Mend

𝑶𝒏𝒆

Present day...

I was completely out of touch with my surroundings as I moved from aisle to aisle in the quiet Valley Care Pharmacy. I'd had a rough, restless night, which resulted in my whole morning being a drag.

I was on autopilot, my brain only managing to focus on the task at hand, filling my shopping basket with items from a list I'd memorised a couple of years ago.

Diapers, hygiene wipes, facial tissues, salted crackers, rice cakes. Check, check, check. The only thing I looked forward to during my biweekly pharmacy run was the aisle of gifts, where I would purchase two fresh bouquets of flowers.

I'd just turned a corner into the aisle, my nose already picking up the sweet scents of the day's fresh picks when my foot slipped unexpectedly on something wet, my body colliding painfully with the floor.

"Ehh!" I heard a man's voice exclaim as he rushed to my side. "Are you okay?"

With tightly shut eyes, I slowly sat up, internally assessing the pain I'd sustained from the fall. Apart from a dull pain in my wrist and hand, which I'd held out in an attempt to break my fall, I was alright.

"I'm fine." I said, finally opening my eyes to see who I was talking to.

The man squatting in front of me with worried eyes and a deep frown on his face shook his head. "You're bleeding."

"Bleeding?" I asked, my hand flying to the spot on my forehead he'd pointed to. I sucked in a breath as pain shot through my head as soon as my finger touched the gash above my right eyebrow. "Aii, I don't have time for this."

I finally got to my feet, stumbling a little as a rush of dizziness hit me.

"Hey, slow down." the man said, quickly tearing open the box of facial tissues I hadn't even paid for yet and pressing a couple of them against the open wound. The pressure from his hand burst open a new bubble of pain, which made me wince.

"You need to get this cleaned up and get some stitches." the man, who was standing too close, said authoritatively. "Come with me."

"Excuse me?" I blurted and quickly pulled away from him, my hand now holding the tissues in place. "I don't know you. Why would I go anywhere with you?"

"Uhh, because I'm a doctor?" he said in a way that sounded like I should have noticed that already.

Only then did I notice that he was in black scrubs and a lab coat with the words Valley Care Hospital embroidered on the breast pocket, the basket he'd abandoned on the floor when he ran to my aid full of urine drainage catheters and insulin patches. He was as tall as me, with the rough, coily hair on his head cut into a sophisticated fade. His wide shoulders and toned chest filled his scrubs and lab coat out perfectly and I made sure not to let my eyes wander further down his body for fear of igniting thoughts I shouldn't be having about this stranger.