He Was the One Who Got Away. Then He Pressed His Fingers Against My Inner Thigh.

It was all Chloe's fault.

The tube of cream was lying in my bathroom trash can, cap off, half squeezed out, like a dead white slug. I stared at it for three seconds, then spread my legs and shuffled out of my apartment in a stance no neighbor would ever catch on Nextdoor.

Five people were ahead of me at the triage desk in St. Joseph's ER. I stood at the back of the line, flipping my insurance card over and over, the edge digging into my thumb joint. By the time the triage nurse looked up at me for the fourth time, I'd bent the card into a curve.

"Dermatology on-call has Dr. Winters available. Want the slot?"

"Yeah."

The triage slip's edge was already fraying from my grip. I followed the signs down the hallway, each step like riding an invisible horse—the swollen patch of skin on my inner thigh pulsing its own reminder that the "all-natural herbal rescue balm" Chloe had found on some Instagram ad probably contained industrial-grade capsaicin.

Dermatology, Exam Room 3.

I knocked three times.

"Come in."

I opened the door and saw Ethan Winters.

He was sitting behind the desk, a small silver pin on the lapel of his white coat. The Stanford Medical shield. Gold-rimmed glasses sat on the bridge of his nose. He was bent over a patient file, fingers gripping the corner of the page exactly the way he used to grip that worn-out copy of the AP Biology study guide back in high school.

He didn't look up.

"What's the problem?"

I stood in the doorway, hand still on the handle. The AC vent was aimed directly at the back of my neck, cold air crawling down my spine.

"Down there… mosquito bite."

"Sit."

Only then did he look up, pushing his glasses up. The gold rims caught the light, his gaze pausing on my face for half a beat before moving to the computer screen.

"Name."

"Emily Chau."

The typing stopped. Not paused. The letter E had been pressed down and hadn't sprung back up.

He lifted that finger from the keyboard, eyes coming at me over the top edge of the screen. The angle cut his pupils in half through the gold frames.

"St. Mark's High."

Not a question. His tone was flat as a goddamn EKG line.

I swallowed. My throat made a small sound, like the pneumatic wheeze of a coffee machine before the extraction.

"You remember."

He pushed his glasses up again, didn't answer. Just uncapped a pen and wrote a few lines in my chart. The scratch of nib on paper filled the room for about five seconds. Then he set the pen down, stood, and walked toward the exam bed.

"Come. Lie down. That one."

The crinkle of the exam table paper when I sat down was sharp and thin, like a grocery bag ripped open. I stared at the ceiling lights and started counting tubes. Two. Actually three, but one was dead.

His hand touched the waistband of my jeans, and my fingers curled around the cold metal edge of the exam bed.

"Relax."

His voice came through the surgical mask. Muffled. Flat. No different from "next." The snap of nitrile gloves against his wrists, then the click of the exam light switching on.

I stared at the dead tube light and felt my waistband being pulled down two inches.

Cold air hit bare skin. Inner thigh. Close to the groin. The swollen, angry patch of flesh was now fully exposed under the harsh exam light. I didn't need to look to know how bad it was: puffy, shiny, rimmed with an unhealthy red halo.

He said nothing. No "that's quite swollen," no "this is an unfortunate spot." Just the cold touch of a cotton swab.

Then his fingers pressed down.

I inhaled. Not from the pain (though it did hurt) but from where he was pressing. The cotton tip rolled gently along the most sensitive crease at the top of my thigh, his other hand bracing my hip to hold me steady.

"Hurt here?"

His thumb traced a small circle on my hipbone. Through the nitrile glove, the gesture could almost have been accidental.

"Yeah."

"And here?"

The swab moved down another half inch. Further inward. Closer to—

"…Yeah."

He tossed the swab into the stainless steel bin. Didn't remove his gloves right away. His fingertips rested at the edge of the swollen welt on my inner thigh and slowly traced its perimeter.

"Significant swelling," he said, same tone as before. "The inflammation has spread to the inguinal lymph nodes."

