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Jack arrives at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, or Pitt Med, promptly at 8:30am.
He’d been forced here—as he is every year—and asked to inspire the new batch of MS1s. He’d be remiss to admit it, but he loves doing it. Loves the sparkle in their eyes and the look of sheer wonder. It always felt good to be reminded of the beauty and excitement to be found in medicine.
The classroom is only half-filled when he gets there. He walks swiftly to the front, places his bag — polished brown leather that screams pretentious, but that he loves regardless — softly on the desk and sits in his chair. He had an hour of standing ahead of him and he had no intention of making that even longer, especially with the errands he had lined up for his day off.
Jack gazes into the crowd, eyes scanning over the students who’d arrived early. Mostly, they chatted amongst themselves, clustering in groups near the back of the room. There’s a girl in the front row typing urgently on her laptop and a boy who might actually be asleep. There’s another girl sat off to the side of the second row. Jack’s eyes flick back to the boy, amused as he startles himself awake. His head whips up and after a moment he starts chatting with the girl beside him. Jack’s eyes drift again.
The second girl has a notebook open and ready and she was ignoring her peers, or the few that were milling about, trying to make friends. Jack remembers his first week had felt like pure panic. He’d been the chatty type: running around and forcing himself into conversations, sitting at any table and striking a rapport.
She’s not doing any of that, though. Nor does she seem to want to. She’s just sitting quietly in her spot. His eyes stick a little, as he digs through his bag for his readers. He takes a moment, to truly take her in, before he’s forced to continue his whole routine.
He had these presentations down to a science by now; the cadences, the pauses, it was all muscle memory. It was never a particularly difficult talk because it was mostly personal anecdotes. He started with the fun: something easy for the MS1’s to latch onto. He loved to talk about the pen tracheostomy he’d preformed on the side of the road and some of the more miraculous saves that he’s made in the ED.
Those stories usually lead right into emphasizing how intense medicine could be: the rigour, the stress, the importance. He liked to emphasize that every time. The idea that their job was a responsibility, first and foremost. He remembers hearing it himself in his first year, and yeah, he’d nodded along and thought he understood, but then he found out for himself what a life was actually worth.
Jack’s not delusional. He doesn’t think a 45 minute lecture from him is going to change the course of anyone’s life or anything, but he figures repetition couldn’t hurt.
Finally, though, he liked to end on a simple idea: that at the end of the day, their job was about the patients. That theirs was a beautiful, arduous privilege that they couldn’t take for granted.
Slowly, students started to filter in, filling in the empty rows of seats in the hall. Jack watched, amused, as each one arrived dressed exactly like the last. Button downs and slacks and blazers, even.
He stands at 8:55am, the room adequately filled out, and smiles into the crowd.
3, 2, 1, Go.
—
The thing about giving the same lecture is that it’s a perfect barometer. Every year that Jack returns for this lecture, there's a new generation sitting in the audience, a new set of future doctors, new residents that he’d train, new physicians that would hold lives in their hands. It could be very reassuring to see that they were actually full grown and serious.
Over the years, though, he's found himself less and less impressed with the MS1’s on average. They were the same in many ways — overeager, overconfident, terrified — but the world around them was also changing rapidly. Which is to say: the kids were distracted. Not that they weren’t before, but Jack knew how much more consuming technology could be.
This year, by the time he’d finished all of his fun stories, their eyes had dropped away like flies. He watched, in real time, the way they’d check a notification on their phones, a quick peek, and then immediately disengage with the outside world.
It was disheartening in many ways, but he tried not to read into it. Kept his eyes even, roaming the crowd lightly, as usual. Despite that routine, he finds his eyes cutting to the same girl with a regularity he can’t help.
She’s very expressive, he continues to notice. A scrunch of the brows was the most common response to his many stories from the ER. He finds himself wondering what she might say to him, if given the chance.
He doesn’t have to wonder for long: by the end of his talk, there’s a line of little ducklings at his desk, brimming with curiosities, and at the very end of the very long line is her. Usually, he dislikes this part — the praise was misplaced and only functions to make him awkward — but he finds his excitement growing with each new face. Each new face meant one less between them. Slowly, so slowly, he makes it through, one after another they look at him with twinkly eyes that he doesn’t see. His attention has already been claimed.
Then, at last, she’s in front of him. She hasn’t spoken to single person in the room, unwavering in her attention, and her notebook, open in her hand, was full to the brim. The flattery, though subtle, flushes warmth through him; to hold her attention so singularly felt sweet.
His eyes cut quickly down to her name-tag, reading over the neat black sharpie. Samira. He lets himself linger, only briefly, taking in the bright white of her fresh coat and the blue sweater beneath it. The colour was rich, suffusing warmth into her skin, combining with the excitement shimmering in her eyes, and leaving her near-glowing under the pallid LED of the lecture hall.
