Prescribed (The White Coat Series)
Prescribed
By D.D. Parker
Published by Parker Press
Copyright © 2014 D.D. Parker
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not be constructed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
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Emma Wells has a very unlucky life. She went into college thinking she wanted to become a doctor but didn’t realize she fainted at the sight of blood. Until now.
After banging her head on the floor, she’s taken care of by Dr. Ryan Matthews, an unfairly hot specimen of a man. She can’t take her eyes off him and their chemistry is becoming undeniable.
Strong. Handsome. Charming.
And even that couldn’t encompass everything Ryan has to offer. Only thing is, she’s already taken by another man. One that would never let her go.
Ever.
Will Dr. Matthews still be able to prescribe Emma just what she needs? Or will Emma’s own demons come to tear them apart?
College just got a whole lot harder.
"Oh my God, please make it stop!" howled the woman who laid in front of me, her scarred hands turning paper white as she gripped onto the railings next to her, her head thrown back in a cry of anguish. Blood was pouring down her thigh in thick streams, seemingly never ending. The tiled floor underneath was collecting a pool of crimson as she thrashed in the bed. I could see where the knife tore her thigh open, revealing the delicate workings underneath. The blood in my own body started to rush to my head as my knees began to feel wobbly underneath my weight.
"Em, you ok, girl?"
It was Courtney. I could hear her voice, but it sounded so muffled, as if she were talking at me through a thick brick wall. My vision started clouding over as I felt her hand reach to grab my lower back and support my weight. I was too much for her though, slipping past her grip and falling straight back onto the tiled floor.
My head slammed the ground and my vision immediately blacked out.
This was a horrible way to start off my first day.
A few minutes later and I was regaining my eyesight, a bright white light shining down from on top of me in a thin, straight beam.
Wait, am I dead?
"Emma! Jeez, are you ok?"
Nope, still alive.
I tried nodding my head to reassure Courtney that I was fine, but I could only manage a stiff jerk. Every movement sent a sharp pain shooting through the back of my brain. Courtney and another nurse helped lift me up onto my feet and slowly walked me over to a wheelchair nearby. The woman who was yelling moments before was now under the weight of some really heavy painkillers as a doctor tried to remove a jagged knife that had embedded itself in her thigh. And here I was thinking I would never pass out at the sight of blood.
You learn something new every day.
"Emma, the doctor is going to want to check you over to make sure everything's ok," the nurse said as she wheeled me through the sterile hospital halls. What were the chances that I would come out on my first day as a volunteer and leave as a patient? Only me with my unfortunate but permanently attached cloud of bad luck.
And then came the whole self-introspective part about me not liking blood yet going to UCLA and majoring in Biology so that I could become some sort of doctor. There was a bit of a conflict going on there. I now realized that I wouldn't have been able to even get close to a gushing open wound, much less perform surgery on it. It was something I didn’t consider when I sat through our freshman orientation, and the dean went over different majors we could choose. I always liked science and I enjoyed visiting my family doctor, so I figured being pre-med would make the most sense. I just had never actually been in the room when something this serious was going down.
"This is great," I mumbled under my breath, feeling the implications of my newfound fear of blood.
"What was that, honey?"
“Nothing, just have to re-plan my whole life again,” I said as the nurse wheeled me around a pastel pink corner and into a large steel elevator that felt colder than the hallway. Saying it out loud made me realize just how ridiculous my life was at certain points. I always thought I couldn't get any more curveballs thrown at me since the whole thing with Eric happened, but I guess I was wrong.
"Oh, baby girl, almost everyone passes out on their first day."
"Did you?" I asked, feeling a little more encouraged.
"Oh no, honey, I was a risin' star straight from the start! Shoulda seen me palpate like no one’s business."
I smiled at her spunky attitude. I felt like I could learn something from her.
"Oh my god, Em, you scared the shit out of me."
And then there was Courtney. I think I already learned all I could from her.
"Yeah, wasn't really planning on it," I said, feeling my head begin to throb with the telltale warning signs of a full blown migraine coming around the corner.
"Well don't worry,
Dr. Matthews
is gonna check you out."
She said the name
Dr. Matthews
with a special emphasis, one that I couldn't quite pinpoint. I felt her hesitate before whispering her next line straight into my ear, her breath echoing in my swollen head like a little bull set loose in my mind's china shop.
"The one you said had that really tight ass whenever he wore those navy blue scrubs.”
"Courtney!" I said, scared that the nurse would overhear and give me another reason to be morbidly embarrassed today. I guess if there were one good place to be morbidly embarrassed it would be a hospital.
"What? You know it's true. Give it a little pat for me, I have chemistry lab right now." She gave me a quick peck on the back of my probably bleeding head and got off on the main floor, headed out to the chemistry lab building, calling out a “feel better!” behind her. I watched her go, wondering how much homework I was now going to be forced to catch up on after missing my own classes. And classes today had mandatory attendance too, which sucked, especially when one of them is scheduled at 7:15 in the morning. A horrifying reality that I was forced to face when I chose to take a Medical Terminology course that was only offered at the butt crack of dawn.
