Me After Meeting You

“You recognize us?”

Amber smiled. “Not too long ago, we met at my teacher’s place.” Then, she reminded, “My teacher is Nancy.”

“Oh, I remember!” Ian’s grandmother stroked her palm as she complimented, “You were that eloquent, kind, caring, pretty doctor!”

Amber blushed at her direct praise, smiling bashfully. “Yes, I’m a doctor.’

Ian’s grandfather also seemed to remember her now. “Oh yes, you’re Professor Nancy’s student, you treated my wife for her insomnia before. Let me tell you, my wife thinks very highly of you! She even wanted Professor Nancy to introduce you to our grandson, but Professor Nancy refused to do it, saying something about curing illnesses. Was she unable to cure his illness and so introduced him to you for you to try?”

His wife patted him on the back, expression serious. “What are you talking about? Our grandson’s totally normal!”

Then she turned toward Amber with a smiling expression as she said, “Our little Ian such a good man, handsome and capable and wealthy. Don’t listen to what his grandfather’s saying!”

Amber also smiled at this scene. Because they had met before, she wasn’t too surprised at their antics-one had to remember that, during their first meeting, they had already said that they wanted her to be their grandchild’s wife. So, their current behavior could already be considered quite reserved.

But despite her being willing to accede to Ian’s request, she had never intended to mislead others. Once the two calmed down, Amber explained the situation to them. “Actually, I’m not Mr. Ian’s girlfriend, but rather his doctor and this was done on my teacher’s request.”

“His doctor? Impossible! He clearly said you were his girlfriend!” Both of Ian’s grandparents refused to accept this reality.

Amber was very patient in her explanation. “That’s false. The reason he did that was in hopes that you two stop pressuring him on that front. Actually, that’s the reason why I came here with him today-to ask you to, as his family, be more patient with him and reduce his stress.”

“There’s no stress of any sort,” Ian’s grandfather said innocently. “We haven’t given him any stress either. As long as you become his girlfriend, he gets married and then you both have a little baby, we won’t give him any stress at all.”

Hearing this, Amber couldn’t help but want to caress her forehead. Goodness, did this whole family consist of generations of frauds?

***

Ian didn’t come back down the rest of that day. Instead, he called a driver to send Amber back home.

Originally, Amber had wanted to chat some more with Ian’s grandparents to understand Ian’s background and his home environment while growing up.

However, they were too agitated. Regardless of what topic she brought up, they were always able to maneuver the conversation back to questions like, “When do you and Ian plan on getting your marriage certificate? Do you want a grand wedding feast?”

Or, they would say something like, “The two of you aren’t young anymore. Why don’t you prepare to have a baby? His father doesn’t care, but we’re still young and can help you raise the kids.”

In front of two grandparents excitedly hoping for great grandchildren, even the psychiatrist Dr. Camille was completely and utterly defeated.

***

When Amber returned home that day, she almost felt like there would be more surprises lying in wait for her. The entire day had seemed like a dream-from Ian forcefully booking all of her appointment slots, to Billy’s appearance, to signing that contract with Ian … everything seemed so unrealistic.

She fell into her bed, exhausted. But then she saw that Elly’s nurse had sent her a video of Elly. It was getting close to night time and she had started becoming active again, this time by repeatedly hitting the doorframe in an attempt to get out.

Amber packed up some supplies and rushed to the hospital. On the way there, she received a call from Calvin, his tone apologetic from the very beginning. “Sorry, I was busy and haven’t been looking at my phone. Did you call?”

Amber rapidly walked past a traffic light. “Yes.”

“Is something the matter?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

“Oh.”

The two didn’t know what to say to each other.

Time had caused them to drift apart. In the past, even when passing notes, they had an unlimited amount of subjects to talk about. But now, with cell phones to their respective ears, a slight awkwardness permeated even the sound of their breathing.

Amber had already reached the hospital. “If there’s nothing else, then I’m going to hang up. I’m busy right now.”

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Amber didn’t have any time to reminisce about the past, she went straight to Elly’s ward. When she arrived, she encountered a crowd of doctors and nurses on duty coming out from the room.

“Dr. Camille, you’re here?” One of her colleagues greeted her. “We’ve taken care of it.”

Amber responded without much thought and instead turned her gaze into the ward. She saw Elly tightly bound to the bed, her four limbs were spasming, her gaze expressionlessly staring at the ceiling and her mouth emitting low moaning noises like a wounded beast.

“Weren’t you guys going to wait for me?” Amber asked as she headed inside, her voice taking on a rare edge of censure.

Behind her, the doctor that had just greeted her replied dismissively, “What would have changed? Wouldn’t we still have used a tranquilizer needle in the end? Rather, if you run around on such a cold night, wouldn’t your rich boyfriend be worried?”

Amber stopped and turned to look at him, finally recognizing him. When she recalled more, he was even her senior both of them had been Nancy’s students.

When Amber had started her doctoral program, he had been on the cusp of graduating, but when Amber had graduated, he was still at that cusp. Nancy had frequently said that he had a good family, a good background, but not good brains. She didn’t understand why he wanted to be a doctor when he could simply lie back and relax.

Amber huffed in exasperation even as she smiled at him. Before he could reciprocate, however, she steeled her expression and said seriously, “Elly is my patient. Thank you for your help tonight, but I hope that you’ll ask me before administering any other kind of treatment to her in the future.”

Having said this, she turned and went into the ward, closing the door with a bang.

As the door shut, she heard him outside, shouting, “Eh, is she blaming me?”