“Hello Dr. Mohan,” he greets with a smile. Her spine straightens at that — fresh doctor, fresh title — head tilting ever so slightly. Her eyes scan him, up, down, and back again. Like a kitten, his mind supplies, and he finds the association quite apt. He feels a shiver run through him at the idea of her assessment. What does she see? What does she think?
“It’s Mo-hun not Mo-han,” she corrects immediately, tone firm and meter smooth. A reflex, maybe.
Jack feels his mouth twist into a smirk, amused with her. Very no-nonsense.
“It’s lovely to meet you, Dr. Mohan, how can I help you today?”
He sees the way her eyes soften at his correction, the lines of her body loosening. His eyes track a curl that bounces with her movement. It looks soft, he thinks.
She smiles at him again, “I really enjoyed your talk, Dr. Abbot! I had a couple of questions related to your experience working in the ER, but I had some additional questions regarding research I wanted to pursue. I noticed your ResearchGate profile is active with a lot of interesting work and was hoping—”
“Woah,” he chuckles. No nonsense, indeed. Her voice washes over him, the tone sweet and earnest, but the speed almost increasing with each word. He looks at her, at the almost crazed sparkle in her eyes, and makes a decision. A stupid one, surely.
“I’m happy to discuss that and more if you’d like, but I’ve been inside this lecture hall for,” he checks his watch, “two? hours now and I’m no longer convinced that the sky exists.”
Her face jumps from affronted to considering to awkward. She doesn’t respond, stuck on awkward. He finds her so incredibly cute.
Jack stands and slowly begins to collect his belongings, all while sneaking glances at her in the periphery. She watches him with an uncomfortable air. He stuffs his notes into his leather bag even slower; maybe he’s a dick, but he likes the lost look on her face and the way her lip slowly curls up in frustration. He loops his bag over his shoulder, finally, and stands at his full height, facing her. She still hadn’t spoken. He smiles again, crossing his arms on his chest, “coffee?”
The dejected look in her eyes disappears in an instant; they seem to sparkle with a renewed energy. She nods once, quickly, and smiles brilliantly. All Jack can think, as he leads her out the door, an electric feeling buzzing through him, was oh no.
That feeling — both the magnetized pull and the cold dread — follow them to the coffee shop. He didn’t care much for the location, legs leading them to the nearest spot on default. His mind, heavy with thoughts, was too busy caught in a loop; What was he doing? He knew what he was doing. Why was he doing this? He knew why he was doing this.
She followed behind him quietly: the last little duckling left waddling in tow, following him happily.
When they enter the cafe, he makes a bee line for an open table tucked near the back. He tells her to sit and watches her drop into the seat without hesitation. “What would you like?”
“Oh! I can get my—”
He levels her with a look. “What would you like?” he repeats.
She blinks and after a moment, “just a black coffee.”
He frowns then, outright, waiting for her to correct herself.
“Matcha latte,” she mumbles, looking away briefly and then back at him “thank you!”
When he returns with their drinks and a muffin in tow, she’s settled herself in. The white jacket is hanging behind her on the chair, leaving her in her bright clue crew-neck. He watches, enraptured, as she lets her hair out of her claw clip and shakes her curls out.
He places the latte in front of her with a smile, “And a muffin,” he says, dropping it beside the drink. “No clue what the hell matcha is, by the way, I didn’t expect it to be green.”
She looks startled at his appearance and then laughs. “It’s great,” she emphasizes, taking a sip immediately. “I don’t need a muffin, though, thank you, um—”
Jack sits across from her, ignoring her spluttering. He sips his own latte as he takes in her set-up. That same notebook — navy blue, roughly used — is open in front of her and the many, many notes have been annotated even further. Some crossed out, some margin notes, he’s assuming a new page. He can feel his mouth twisting in amusement.
“So,” he begins, leaning back in his seat. His feet kick out a little, spreading comfortably. “What’s up?”
A fortifying breath later, “So— Uhm. I’m Samira, as you know, I’m an MS1 and I have a strong interest in doing research related to disparities in patient care. I think the ED is interesting because of the—”
Jack works to keep his amusement off of his face. It’s just such a rehearsed sort of elevator pitch, the same kind he’s heard a million times. Her face is a placid sort-of professional and her shoulders forcibly relaxed and open. She looked so cute that Jack really fears it might be written all over his face; as if his face might be folded into that sort of awe that you can’t help when you watch a little puppy barking.
“—I’m still considering specialties, though. My motivation, as a doctor, is to provide the best care. I know that’s trite and obvious, but the idea of high quality care, ubiquitously provided, is incredibly important to me.”
