My December Darling: A Holiday Novella

Whenever I lose a patient, I always fall into the harmful pattern of punishing myself for not doing everything possible to help them. It isn’t healthy or truthful, but I can’t help it. I’m the doctor in charge of saving lives, so whenever I lose one, it feels like I failed not only them, but myself.

Losing people is an unfortunate but common part of emergency medicine, but regardless of how many times Aiden or other coworkers tell me that, every death hits me hard.

It’s why I couldn’t show face, despite telling Catalina I’d meet her after our shifts. I didn’t want her to watch me spiral, so I pulled back. It’s my perfectionism acting up again, and instead of letting her see my self-loathing and unrealistic standards I hold myself to, I shielded her from that side of myself.

I pull up the text thread for the third time this afternoon, only to be disappointed when I read over the same text I sent an hour ago.

Catalina must have still been asleep, so I distract myself until she texts me back hours later.

She doesn’t answer right away, so I spend the next thirty minutes panic-cleaning the apartment, preparing for the best-case scenario of Catalina coming over while anticipating the worst.

You shouldn’t have stood her up. I’ve been kicking myself for the last hour about it, but there is nothing I can do to take my decision back.

My phone pings halfway through vacuuming the floor, so I turn it off and check my messages.

I send my reply right away, not bothering with playing hard to get.

With a disgruntled groan, I drop onto my couch and run my fingers through my hair while I consider Catalina’s attitude shift. Obviously, I should’ve texted her yesterday instead of waiting until I was in a better headspace, but I didn’t want her to see me at such a low, and now I’m stuck paying the price for my actions.

I knew she was skittish about all of this, and my decision didn’t help matters.

At least not aloud. Sure, I’ve thought about where things could go between us, but I also understand this could go nowhere.

Fuck. I knew this could happen, but I had hoped for more time.

I’ll deal with her moving away later, once I have a better understanding of whatever this is between us first.

There she goes again, diminishing whatever small connection we are forming in an obvious attempt at self-preservation.

I’m not sure what changed in the time between our kiss on her porch and now, outside of the obvious issue of me blowing off our coffee date, but I’m not about to give up just because Catalina is back to creating distance.

Her text is instantaneous.

Might as well be forthcoming and hope for the best.

Her honesty is refreshing because it shows that I still have a fighting chance against whatever scared her enough to pull away in the first place, so I decide to return her truthfulness with some vulnerability of my own.

Her reply takes two seconds.

Another message pops up before I can reply.

I suck in a deep breath and reply.

Dots appear and disappear twice before a new message appears.

I’m surprised at Catalina’s openness with me, especially after what she said earlier about this not going anywhere because that doesn’t seem true to me.

I take a deep breath before sending my next message.

The dots flicker on the screen before a new message appears.

I crack a smile while typing out my next text.

Nice, Luke. If you didn’t scare her away before, you’re about to do so right now with that stupid text.

She might not be looking, but people change their mind all the time, especially when they see what they could have so long as they put their fears aside and embrace the unknown. It’s just up to me to show her that I’m not going to back down because she expects me to.

Because the next time we do kiss, it’s going to be because Catalina initiates it, not me. Giving her all the power to make the next move might be a risk, but I have a feeling it will pay off.

Fingers crossed.