The Doctor

4

The walk home for Anna wasn't necessarily long, but it was boring and quite hot in the track pants and t'shirt she wore to bed. Anna wondered if Stella really did want to come to lunch, or if she was put on the spot and didn't have an excuse at hand, she hoped that Stella hadn't heard the things people had said about her being weird. 

She turned down her street and smiled at her apartment building in relief, it had been a long day or two; she didn't know, she felt jetlagged.

"Walk of shame or fame?" said a tall, wiry dark-skinned man.

Anna laughed.

"Neither actually, Joey."

He jumped down from where he sat on top of a stone pillar and walked beside Anna.

"Does that even exist?"

"Shouldn't you be at work?" Anna said changing the subject.

Joey shrugged.

"Quit, anyway, don't change the subject."

Anna stopped and stared up at Joey in frustration.

"What do you mean 'quit'? You can't just 'quit'."

"Well, I did. It was boring and they weren't even paying me the minimum wage, I gotta eat."

Anna sighed and kept walking, Joey humming a song as they strolled down the street together.

"So are you going to tell me?" Joey said, nudging Anna gently. 

"Tell you what?"

"Who you stayed with last night."

"How do you know I didn't stay at the hospital?" Anna said challengingly.

"Oh please, I've heard you go on about the beds at the hospitals for over a year. You wouldn't stay there even if someone died in your hands."

Anna clenched her teeth together and looked down at the ground, she hadn't thought of him ever since she left Stella's bedroom. The whole walk here she was busy thinking about Stella, thinking about the times that she had noticed her at work but didn't realise she was even looking at her, thinking about the lunch they were suppose to have together, alone. They were just outside the apartment building now and Anna couldn't be happier to leave Joey behind, not because he was a pest, but because she just needed to be alone and no reminders of what happened. 

"So, why are you out here anyway?" Anna asked coldly.

He gave a small smile.

"I forgot my keys."

Anna rolled her eyes and felt around in her coat pocket for her own keys, opening the door and letting herself in and Joey. She then unhooked the spare key to Joey's apartment and handed it to him, trying her hardest to look stern and formidable, but failing as a smile crept onto her face.

"Thanks, An." Joey walked down the hall with a grin and into his apartment as Anna pressed the button for the lift.

Her apartment was lonely and cold. Clothes that needed to be ironed and folded lay all over the couch apart from a small space where she sat, beside her spot lay an empty bottle of tequila and a book on engines that she brought after she stumbled down the street after to many shots. Anna threw down her scrubs and coat and flopped down into her dining room chair, looking at the clock above the stove. It was 12 already, she was hungry but too tired and fatigued to cook anything. She moved her eyes to the bench beside her tv, a picture of her brother in a gold frame smiled at her as she glared back. Josh, two years younger then Anna and a lot more popular than her, but that didn't change how he acted towards her, they were inseparable. Josh was wild, parties every possible day and night, heaps of friends with a range of friendliness, all types of drugs and drinks he could get into his bloodstream. Anna on the other hand was behaved, parties once a month if she was lucky to get invited and only close friends, but she too had had her fare share of drugs and still had too much alcohol. Josh was still in school when Anna started studying medicine and in her last year of residency, Josh was rushed into hospital. He had taken a pill, stumbled out onto the street and thugs mugged him. If he was sober, he would have been fine, but he fought back and they pulled a knife out and stabbed him three times. The man from the hospital was nearly a complete replica, the way he smiled at Anna when he knew that he was dying was what Josh did, trying to whisper something cheeky when he should of been laying still and concentrating on living. Their blood was the same, no matter how much pressure she held on the stab wounds, it seeped through her fingers, her voice sounded the same as she screamed for extra help and a surgeon, but with Josh when he realised he was dying she saw that he knew, she let go a little and just smiled at him with tears rolling down her nose and onto his forehead. He made a face when they landed on him, he never lost his humour, but there was pain in his eyes and fear, Anna would try her hardest to drink away that look, and it worked to some extent, until yesterday.

"Stop looking at me." Anna got up and slammed the picture down, collecting the half full bottle of alcohol and taking a swig. Her parents blamed her for Josh's death, she knew it, even if they never admitted it and swatted away the accusation with a "Oh, dear, have you been watching too much drama television?" or a "Such rot, honestly we're not monsters." 

Anna opened the pantry and got out a packet of dried fruit - all that was in the pantry that she could eat straight away. She backed out of the pantry and closed the door with her foot, she stopped dead when she saw the red light on her message machine flashing. Her parents only called that phone and as much as she wasn't in the mood for one of her mother's lectures or father's opinion on whether or whether not her ex boyfriend was good enough for her, she knew that if she ignored it the lectures would only be longer. She rolled eyes, already feeling a little drunk and grabbed the phone dialling her parents number.

"Hi, Anna," her mum answered with slight irritation in her voice, "we thought you may have been in trouble, it's been over six hours!"

"I'm fine. Alive."

"Terrific. Your father and I were wondering if you wanted to have lunch on Sunday? Just you, me, your father of course but Dylan from down the road. Poor boy, looking a bit lonely, ever so polite."

"I'm busy," Anna said bluntly, it wasn't a lie.

"Oh," her mother paused. "Doing what?"

"I'm having lunch with a friend."

"Ahh," said her mother in a tone that suggested she understood a hint that wasn't even there, "a special friend." It wasn't a question even though it should of been. When Anna was silent she added, "that kind of friend?"

"Sure," Anna said too tired to explain that it was Stella, a girl and not really even a friend, "that kind of friend."

"Well, I mustn't bother you. You sound tired."

"Yeah, a man died in my hands last night," Anna said dully.

"That sounds awful, Anna, sweetie," Anna's mother said with no sympathy at all.

"Does it? Just the usual," Anna said with mock indifference.

"I'd better go," her mother said in a rush.

"Off you go then, your roses might need watering." And Anna hung up the phone, walked down the hall swinging on her tequila and fell into bed.