Jack sits up straighter, smiling small and genuine. “I don’t think that’s trite at all. I wish every new MD had that drilled into their mind because that’s all that matters at the end of the day. I believe you and I wish you luck on the journey,” he says, hoping to convey his sincerity.
Samira smiles back at him, eyes shining a little brighter. “Thank you!” she says with an earnestness that hits him square in the gut.
“So,” he puts his palms down on the table, “How can I be of help to you?”
Samira relaxes back into her chair then, but Jack doesn’t believe the calm for a second. Her eyes belie a sharpness that can’t be dulled by her relaxed posture; like a shark or a tiger, they sparkle with intention and intelligence.
“The cases you presented were incredibly unorthodox— interesting, of course! But I was really surprised.”
“I could see that,” he muses, chuckling. He imagines she’s never considered how terrible her poker face is, both while listening to his talk and now.
“Uhm,” she lags, clearing her throat. Her eyebrows furrow as he sips his coffee idly.
“Go on,” he encourages, squashing down the smile that continues to grow. It’s condescending, he knows it is, but he can’t help but tease her. She was cute with her feathers ruffled.
She blinks rapidly a few times, before recalibrating with a sip of her latte. “I was curious as to how you maintain standard of care in an environment that insists on such a diverse array of treatment.”
“It’s not—” Jack huffs. How many times has he heard this one, he thinks ruefully. “It’s not compromising care to be inventive in a scenario where time is the limiting factor. Any sort of macgyvering isn’t done in the absence of thought, there’s a large history of experience and skill behind it. It’s not egotistical, if that’s what you’re asking—”
“—no! that’s not! Okay maybe it was what I was asking, I don’t know, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he chuckles, exhaling a breath. “My perspective is incredibly different after having worked in the emergency department for over a decade. Not to mention a battle field. You’ll understand when you get there.”
She frowns again, this time eyeing him with brewing insult.
He throws a hand up, placating, “Not to diminish where you’re at, of course, but experience can’t be replicated.”
“Is that an argument for anecdotal medicine? I didn’t think you were that old,” she jokes, ducking her head and giggling at her own joke.
Jack’s eyebrows jump up, surprised and delighted at her gall. Mirth pulls his mouth up into a smile, “ha ha. Not funny, kid.”
Samira eyes him while she sips her drink, eyes cutting away, down to read her notes again. Her mouth pinched where it rested on her straw.
His eyes drift away as he berates himself mentally. There was a line that he’s toeing that he doesn’t think he can afford to cross.
“How can you trust that,” she blurts out, pulling his attention back to her. This time, it seems much less practiced. She’s looking at him with an unsurety; the look in her eyes several shades younger and seeking.
Jack sighs, mind flooded with images of his time at work. “You just do. You have to trust your experience and yourself. It’s as simple as that.”
Samira nods, but her face is still a little pinched, “I get that. But still, I don’t understand how you have that much trust in yourself if there’s no evidence.”
“Who’s to say there isn’t?”
The frustration on her face is even brighter now, her lips pinched into a pout, “but there isn’t. Like— that case you presented of the man whose tracheostomy you preformed with a pen. That’s insane. There’s no standard of care, there’s no guarantee you wouldn’t have killed him.”
Jack smirks, amused at the way her brows are pinched. “There’s no standard of care set for a man dying on the side of the road. And there’s not a go-bag large enough to solve every issue. I understand my fundamentals, I understand urgency, and maybe most importantly, I trust my own hands.”
Samira stares at him, watching as he sips his coffee again. She looks down, back at her messy notes, eyes flicking around.
“Do you trust yourself so little?” he asks quietly, furrowing his brows. He feels bad for playing any part in the dejected curl of her lips, or for bringing any lingering insecurities forward.
She’s still not looking at him. “There’s too much variability, too much unknown, how can you be sure?”
“Trust me, Samira, you’ll know. And when you get out there and see patients it’ll make sense,” he says with a sort of surety that he hopes is soothing.
She levels him with a blank look, her eyes big and annoyed. It pulls a wide smile on his face that he immediately tries to hide behind a sip of coffee.
“Eat your muffin,” he mumbles instead, starting to fidget under her gaze.
Samira sighs and starts tearing it apart with her fingers, eating it quietly. Jack doesn’t (tries not to) watch her mouth as she chews or her fingers. Doesn’t think about how her fingers, covered in blueberry and crumbles, would taste.
It’s only a few minutes later that her phone alarm goes off, jarring the quiet air between them. Jack frowns as he watches her jump in her spot, collecting her belongings in a huff.
“Class,” she explains, brushing the muffin crumbs off the table and onto a napkin. She stops. “Thank you Dr. Abbot. I really appreciate your advice and your perspective, thank you for taking the time to speak to me.” She stands and thrusts her hand out and Jack lags for only a moment before clasping it in his own.
