Ella
God, he’s going to yell again. I can feel it in the air, thick and sour as disinfectant. I’m standing outside Dr. Marvin Goldwin’s office, my freshly printed chart already damp from my sweaty palms. I can hear him moving inside, the impatient shuffle of papers. I knock, my knuckles barely making a sound. “Come in, Nurse Ella.” His voice isn’t warm. It never is.
I push the door open. He’s at his desk, not looking up, his salt-and-pepper hair immaculate, his white coat crisp. He’s in his late forties, all sharp angles and simmering intensity. To me, a twenty-three-year-old who still gets lost in the supply closet, he’s a god. A terrifying, brilliant, perpetually annoyed god.
“The Henderson report,” he says, holding out a hand without glancing up.
I hand it over. My heart is a trappe