His fingers left my skin. I heard the sound of gloves being peeled off, that dull, rubbery separation. Then running water.

"History of drug allergies?"

His back was to me. He was scrubbing his fingers.

"No."

"Applied anything recently?"

"…Something a friend recommended. Said it would stop the itching and swelling."

He turned off the faucet, pulled a paper towel. By the time he turned around, my jeans were fastened—the fastest I'd ever done it in my life.

He sat back down at the desk and started writing a prescription. The pen moved fast, lowercase g's never closed, the crossbars of his t's flying off. I stood in front of the desk, looking at his hair whorl. That exact spot. I'd stared at it for an entire semester junior year, sitting in the window row two seats behind him in AP Physics.

"Hydrocortisone cream. Twice daily. Oral diphenhydramine, one at bedtime."

He tore off the prescription and handed it to me. When I reached for it, my fingertip brushed the side of his index finger. His skin was cold, fresh from the faucet.

He didn't let go.

I held one end of the prescription slip; he held the other. That thin piece of paper stretched between us like a bridge. His glasses reflected the computer screen's glow. I couldn't see his eyes.

"Emily."

He said my name.

Not "Ms. Chau." Not "Emily Chau" from the chart. Emily. Two syllables. As light as the "excuse me" he used to toss over his shoulder when we passed in the hallway.

But this time he wasn't saying excuse me.

He let go. The prescription fell into my hand, a fine crease along the edge where his fingers had gripped it.

"Come back Monday."

I turned toward the door. My hand was on the handle when his voice came from behind me.

"Next time, don't use things you bought off Instagram. Your skin's allergic to salicylate derivatives."

I looked back. "How did you know it was—"

"Chloe Zhang's Instagram story. Three days ago. 'Emergency kit for my bestie,' with a picture of a pink tube of ointment."

He'd already bent his head back down, flipping open the next chart. Fingers pinching the corner of the page, same as before.

I didn't say anything else. I pulled the door open and walked out.

The AC was still blasting in the hallway. I clutched the prescription, the written side pressed against my palm. I made it to the waiting area by the hospital entrance, sat down, and unfolded the paper.

Hydrocortisone. Diphenhydramine. Dosage instructions.

The back was blank.

No phone number. No "don't wait in the ER line next time."

I folded the prescription, tucked it into my coat pocket. My fingers brushed my phone inside the pocket. The screen lit up—one unread message, sent ten minutes ago. Unknown number.

Your allergy history wasn't in your file. Make sure to update it.

I stared at the screen for a long time. Typed How did you get my number, deleted it. Typed Thanks, deleted it. Finally sent just one letter.

Y.

The screen went dark.

Three seconds later it lit up.

See you Monday.

When I got home, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and threw the pink herbal rescue balm in the trash. Then I pulled out my phone, opened Instagram, and went to Chloe's account.

The story from three days ago. Close-up of the pink ointment, captioned For a certain unlucky soul who always gets hunted by mosquitoes 💕. Chloe's vanity in the background. I zoomed in. In the corner of the vanity mirror, a blurry reflection: white top, dark hair.

Me. Sitting on her bed behind her, the day I went over to pick up the cream.

I closed Instagram and messaged Chloe.

That cream of yours almost sent me to the ER.

She replied instantly. WHAT??? Are you okay??

Fine. Doctor gave me a prescription.

Which doctor? St. Joe's? I heard there's a really hot dermatologist there, Stanford grad, I think his name is—

I flipped my phone over and pressed it into the couch cushion.

Monday. St. Joseph's Hospital. Dermatology, Exam Room 3.

I arrived twenty minutes early. Not quite two in the afternoon, and the hallway was already full. I checked in at triage; the nurse told me to wait. When I sat down, I noticed a magazine on the next chair, opened to a page with a corner torn out. I stared at that jagged edge for about five minutes.

"Emily Chau."

The nurse called my name. I stood up and walked down the corridor to Exam Room 3. Knocked three times.

"Come in."

