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  He turns then and starts to walk away from me, but I grab him by the arm. “Hey, Ryan,” I say.

  “Yeah?” he asks.

  I pull him aside, so no one can hear us. “I’m going to ask you a question, okay, and please don’t misinterpret me.”

  “I’ll try not to…” he says.

  “It’s just, for you this was all so long ago, but for me, it’s still fresh in my mind.”

  “Okay,” he says, looking confused.

  “Were you, uh, not really attracted to me?” I ask. “Like, I was really going heavy on you, and you didn’t really seem interested in, uh, going further…”

  He laughs, and I scowl at him.

  “Sorry, sorry,” he says. “I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing at myself, remembering back then.”

  “At yourself?” I ask.

  “I talked a big game in high school, but I actually hadn’t done it with anyone, and I could tell you were more experienced than me, and I didn’t want to embarrass myself if—”

  I shove his shoulder, pressing him into the wall. “You idiot.”

  “Huh?” he says.

  “Sorry,” I stammer. “I guess I was equally an idiot. I was doing the same thing you were, I also had never done it.”

  He laughs, harder this time. “Oh, man, if we had just both been honest, how much less stressful would that all have been?”

  I feel relieved, but then I feel angry with myself, as well. I’m making the same dumb mistake that I made with Ryan with Kaden now. I keep feeling so ashamed that I’m a virgin. I keep having this dumb thought that if I tell Kaden the truth, he will just run away from me as fast as he can. That’s stupid, though, and I should just tell him straight away. And then and there I decide that I will tell him straight away. The next time I see him, it will be the first thing out of my mouth.

  9

  Kaden

  I arrive late. One of my patients had a seizure, and I had to hold him down and stay with him until he stabilized. I rush into the auditorium, and they quickly wire a mic to my collar.

  Dr. Bell comes up to me, looking furious. “Can you not just accept a fucking award without being difficult, Dr. Prince?”

  “I was with a patient,” I hiss.

  Dr. Bell points to Rose, who is standing with her arms crossed just behind the curtain. “She is the only patient who matters right now. We are spending a lot of money on the PR around this, so you should be with her as much as possible, understand?”

  “I thought you didn’t want me getting too close,” I say, grinning.

  “You’re impossible,” she says, tapping the mic on my chest. “Can we get a sound check, please?”

  She looks over to the control board, which is next to an empty seat. “Where the hell is the audio guy? We’re scheduled to start in ten minutes! Go make sure Rose isn’t going to fuck this up, okay?”

  “You have such faith in her,” I quip.

  She rolls her eyes and stalks off.

  I can hear the buzz of the crowd murmuring through the curtain. There are several hundred people here, mostly doctors and higher ranking people from Pittsburgh Memorial and other local hospitals. They offer a lot of free food to get people’s asses in these chairs. No one really wants to see some asshole like me getting some bullshit award.

  I walk up to Rose and smile. “How was the surprise party?”

  “You knew!” she smiles, and then she says, “Of course you knew…”

  “Must have gone well,” I say. “Dylan put a lot of work into it—”

  “Kaden,” Rose says. “This is going to sound really out of nowhere, but I just have to get it off my chest, okay, so here—”

  There’s a loud screeching sound that blasts out of the speakers, and we both cringe and cover our ears.

  “Come the fuck on!” I hear Dr. Bell shout.

  Rose grabs hold of my collar, and she leans right into me. Her eyes lock onto mine, and she says, “I’m a virgin.”

  Her voice doesn’t just come out of her mouth, I hear it echo and boom through all of the speakers into the auditorium.

  The murmur from the crowd dies down, and I see Rose’s face turn ghostly white as her eyes look down in horror at the microphone on my chest, right in front of her gaping mouth.

  A virgin, huh? I guess that makes sense, since she’s been asleep since she was eighteen. No big deal to me, but—

  “I know you’ve never done this before,” I say, hearing my voice boom back across the auditorium, just like hers did. “I’m a virgin, too, when it comes to giving big speeches like this, but there’s a first time for everything. You’ll do great.”