“My pleasure,” he drawls, trying to mask his sincerity with charm. Her skin is cold against his and he has the urge to clasp it between both his hands to warm her up.
And then she was gone, out the door in a blur of blue, just as quickly as she’d appeared. As if she was actually a figment of his imagination, conjured by- and existing entirely within his mind. A dream, surely.
—🐥—
Jack replays that interaction in his head more than he’d like to admit. The shift is slow, is the thing.
Each time it comes to mind, he fixes his attention somewhere different; the look in her eyes when he’d teased her; the scrunch of her brows as she vacillated between being blunt or polite; the blue of her sweater; the soft bounce of her curls; the look in her eyes whenever he spoke.
And that would be fine, if that was all it was. If the road ended in intrusive fantasy, Jack could live happily. But, sitting in his inbox was an email from one Dr. Samira Mohan thanking him for his time and guidance.
He liked that word: guidance. It made him feel a whole lot more useful than he’d been. As if he had had an actual impact on her life.
The email has a larger presence in his mind than what Dr. Mohan might have intended. It’s grown, sprouted arms and legs and gotten big and burly, following the size of his growing desire.
It’s not the kind of email that warrants a response, not really. It was ornamental: a polite thing to do. A good, sweet girl being good and sweet and appreciative. But, it was also a door opened. Because Jack now had her email address. [email protected].
He couldn’t forget that even if he tried. (He was not trying, not even close. It was flashing in his mind on repeat and he’d even spent time considering why she might have chosen 17). Not just that, but the entirety of the email. He’s so endlessly charmed by her professionalism; her formality. It was distance, technically, but it hardly registered to him.
He shouldn’t respond, he continues to remind himself. He should leave it alone, leave her to continue on the journey that she’s on and maybe google her every once in a while. But it’s that word, guidance, that he keeps going back to.
The thing is: he’s been a mentor before. His job is basically an eternal mentor and teacher. He knows he’s good at it, knows that he has a large breadth of experience to contribute, but somehow the idea of providing that guidance to Samira had an enormity behind it. His mind flashes to those eyes: so sharp, glimmering with intelligence, resting on a face that was so incredibly unsure. The idea that he might actually help her along, to bring out the potential she practically radiated, was exciting
And the idea that he might talk to her more? Or see her again? It was intoxicating
It doesn’t take long to use this information. Jack would like to think he’s stronger than his desires and his urges, but there’s something about this one. It’s consuming.
By 9:30pm, he’s on PubMed, scrolling through articles. He’d spent 15 minutes staring at the floor, arguing with himself, before his resolve had snapped.
So, he plugs in 7 different sets of key-words to search with and he scrolls with a determined energy. One was too convoluted, the next too simple, each one just not quite right enough. Finally, he finds the perfect thing.
Jack hits send on the email without thinking twice. He knew it wasn’t his best idea, knew that he was already pushing it a little, but he decided that he didn’t care. If anything, it was within his job description to nurture young professionals. And his email had been professional.
—🐥—
Samira,
I was very happy to sit down with you, and I’m very excited to see where your career will take you!
I attached an article that you might find interesting, with some added notes.
The authors surveyed and found that the undergraduate student group do not, on average, worry that AI will replace human radiologists, despite their extensive knowledge of AI’s capabilities.
The only reason they’re that confident in their utility is because the value of a human physician — their rationality, their ability to synthesize both anecdotal and evidentiary information, their experience — is not something that can be replicated or trumped.
Let me know what you think.
Cheers,
Jack
[Attached: JAannotated_Pinto Dos Santos, et_al_2018_Med_students_attitude_towards_AI.pdf]
—🐥—
He’s restless for the next hour, at least. He replays the words in his mind, wondering how they might come off. It wasn’t, technically, untoward. He was following up. Generously, sure, but that’s not a crime. He decides that it doesn’t matter anymore because the words were already out there. It was too late to fret; what happens next, happens. There’s 5 slow minutes that he lives in, trying to convince himself of this, before a trauma comes barrelling, pulling his attention way.
It’s only at midnight, when the stream of patients turns from a steady flow to a slow drip, that Jack is able to check his phone next. He finds an email waiting for him, received not even 5 minutes prior. Something about that strikes him as divine, but he doesn’t dwell on the idea.
—🐥—
Dear Dr. Abbot,
Thank you for sharing that article!
I read through it and while I appreciate the sentiment, I do think the demand that creates the space for AI in healthcare is fuelled more by hospital efficiencies rather than efficacy.
I attached some of my own comments, I hope you don’t mind!
Warm Regards,
Samira Mohan
MD Candidate, Class of 2023
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
[email protected]
[Attached: SMannotated_Pinto Dos Santos, et_al_2018_Med_students_attitude_towards_AI.pdf]
—🐥—
Samira,
It’s a little late for you to be awake, let alone annotating journal articles?