He wasn't wearing the white coat today. Gray button-down, sleeves rolled to the elbows, revealing a thin scar along the inside of his left forearm. He'd had it since high school. Some people said he got it helping his dad repair the garage roof: sheet metal cut. Others said a test tube shattered during a physics lab. He'd never explained it.

The gold-rimmed glasses were still there.

"Sit. So, better?"

He gestured at the chair across from his desk. Not the exam bed.

"Much better. The swelling's gone."

"Let me see."

He stood and walked over to the exam bed. I hesitated for two seconds, then stood too, walked over, sat down, and unbuttoned my jeans.

This time he wasn't wearing gloves.

His fingers pressed directly onto the now-faded welt on my inner thigh, the pads of his fingertips warmer than last time. His thumb traced lightly down the crease of my groin. It wasn't a lymph node exam. Too slow, lingered too long.

I gripped the exam table paper at the edge of the bed.

"Still tender?" he asked. His voice was lower. Or maybe he was just closer.

"No."

His fingers didn't move away. Instead, they moved up half an inch, the tips just grazing the lace edge of my underwear. The movement was too precise to be accidental.

I looked up. He was looking down at his own hand, or at the skin his hand was touching. The exam light glinted off the gold rim of his glasses.

"Ethan."

I said his name. He lifted his eyes.

It was the first time I'd seen anything in them. Back in high school, Ethan Winters was perfect: perfect grades, flawless recommendation letters, impeccable manners. He helped teachers carry books. He tutored classmates in AP Biology. He organized fundraising drives for student council. Everything he did was exactly right, exactly enough. Nobody disliked him. Nobody really knew him either.

But the man standing between my legs right now had a crack in his eyes.

He pulled his hand back.

"The allergy's cleared up." He turned away, walked to the sink, and started washing his hands—even though he hadn't touched anything that needed washing off. "You can stop the cream. Stop the diphenhydramine if it's making you drowsy."

"Okay."

I buttoned my jeans and slid off the exam bed. He didn't turn around.

"Ethan."

His back stiffened.

"How did you get my number?"

The water stopped. He pulled a paper towel and dried his hands slowly, one finger at a time.

"It's in the hospital system."

"Doctors can't use patient contact information. It's a HIPAA violation."

He finally turned around. The Stanford pin was slightly crooked on his collar.

"You know HIPAA, Emily?"

"I'm in nursing school. Final year."

He looked at me for a long time. Long enough that I could hear a child crying in the next exam room, the sound planed thin by the insulated walls.

"So you knew it was wrong," he said, crumpling the paper towel and tossing it in the bin. "Then why did you reply?"

I didn't answer.

He walked back to his desk, sat down, opened my electronic chart. The screen light bleached his face pale.

"Follow-up's done. You can go."

I stayed where I was.

"Graduation day," I said. "You signed everyone's yearbook. Everyone except me."

His fingers stopped on the keyboard.

"You knocked my yearbook off the table. Picked it up. Dusted it off. Put it back. Without opening it."

He didn't speak.

"I thought you hated me."

He took off his glasses and set them on the desk. Without the lenses, his eye sockets were deeper than I'd imagined, the brow bones casting two triangular shadows under the light.

"I didn't hate you, Emily."

"Then why—"

"Because if I'd opened that yearbook, I wouldn't have been able to leave."

The AC hummed in the exam room. Someone pushed a cart past the door, the wheels clacking over the seams in the linoleum, getting closer, then fading.

He stood up from behind the desk and walked over to me. No mask. No white coat. No exam light. Just a man in a gray shirt, half a head taller than me, with a small mole at his collarbone, barely hidden by the edge of his collar.

"You remember the yearbook," he said. "What else?"

"That you always sat by the window in third row during physics. That you pushed your glasses up with your ring finger when you flipped test pages. That your lunch was always a tuna sandwich and a box of apple juice. Two years straight. Never changed it up."

"What else?"

"That you fixed Chloe's bike chain once. You talked to her for twenty minutes. That day I stood at the entrance to the parking lot for a long time, watching. Then I took the side gate home."