The elevator doors dinged opened again on the second floor, where the nurse wheeled me into a sterile examination room and closed the door behind her as she left, her bright yellow crocs squeaking underneath her on the floor. I sat there, next to the plastic covered bed and underneath an aging poster advocating good vaginal health through regular monitoring.
Right.
Monitoring
.
I swung the wheelchair around and grabbed a pamphlet about safe sex, horrifying chlamydia pictures included. I placed it neatly back in it's display stand and sat there, hands resting on my light blue volunteer scrubs. My head still pounded but it was starting to feel a little fainter. It was probably the calm before the storm though.
It always was.
I ran my hands through my wavy dark black hair, feeling to see if I was in fact bleeding. Thankfully, my hand came back dry but I did realize that I really needed a good shampooing.
I was playing with the crinkling plastic on the examination table when I heard the door open. I looked up from the wrinkled paper and witnessed what had to be one of the finest specimen of a man I had ever laid my eyes on. Literally, my breath was lost for a second and my head felt light again, which wasn’t because of the concussion I most likely had.
There, surrounded by a corny and probably hallucinatory halo of bright white light, stood my version of superman wearing a white doctor's coat. Everything about him from his breath-taking green eyes, to his perfect smile, to his muscular arms, and even to his thick-rimmed Ray-Ban glasses was perfect. The way his broad shoulders filled out the dark navy blue scrubs underneath the pristinely pressed white coat was mesmerizing. His stethoscope bounced gently onto his surely perfectly sculpted chest, hanging off his powerful neck. He walked with a confidence that demanded attention and his presence in the room was immediately felt.
Oh, and that ass did fill out those scrubs
flawlessly
.
"Hi there, Miss Emma Wells. I’ll be your doctor, Ryan Matthews. How are you feeling?” Dr. Matthews asked, sitting on a rolly chair and rolling his way to a stop in front of me. I couldn't help but notice his strong, sturdy legs spread wide and brushing against the outsides of mine as he pushed in to get a closer look at my pupils. I glanced at the hint of a bulge in between his meaty thighs. My mind wandered to other things as he shone his pencil-like flashlight into my left eye.
"I'm doing ok. Just took a little fall, no biggie," I said, trying to play down the fact that I passed out at the sight of blood like some ten year old girl traumatized by her older brother's Halloween gags.
"Well your pupils look normal and there's no blood on the back of your head," he said as his hand reached around and felt about for any dents or cracks. Wouldn't that suck if I had a dent in my scalp?
Thankfully Dr. Matthews didn't report on any dents. Instead he rolled himself back to the counter and wrote some scribble into his electronic notes. I couldn’t help but notice how incredible he smelled as his strong, musky cologne began to fill my senses. I watched him continue writing, observing the way his right foot bounced up and down.
Then the edges of my vision began to blur.
"I want a cat."
"What?" he asked.
"A cat is a good pet. Sometimes fun sometimes fast."
"Fast... Emma are you ok?"
My eyes rolled to the back of my head as my body seized up. My muscles spasmed out of control, throwing me out of the wheelchair and back to the floor as Dr. Matthews rushed over and supported the back of my head, preventing me from slamming it back on the floor. My hands flailed around uncontrollably like desperate fish dropped out of water as my teeth smashed together, making me feel like my jaw was going to break in half. My legs were stiff boards thrashing about, threatening to break my bones. It felt like an eternity but the seizure finally passed, leaving me trying to catch my breath and understand what the hell had just happened.
I had only had a seizure once before, but it wasn't supposed to be a reoccurring problem. Then again, that seizure did happen because of a similar blow to my head. That one was just worse. Much, much worse.
Why was I always getting hit?
"Emma, you're ok, it was a post-traumatic seizure caused from your concussion. I want to get some tests run on you and keep you here for at least forty-eight hours just to make sure you're ok,” he said, leaning over me with his hand still under my head. If this was the result of every post-traumatic stress seizure, then bring on the stress.
"I mean, I don't have a choice do I?" I asked, pushing myself weakly up onto my hands.
"Not really, no," he said, smiling in that way I thought only happened in cheesy romantic movies where fifty celebrities get together to exploit a holiday and title the film as the said holiday. But here he was, directly above me, his lips curling up at the corner, revealing the straightest and whitest teeth underneath.
I wasn't really sure why he was smiling. Because I was staying to be observed so that I didn't die suddenly in my sleep or because he wanted an excuse to talk to me? The latter option was totally self-centered, but hey, a girl could dream.
The night of the fall was full of various tests, some invasive and some less so invasive but still quite scary. Beeping machinery surrounded me throughout the dark as the sound of a nearby heart monitor lulled me to sleep. It was during a dream involving a truly handsome John Stamos and a very hot Channing Tatum that I was rudely awoken to the sound of a cup falling and smashing to the ground. I was used to reacting quickly to loud, sudden noises so my eyes snapped open. Standing there, under the bluish white hospital lights, was Dr. Ryan Matthews smiling awkwardly in my direction.
“Sorry about that,” he said, gesturing down at the spilled orange juice now seeping underneath the light wooden hospital furniture.