Go to bed,
Jack
[Attached: Recommended_Sleep_for_Healthy_Adults_AASM_2015.pdf]
—🐥—
Dr. Abbot,
I’m perfectly capable of regulating my sleep, thank you. And, unfortunately, I have a keystone exam coming soon that I need to study for.
Thank you again for article!!
Best,
Samira
—🐥—
Samira,
Oof. I don’t miss that at all.
If you ever need help, let me know. I wouldn’t want the future of medicine to burnout.
Cheers,
Jack
—🐥—
The email sends without any fanfare, but Jack’s stomach feels like it’s dropped in a pit. It was a step forward, a deliberate push in the direction of uncharted waters. Jack knew that he probably shouldn’t, but each time he reminded himself of that, the image of her smiling face flashed in his mind. So pretty. He just wanted to see it again.
He doesn’t hear back from her the rest of the shift, which is fine. It’s good, actually, because that means she must have fallen asleep. He doesn’t think about it. Not too much, at least.
—
Two weeks later, when the September warmth starts to feel endless, Jack starts to feel restless again. He’s not under any delusions: he doesn’t consider any possible explanations other than the truth. Samira hadn’t emailed him back so, she wasn’t interested.
He’d expected a polite email, at least. Something to reassure him that the olive branch he’d extended wasn’t entirely neglected. But, nothing.
He doesn’t email her again. He drafts 4 potential messages before he decides that it would be too heavy-handed, too desperate.
But the thing is: Jack didn’t make it this far in life by giving up. Things don’t always work out. The world could be a cruel and unpredictable place; a tempest that lashed out indiscriminately. Sometimes you lose a leg fighting someone else’s war and sometimes your wife — the only reason you kept breathing, the only reason you didn’t put a gun in your mouth, the only reason you learned how to walk again — gets cancer and dies. The sun still rises the next day, is the point. There’s still time to regroup, to take a gasping, shuddering breath in, and figure out next steps. And the smartest thing to do was to take the things you want firmly in hand.
It only takes Jack a few days of coordination and another week of waiting to be back on the Pitt med campus. He walks into the lecture hall and he doesn’t look around, doesn’t scope out the space. He settles at the podium and prepares himself with a pointed focus. He hears when the students start to filter in, can hear them shuffling about, chatting amongst themselves, and then eventually, settling themselves in. Through it, Jack keeps himself focused on the presentation at hand.
He spends the next 45 minutes talking to the MS1’s about the importance of conducting research as a physician; how to balance it into your schedule, how important the insights you gain are, the kind of impact that can be made. He finishes this off with a small detour into the importance of peer-support and the burn-out rates of med students and working physicians. Maybe it was a little heavy-handed, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care, really.
This time, when his talk ends, Jack takes his time engaging with all the little ducklings waiting in line. He can see Samira, of course he can, but he doesn’t look. (He does: she’s at the back of the line, half-hidden behind someone else with a polite patience on her face that makes Jack want to grin wickedly).
He spends 10 minutes talking to the first boy in line, Blake, who wants to go into anesthesiology, and another 10 with Grace who has no clue, but just knows she does not want to see any intestines.
By the time the third student squares up to him, Jack starts checking his watch. Just a glance or two, a furrowed brow. Then, after 10 minutes of talking to Arvind, he pauses.
“I’m sorry guys, but I’ve gotta head to the hospital,” he announces to the crowd. Through their not-so-subtle disappointment, he sees Samira furrow her brows, head looking down at her notebook. He doesn’t linger, instead grimacing and reaching for his belongings.
“This was a great conversation! I’m sorry I couldn’t answer all of your questions, but I hope I inspired you guys to pursue your research interests,” he offers, addressing the entire group before slinging his bag over his shoulder and swiftly walking out of the lecture hall.
Bait: set.
—🐥—
Good afternoon Dr. Abbot,
I hope this email finds you well!
I really enjoyed your talk at Pitt med yesterday, but I unfortunately didn’t get the chance to follow up afterwards with a couple of questions!
If it’s easier, can I email them to you?
Warm Regards,
Samira Mohan
MD Candidate, Class of 2023
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
[email protected]
—🐥—
He feels smug, an unbearably egotistical contentment that settles in his mind rather comfortably. He hated it: the aggressively male feeling of conquest. He hated it, he did, but, he basks in it. He’s not a good man, maybe he’d never actually been. His eyes glaze over as they stare at his phone screen, words and screen blurring to just a light shining up at him. He can’t bring himself to stop smiling, really. Can’t seem to bring the contriteness forward in any significant way.
It took her less than a day to reach out.
Jack responds a few hours later; the message is typed in under a minute, but he sets a timer for himself. Promises himself that he’ll do this right. He’s gotten this far, no point stumbling at the finish.