  “Cut the fucking microphone!” I hear Dr. Bell shouting. “My God!”

  There’s another screech, and I tap the microphone. Nothing happens.

  “Oh my God!” Rose says, starting to panic.

  “It’s fine,” I say. “I think I pulled off a good save.”

  “You think so? Really?” she asks.

  “Yeah,” I say, nodding. “And I don’t care that you’re a virgin, Rose, we can take it slow, or—”

  She pulls the microphone off my collar and shoves it into her jeans pocket. Then she says, “I don’t want to take it slow, Kaden. It’s like you said, I crave all the experiences I’ve missed out on.”

  I lick my lips, looking down at her. She’s so sincere, and what better thing could there be for her to be sincere about than this? I’ve realized I’ve wanted her for a long time, since even before she woke up. I just never let myself consider it. It was always more of a fairytale than anything else—

  “Dr. Prince, where the hell is your microphone!” Dr. Bell shouts. “And I swear to God, if you two can’t keep it in your pants, I will—”

  “Chill out,” I say, reaching into Rose’s back pocket, squeezing her ass, and pulling the microphone out. “It’s right here.”

  “Jesus,” Bell says, stalking off.

  “Should you have done that?” Rose says, her voice a mere squeak. Her cheeks are burning red. “God, it felt nice, though.”

  “She already knows,” I say. “And she doesn’t actually care, she just doesn’t want anyone else to know. She has no morals herself, she only cares about public perception.”

  “We’ll be careful then,” Rose says. “Once I’m discharged, I don’t think anyone will even care.”

  I smile. “I will still care.”

  Dr. Bell takes the podium and goes into a lengthy and boring introduction about me. She makes me sound like some cookie-cutter surgeon who plays it by the book, which I guess is what she wants people to think.

  I walk up to the podium to big applause, and I tap my mic. “I guess the mic is working again,” I say, laughing. “Like I said, I’m a virgin when it comes to this kind of thing…you guys are all going to pop my ‘big speech’ cherry...”

  Dr. Bell scowls at me, but I ignore her.

  I launch into my speech. It’s quite long and boring, and I decide to mostly play it by the book to keep Dr. Bell appeased. There’s no real need to piss her off any more than I already have, and I figure that my whole speech is just there to set up Rose. No one really cares about me, they care about my patient.

  “So thanks to the cutting-edge research and patronage of Pittsburgh Memorial,” I say, feeling a pang of guilt at how badly Dr. Meiner got screwed over, “Rose Dorner is here, wide awake and happy to talk to you.”

  She walks up onto the stage to much louder applause than I received, and she leans into the mic.

  Her speech sounds like Dr. Bell wrote it. She gushes about Pittsburgh Memorial, and I see mostly polite smiles from the audience.

  When it sounds like she’s almost done, she starts to stammer.

  “I, uh, uh,” she mumbles. “I also just really, from the bottom of my heart, want to thank my Doctor. Without Dr. Prince’s dedication, I wouldn’t be here today talking to you…”

  Dr. Bell scowls at me, but I shrug. I didn’t put her up to this. Hopefully she won’t men
tion the little wrinkle about Pittsburgh Memorial wanting to pull the plug on her.

  “He really cares about his patients,” Rose says. “And even when he’s off the clock, he’s always thinking about how he can help his patients. I know that all doctors care about their work, but Dr. Prince is my doctor, and I can’t help but be incredibly appreciative that he was assigned to me, because I really, truly think I wouldn’t be here at all if it wasn’t for him. He’s one of a kind…”

  She leans into the microphone, clearly not finished speaking. Everyone holds their applause.

  “And there’s another doctor, one who—”

  The microphone cuts out, and Dr. Bell rushes to the podium. She puts her hands onto Rose’s shoulders, flashes a huge fake smile, and pulls her away from the podium. She takes Rose’s place, flashes a hand signal to the audio guy, and the mic turns back on.

