkerchief pressed against my chest and my body turned protectively away from her.
We both went still.
Mia raised one eyebrow.
“Don’t.”
“I said nothing.”
“Your face is saying plenty.”
I put the handkerchief back with far more care than the situation deserved.
“I just need to return it.”
“You washed it.”
“Polite people wash borrowed things.”
“You ironed it.”
I stared at her.
She stared back.
“I was practicing.”
That ended her ability to speak for nearly a minute.
When she finally left, still laughing, I opened the drawer again.
The handkerchief lay on top of my notebooks. Clean, folded, faintly scented with cedar.
It should have been nothing.
Instead, it reminded me of a soaked tablecloth and a man who had chosen not to embarrass me when doing so would have been easy.
I moved it beneath my notebooks.
Closed the drawer.
Opened it again.
The notebooks might wrinkle it.
“Grace,” I whispered to myself. “Get a grip.”
I moved it back to the top.
At the teaching hospital later that week, work finally gave me several uninterrupted hours of sanity.
The corridors smelled of antiseptic and coffee. Nurses moved between rooms with purposeful speed. I spent the morning checking observations, assisting with medication rounds, and helping families make sense of instructions they had already heard twice but were too frightened to remember.
An elderly patient, Mrs. Higgins, caught my hand after I adjusted her pillows.
“You’ll make a good nurse,” she said.
The quiet certainty in her voice warmed me more than any exam grade ever had.
For nearly four hours, I did not think about Alexander.
Then, while packing my notes for lunch, something navy slipped from between the pages and fell onto the nurses’ station.
I stared at it.
Somehow I had brought his handkerchief to the hospital.
Ada, one of my classmates, glanced over.
“Cute.”
“It’s not mine.”
“I didn’t ask.”
I shoved it back into my bag before she could look closer.
Apparently, I had reached the stage where even my subconscious was conspiring against me.