—🐥—
Samira,
I’ve been completely swamped with work lately. Would be easiest if you catch me coming off shift, I think.
Could you do DeLuca’s on Penn ave around 9:30am tomorrow?
Jack
—🐥—
Jack gets to the diner early. He finds a booth in the corner — the same he always picks — and settles in, smiling at the waitress he vaguely recognizes. The place is as bustling as he'd expect for 9:30am on a weekday: a couple of mothers wishing their children, a group of old men who he sees every time he’s here, and another night shift worker, pedes, he thinks.
The waitress round up to his table in a minute, pouring him a steaming cup of coffee before looking at him expectantly.
“Waitin’ on someone,” he explains and then watches her check on each table on a slow walk to the kitchen. He drums his fingers on his thigh, hidden beneath the table, and waits.
Samira walks through the door at 9:25am, head swinging around in search of him. She’s wearing a grey t-shirt tucked into jeans and some beat-up sneakers. Her smile is wider than he might deserve, but he basks in the warmth of it, letting a small smile pull onto his face. He stands up as she approaches. She looks so cute.
“Samira, hi,” he greets as she walks over, nodding before retaking his seat.
“Dr. Abbot!” she responds cheerfully before taking her bag off of her shoulder, dropping it beside her chair and immediately grabbing out a folder. She misses his quick grimace at her formality. Something to work on.
Her folder thuds against the table, the impact making his coffee slosh dangerously. He grabs it off the table, giving her more space to spread out. He shoots her another sideways look that she misses.
“So, you mentioned research,” she says, apropos to nothing, “which I—”
“Woah,” he whistles, eyeing her notebook over the rim of his mug. He squints, making a show of his uncertainty, “I just came off of a 13 hour shift, mind if we order first?”
Samira’s head pops up, face pinched as if confused. Too caught up in her questions or too excited, he’s not sure. He knows what he hopes for. After a moment, she nods quickly, “yeah, yeah! of course.” Jack works to suppress his smile at how put-out she sounds.
He picks up his menu and skims the options; he already knew what he’ll order, the same thing he always did, but he wanted to make a point. He hears shuffling behind his menu, but he doesn’t look. He was a patient man and he knew what he wanted.
“I’m thinking an omelette,” he hums, finally pulling the menu down. “Peppers, tomatoes, ya’know?”
Samira’s leaning over the table, looking at the menu like it’s a foreign object, brows furrowed as if trying to solve a complex equation. She looks up at him, still squinting, “yeah.. eggs are good.”
Jack’s mouth pulls to the side, nodding slowly, “What’re you feeling?”
“Umm,” she points a finger at a random spot, “eggs and toast. I dunno.”
Jack pulls his menu back up, zeroing in on her choice. Cheapest option available. Hm.
“Bo-o-ring,” he teases, turning the menu around and pointing his finger at a picture. “They’ve got chocolate chip pancakes.”
Samira hums, “I don’t know how I feel about chocolate chip pancakes. It’s like dessert.”
Jack squints at her, “blueberry?”
“Better, I think,” she drums her fingers on the table, eyes drifting away, “it’s been so long since I’ve had them.”
Jack puts him menu down, reaching for his mug again, “get ‘em.”
Samira blinks before a polite smile pulls onto her face. “Oh! I think just eggs is good.”
Jack nods as he brings his mug to his lips, taking a small sip. The silence isn’t tense, per se, but certainly a little awkward. He wants to push: to tell her that she should get 5 different fantastical breakfasts if she wanted to and that he’d watch her eat each one happily, but he has to remind himself that that would be a little insane.
The waitress returns, luckily, to snap them out of their silence. She fills Samira’s mug with steaming coffee and Jack offers his own for a refill.
The waitress—Paula—shifts her weight while eyeing the two of them. “All set to order?”
Jack nods, “yep.” He gestures towards Samira with his neck, “why don’t you go ahead.”
“I’ll just do 2 eggs scrambled with toast. Side of homefries, thank you.”
Paula nods, scribbling the order down, before turning to him with a raised brow.
“I’ll do the western omelette with home fries, thank you. And blueberry pancakes as well,” he lists off, waiting for Paula to finish writing before nodding.
Samira’s staring at the side of his head as Paula walks away and when he finally turns to her, her lips are ever-so-slightly pouted.
“I don’t want pancakes,” she states plainly, but Jack can hear the petulant tone that just barely edges it.
He tilts his head, smiling serenely, “they’re not for you.”
She frowns — eyebrows pinched and lips tight — but doesn’t respond. Her eyes say plenty, though. Jack wants to laugh, but decides to be generous, instead rapping his knuckles on the table.
“Alright. Hit me with your questions.”