  “Let’s hear it for Rose Dorner! What a brave story!”

  Everyone erupts into applause, and Rose finds me behind the curtain.

  “You were about to mention Dr. Meiner by name, weren’t you?” I ask.

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  “It’s fine,” I say. “I wanted to, but I work here, and it would have been my ass. You should thank him if you can...he got a really raw deal. I pulled him into this, and Dr. Bell screwed him over.”

  “I feel really guilty,” she says.

  “People in power are going to step all over everyone else. It’s what happens. You can go thank Dr. Meiner yourself, and you can relay my apologies to him. Dr. Bell actually made me sign a legally binding document saying that I would have no contact with him.”

  “Jesus,” Rose says. “Yeah, maybe I will go see him once I’m discharged.”

  Everyone in the crowd starts murmuring. I notice people holding their phones up to each other. More and more phones come out, and people are pointing at their screens. The murmur turns into a roaring drone.

  “What’s going on?” Rose asks.

  “Dunno,” I say.

  My phone vibrates, and I pull it out.

  It’s a text from Dr. Alderson, a friend of mine.

  The text is a photo with the message, Just giving you a heads up man...not judging or anything

  The photo is of Rose and me kissing on the dock. It’s tinted green, clearly taken with some kind of night-vision lens.

  I bite my lip, considering if I should just show it to Rose.

  “Kaden, what is it?” she asks.

  Yeah, I might as well show her.

  I point the screen toward her. “Someone was snooping on us.”

  “Shit,” she says. “This is bad, right, we—”

  Dr. Bell rushes in between us. “You idiots! You only had to wait a week or two, but no!”

  “Hey,” I say. “It’s not like we were in broad daylight, some asshole must have been following us around—”

  “I don’t give a shit, Kaden,” Dr. Bell says. “This is out, everyone has seen it, and I have no idea how to run damage control on this. I just gave you the fucking award, should I take it back?”

  I shrug. “That would be a bit cruel of you, don’t you think?”

  She shoves me. “Get the hell out of here. Sneak out the back entrance if you have to. And do not come to work tomorrow! I’ll call you and let you know what the hell I’m going to do with you. And roll down your goddamned sleeves!”

  I look down at my forearms, then say, “Aren’t I supposed to sneak out anyway?”

  “Out!”

  I grab Rose by the waist, lean in, and kiss her. I hear Dr. Bell stomp away, muttering something in disgust.

  We break away from the kiss, and Rose scrunches her face up at me. “Am I going to get you fired?”

  “She can’t afford to fire me,” I say. “Don’t worry. This will all blow over.”

  “I’m sorry, Kaden, I—”

  I put a finger to her lips. “It’s not your fault, and I don’t regret anything. They’ll probably assign you to another doctor for the next few days, but you’ll be released soon, and I’ll see you once you’re discharged. Sound good?”

  She smiles and nods.

  I wake up late the next day, deciding just to sleep in since I don’t have to do anything. I don’t feel like cooking, so I shower and get dressed, deciding I’ll go out for breakfast.

  When I open the door to my driveway, I see a big crowd of people with cameras and microphones lined up along the street and sidewalk outside.

  What the fuck?

  The cameras start going off, and the crowd moves in toward me as if it was all a single entity.

  “Dr. Prince! Dr. Prince!” a reporter shouts out over the noise. “Is it true you kissed Rose Dorner and then she woke up? A security guard who was there spoke to us and—”

  “Why are you all here?” I ask.

  As soon as I speak, they all quiet down. I guess they were expecting me to run.

  They give each other looks.

  Another reporter speaks up, holding his microphone out for my response. “People are saying that it’s like a fairytale. Sleeping Beauty and her prince…”

  “Oh,” I say. “I mean, yeah, I guess it is a bit like that.”

  They look at me in stunned silence, their jaws dropping.

  I don’t really want the attention, but I know for a fact that Dr. Bell does. If I act like this is all some kind of shameful secret that I should be hiding from and dodging reporters over, it will make me and the hospital look bad. If I just go with it, on the other hand, it might attract just the kind of publicity that Dr. Bell craves.

