I showed him Doctor Christine Palmer.
“That’s…”
He reached out to touch her but his hand just passed through her.
“Yes, Stephen,” I said in a whisper. That is Ms. Palmer, a lady I take you’re very familiar with?”
“I am,” Stephen said. “What’s she…”
Doctor Palmer was in front of her mirror, putting on some earring and straightening her eyebrows. After spraying some perfume, she closed the door behind her casting one look at the spot where we stood closed the door behind us.
“Where’s she going?” Stephen asked.
“Why don’t we find out.”
We followed the car through the streets of New York, followed it to an expensive restaurant where…
“Who’s…” Stephen said, hopelessness spreading across his face. “Who’s that she’s talking to?”
Ms. Palmer was sitting across a handsome, well-dressed man, laughing and making merry. Stephen just stood by the window with his hands over the glass, staring, staring.
“This can’t…” Stephen said. “She can’t…”
They left the restaurant together, hand in hand. Ms. Palmer staring at the man with a look that was undoubtedly love.
Stephen Strange wanted to look away, he wanted so desperately to believe it wasn’t true but the truth was standing right in front of him.
Even as a soul, his hands still shook.
“She… she…”
“Moved on,” I said. “A thing you seem incapable of doing.”
Ms. Palmer and the man kissed, gazing at each other with longing.
“Come, we’ve overstayed our welcome.”
“No,” Stephen said. “No, there’s no way… We… I…”
I touched his soul with a glowing hand.
…
He placed a steady hand over her shaking ones.
“I… I can’t…”
“You can,” Stephen said calmly. “Just cut an incision right over there.”
“I’m a nurse,” Christine said. “Not a… not a surgical assistant. I handle births and the flu not… not fucking knife wounds.”
“We’re shorthanded right now,” Stephen said. “And I’m going to be busy. He paid good money just…”
“I can’t,” Christine cried. “I can’t. You should…”
“I have you,” Stephen said. “I have you. Just place it over there and…”
And he guided her. And she let him.
…
She placed a steady hand over his shaking ones.
“Look on the bright side…”
“There is no bright side,” he snapped. “I’m useless. Useless. Without these I’m…”
“At least you have your life,” Christine said. “At least you have…”
“What, complacency?” Stephen said. “It was because of those poor excuses for surgeons that I’m like this!”
“Blaming other people won’t fix your hands,” Christine said. “Besides you still have…”
“You,” Stephen scoffed. “A night nurse who couldn’t even run a scalpel through someone’s skin.”
Christine let go. Stephen Strange didn’t notice.
She guided him. He didn’t let her.
…
Stephen’s eyes snapped open.
“Do you now remember how you treated her?”
“That bitch,” Stephen said through grit teeth. “I should’ve known she would’ve betrayed me just like everybody else.”
“You weren’t betrayed Stephen,” I said. “You were just blind.”
“She was all I had,” Stephen said. He removed a watch from his wrist and threw it on the floor. “I thought I would get back to her and…”
Only two people knew of the ring he had tucked underneath his bed, Stephen Strange and myself.
He let out a deep sigh. “It’s… it’s my fault isn’t it? She stuck with me when everybody left and now… Now I have nobody.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
I walked over to him with a hand outstretched.
“Oh god dammit, not ag…”
…
(Christine Palmer left her place of comfort next to her boyfriend’s body. She wrapped a robe around herself and opened her closet, going through her jewellery box and picking up the most expensive thing in it. A thing her nurse’s salary could barely afford but Stephen could.
She’d let go a long time ago. Stephen was a far cry from the man she once fell in love with and what she wanted, what she needed changed but holding that watch reminded her. Reminded her of good times, reminded her of scraping bye and saving her money so that she could buy him a watch. Christine missed him but she wouldn’t have changed anything for the world)
I didn’t show Stephen this because unlike Doctor Palmer, on his watch. time never ticked forward.
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