Samira clears her throat, recalibrating herself with a deep breath. She grabs her notebook, opening it to a dog-eared page. “Okay um. I mentioned this before, but I noticed your research gate profile is really active and I wanted to know more about your research— the subject matter is interesting, but I was also curious about the details?”
Jack’s eyes fix on the chock-full page of scribbled notes; disbelieving, more than a little proud, and distracted enough to almost miss her question. He coughs, tearing his eyes away and back to her. She’s watching him, but he ignores the confusion in her face.
“I went over this a little in my tal—”
“No, yeah! I did pay attenti—”
He brings a hand up, stopping her rambling short with a raised brow. “I know you did, Samira,” he assures quietly, waiting a moment for her to settle down before continuing, “Like I was saying. I mentioned it in my talk, but I’ll give you more than the cliff notes.”
Jack slowly walks her through the logistics of grant applications, taking his time to talk through the finer details, knowing she’d appreciate them. Samira sits upright and rigid as he speaks, eyes lasered onto him.
He stops short. “Drink your coffee while it’s hot,” he chides, before continuing again. As he describes the timeline of IRB approval, he watches her stir in cream and a heap of sugar before sipping it and adding more sugar.
He can see the many questions that danced on the tip of Samira’s tongue. She opens her mouth to interject, but Jack raises a brow and watches her mouth closes with no small amount of satisfaction.
“—So once the approval comes through, you can plan for the next cycle of grant applications. It’s not the quickest pipeline, but planning for the waiting is a large part of organizing a project” he concludes after a few minutes. Samira watches him for a moment, eyes latched onto him with an intense focus. He watches her in return, considering the way she held herself back from interrupting him.
“It does depend on the kind of research you intend to do, but ethics approval budges for no one,” he jokes. Jack nods at her.
She returns the gesture before immediately jumping to speak, “okay! Thank you. I’ve done research before, of course, but I’ve never been the primary and it’s— well, it’s a lot more responsibility on top of the freedom—”
Jack watches her with a fond smile, eyes tracking the frantic movements of her hands as she talks through her thoughts.
“—how do you keep up with it, on top of the rest of the work?”
“I dunno,” he responds honestly, “you just do, really. If you have the desire to do the work, you do it.”
Samira sips her coffee, digesting his words. “Does it get easier to manage it?”
There’s an opportunity here, Jack thinks. And it wouldn’t be a lie, either, just good timing.
“Well,” he begins, trying to fold his face into a facade of nonchalance, “it takes some gettin’ used to, for sure. I had a good mentor, though, you know?”
She nods, almost absently, but is saved from responding by Paula, who returns with their food. The plates are large enough that Samira has to put her notebook away — not that he’s happy to silence her questions, but he’s happy enough to throw off the professionalism that’s permeated the air between them. He wants to feel it crumble away, wants her to look at him a little less distantly. This was meant to be the final frontier of his pursuit, but she wasn’t making it easy for him — and they settle into a comfortable silence.
Samira eyes the plate of pancakes between them like a ticking bomb, fearing it’s detonation. Jack doesn’t acknowledge it, instead tucking into his meal. After a moment, she follows his cues and begins eating.
As he slices into his omelette, he considers her. She’s incredibly intelligent, there’s no denying that. Intelligent and single-minded in her desire to learn. It was admirable. He imagines her parents would be quite proud of their daughter— His mind flashes to that insecurity that had revealed itself in the coffee shop: near-frantic and urgent in the desire of an answer. Of reassurance. Of approval, even. ‘How do you trust it?’
He hums, a noise disguised as delight at his eggs. She shoots him a smile, before chewing down her own breakfast. He could give her that reassurance. She was hesitant, though. It wasn’t quite so straight forward as making his intent clear. Couldn’t be, he figures. Jack wonders if she dated at all.
Paula loops back around, asking after their meal, and leaving just as swiftly. Jack uses the breaking of the quiet as an opportunity.
“Have you ever tried a dutch baby?” he finds himself asking. He blinks at her, surprised at his own choice of conversation.
She frowns, “I’m sorry, but what does that mean?”
His lip twitches, “it’s um. It’s a giant pancake that you bake in an oven. My mom used to make ‘em.”
“Oh. No, I haven’t. I think the last time I had pancakes I was still a pre-teen.”
“You have the opportunity to change that,” he glibs, using his fork to point that the blueberry pancakes. “Chop chop, before they get cold.”
He turns back his plate, head ducking away from her incredulous expression. He remains unbothered as Samira huffs pointedly, trying to get his attention. He continues eating, fork scraping against porcelain. It takes a minute for him to see movement in her periphery, but she doesn’t reach for the pancakes. He doesn’t mention it, instead looking up are watching her chew slowly.