  “Some people are saying it’s unprofessional,” another reporter says. “You kissed her before she had woke up, and—”

  “I’ve known Rose for five years,” I say. “She may have been asleep, but I still knew her. I cared for her—saw her every day for five years. I talked to her. She heard me, too, sometimes at least. I didn’t think the procedure had worked, and everyone in the hospital had been calling her Sleeping Beauty. I knew it was a long shot, but hell, I went for it, and it worked.”

  They throw question after question at me, and I realize that the security guard who leaked the details about me kissing Rose did not leak the other details. Like the presence of Dr. Meiner, or the fact that Dr. Bell was gunning to pull the plug on Rose.

  “I really want to go get a bagel,” I say, interrupting another question. “Can you guys maybe clear a path for me to get through?”

  They clear away, and I walk out, heading to my car.

  Before I can even finish eating my bagel, I get a call from Dr. Bell.

  “Yeah?” I ask.

  “What the hell was that?” she hisses.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I say, yawning.

  “The little impromptu press conference!”

  “Oh,” I say. “Yeah, that.”

  “That,” she says.

  “Well,” I say. “I either looked guilty, or I went with it. Would you have preferred that I look guilty? First of all, I don’t feel guilty, so it may have come off as a bit disingenuous.”

  “You’re impossible,” she says. “And you’re forcing my hand now. I need you to come into work today.”

  “Oh?” I ask. “You sure about that?”

  “Yes,” she says. “If I keep you from work, then I’ll look guilty, too. I think we just have to go with this, give the press what it wants.”

  I smile. “Fine by me.”

  10

  Rose

  “I just think it’s, uh, kind of weird,” Dylan says. “Don’t you?”

  He’s holding an iPad—which is basically like a giant iPhone—showing me the clip of Kaden’s interview.

  “Did you guys talk about it at all?” he asks. “How you were going to approach the press?”

  “I mean,” I say. “We were going to keep it a secret, but then it all got leaked, and Dr. Bell kicked him out of the hospital. We didn’t have time to talk about anything. It looks like Kaden didn’t know anything eithe
r, he didn’t know that the story had gotten so big overnight.”

  “He looks pretty damn casual about everything,” Dylan says. “Couldn’t he have just refused to comment?”

  I bite my lip, considering what Dylan is saying. I do feel a bit uneasy that he just shared all of this, but what was the alternative, really? The pictures and stories had been leaked already, and if he denied it, he’d have just made himself—made us—look guilty.

  “I know he saved you,” Dylan said, “but these awards, and now the press fawning all over him...it just seems suspect to me.”

  “What seems suspect?” a deep voice cuts in.

  I look up and see Kaden.

  Dylan frowns.

  “You’re back?” I ask. “What if Dr. Bell sees you?”

  “She asked me to come in,” I say. “We don’t have to be secretive anymore.”

  “I need to go,” Dylan says, glaring at Kaden.

  Dylan stomps out before Kaden can even get a word in.

  “What was that about?” he asks.

  I look nervously at him. “He’s kind of worried that you were, um, too enthusiastic?”

  “I didn’t think anyone was going to even care, Rose, but apparently everyone wants this to be some kind of fairytale, so I had to go with it.”

  “You had to?” I ask. “You couldn’t have, I don’t know, gone inside and called me, asked what I wanted to do?”

  He frowns. “As soon as I do that, it looks unnatural, it—”

  “Why do you care so much what the press thinks? Isn’t that Dr. Bell’s thing?”

  “It is…” I say. “But my job is on the line, Rose. You’re important to me, but—”

  “But your job is even more important?” I snap.

  “No,” he says. “You are my job, and—”

  ‘I knew it,” I say, feeling tears stinging my eyes. “You care more about this job than you do about me. I’m just...I’m just being warped into some kind of steps up on your career ladder. You’ll use me however you need to for advancing, to get more awards, to have the reporters eating out of your hand!”