Soon, they’re both approaching the end of their meal and the moment that he places his fork down, Samira’s speaking again.
“I— uhm. I found this study that I wanted to ask you about. Since you’re here— is that okay?”
This time, Jack doesn’t temper his smile at all. He lets the expression stretch across his face as he takes her in. Nervous is cute expression on her.
“It’s dumb— sorry, I just. I didn’t know who to ask—,” she rambles, moving to pull the article away.
“What else am I here for, Samira,” he assures while pulling the papers out of her hands. He maintains eye-contact as he speaks, holding it for a moment, before looking away to look over the title quickly, eyes catching on the blue post-it’s scattered throughout.
Strategies for Reducing the Door-to-Balloon Time in Acute Myocardial Infarction
“Give me a second, yeah?” He pushes his plate to the side, putting the paper down. “Let me just—,” he reaches into his pocket, digging past his wallet and keys, “need my readers.”
He puts his glasses on before ducking his head to start reading. He can hear the sounds of Samira finishing her breakfast and pushing her plate aside as he reads through the abstract and when he's done reading and looks back at her, her elbows are propped onto the table and she’s watching him curiously.
“I’ll need to read this whole thing and get back to you, of course, but what questions did you have?”
“I wanted to know about your experience with door-to-ballon time and what happens during a suspected MI?”
The way she asks the question could be considered casual. Barely, but it’s light enough. The look in her eyes though, it’s the same as before: sharp and intelligent. Jack takes a breath, settling back into his seat, ready to discuss.
It’s 10:55am by the time they resurface from their conversation. Jack’s shared a detailed step-by-step on MI differentials, doubling back to explain every step further whenever Samira squinted and tossed out another question. When the words have run out — they haven’t, really. Not for him, but he holds himself back from saying anything else — they’re left staring at each other quietly.
The exhaustion that’d been dogging his heels is quickly catch up to him, and he figures he should sleep. Jack decides then that this has been a productive breakfast, at the least. His eyes flick down, to the table, to the cold pancakes.
“Y’know they’re just gonna throw them out, right? They’ll go to waste.”
And then she’s frowning again, face completely pinched, clearly displaying her upset. It’s cute. He’s so incredibly endeared, he feels it physically. He clenches his hands into fists under the table, trying to release the energy.
Jack doesn’t respond and simply stares back at her. He could wait her out, he knew he could. She was stubborn and persistent, didn’t look like the kind of person that let things go easily, but so was he. Plus, it had worked before.
And he’s right because a minute later, the lines of her body go lax, melting back into the chair. He smiles at her, eyes tracing the way her face was still pinched in irritation. She was pouting.
When Paula returns, he requests a box to pack up the pancakes, making sure he adds in the little cup of whipped butter and whipped cream.
—🐥—
It takes another stare down to get her to relent, but it’s worth it to see Samira sitting in his passenger seat, clutching her left-over pancakes tightly. He looks at her, eyes sticking a minute longer than professional, before asking her for her address.
When she relays it to him, her voice still has that same cagey quality it had had when she’d told him that she could pay. He ignored it again.
He types the address into his google maps app; he knows exactly where it is, but likes the idea of having it in writing. The drive is quick, her apartment not all that far from the university and therefore close enough to the hospital and diner. In truth, it passes in a hazy sort of blur for him, his mind slowing down significantly in the silence. Without any questions to answer or sharp, assessing eyes, the adrenaline was steadily draining out of him.
He pulls up to the curb outside her building and puts the car into park, immediately turning to look at her. She’s watching him, but he can’t entirely read her expression.
“Good chat!” he says into the still air, knocking his knuckles onto the centre console. “I’ll get back to you about the study,” he adds as he’s immediately overtaken by a yawn that he hides behind his fist.
Samira nods once. “Thank you, Dr. Abbot, I really appreciate you taking the time to meet with me,” she moves to collect her things and the plastic take-away bag rustles loudly in the small space, making her wince, “and, uhm. Thank you for the pancakes?”
Jack smiles again, this time just a fleeting pinch of his mouth, before he hops out of the car. He jogs to the other side and opens her door for her, offering his hand to help her out. Her hands are full, so she doesn’t take it, but she stares at it for a moment as if the concept was entirely foreign. He tries not to laugh as she hops out of the seat, a little off balance and avoiding his gaze entirely.
By this point, Jack’s been awake for longer than 15 hours and feeling deeply unbalanced, but he can’t help but stay put, watching the back of her head as she practically runs away. Samira walks towards her building entrance in quick strides, not looking back until she’s cleared the stairs and standing in front of the door.
“Have a nice day,” she calls out, before unlocking the door and scurrying inside.
He chuckles to himself, walking back to the drivers side slowly. Before he takes off towards his home, he takes a minute to save her address into her contact in his phone. Now, he just needed her number.