His Adam's apple moved.

"You thought I was flirting with Chloe."

"You were flirting with Chloe."

"I was asking her if you were her lab partner in physics."

He didn't give me a chance to answer. His mouth came down on mine too fast—his glasses knocked against my brow bone, a sharp little click. He reached up, pulled the glasses off, set them on the desk behind him, then kissed me again. No obstacle this time.

His lips were drier than I'd expected, a tiny crack on the lower one, probably from the AC in this room. His right hand pressed against the back of my neck, thumb braced on the artery below my earlobe, fingers gripping tight enough that I could feel the edge of his nails.

I reached for his collar. My fingertip had just brushed that scar on his forearm when he flinched back half an inch.

His hand slid down, found the waist of my jeans, undid the copper button. Then the zipper. The sound was shockingly loud in the quiet exam room.

"The light—" I said.

He reached over and hit a switch on the wall. The exam light went dark. Only the three ceiling tubes remained: two lit, one dead. The room dimmed by half.

He pushed me back onto the exam bed. The paper crinkled sharply under me. One hand braced on the edge of the bed behind me, the other sliding up my inner thigh, pushing my clothes up.

"The swelling—"

"Healed." His lips were at my earlobe, his voice amplified ten times. "You're healed."

His fingers found the patch of skin that had been inflamed last week. Without gloves, his fingertips traced the faint circle of residual pigmentation, just as slow and precise as before. But this time he wasn't checking lymph nodes. This time he laid his whole hand over it.

I grabbed the front of his shirt.

"Wait—"

He stopped immediately, palm lifting from my leg.

"What?"

I looked at him. In the gray light, his face was half lit, half in shadow. Inside those two dark hollows under his brow bones, I finally saw what was inside the crack. Not lust. Something older than lust: like a man who'd been starving for years finally sitting at a table, but not letting himself reach.

"You didn't lock the door," I said.

He straightened up, walked to the door, and pressed the lock button. Click. Then he stood there, back against the door, looking at me.

"After you left last time," he said, "I sat in this room for a long time. My hands smelled like you. I washed them three times."

"Ethan—"

"I pulled your chart. Found your number. Before I sent that message, I saved the draft for six hours. Deleted it four times. Typed it all over again every single time I deleted it."

He walked back from the door. This time he wasn't in a hurry. He nudged my knees apart and stepped between them, looking down at me. His fingers landed on my collarbone first, traced it out to the shoulder, then downward, hooking under my bra strap. The elastic snapped softly against my skin, so soft I almost thought I imagined it.

"In high school I knew one thing very clearly," he said, fingers still moving down. "If I said one extra word to you—even one—I wouldn't be able to keep being Ethan Winters."

His fingertips traced down my sternum and stopped over the beat of my heart.

"I don't want to be Ethan Winters right now."

The metal edge of the exam bed pressed against my back. The paper stuck to my skin, cold where sweat had dampened it. The ceiling lights went from two tubes to three above me: the dead one had somehow come on, or maybe it was never dead at all, just a loose connection.

His breath grew hot and heavy in the hollow of my shoulder.

Someone on the other side of the door tried the handle, then knocked.

"Dr. Winters?"

He stopped. His fingers were still hooked at my waist, his forehead pressed against my collarbone. His breath blew across my skin, once, twice. Then he straightened, fixed his collar, picked up the gold-rimmed glasses from the desk and put them back on. By the time he turned to face the door, he was Dr. Ethan Winters again.

Except for the dry crack on his lip, the one cuff button he'd missed, and the faint damp trace on his thumb, which he quietly wiped away before opening the door.

He looked at me right before pressing the handle. Not a doctor's look. Not a high school classmate's look. The look of someone walking out of a locked room, glancing back at the other person still inside it.

"Monday," he said.

Then the door opened.

The hallway light flooded in.

I didn't leave right away. I stayed in that exam room for maybe ten more minutes. The paper on the exam bed still held the imprint of two bodies, slowly rebounding. I tore that sheet off, folded it, and tucked it into my coat pocket. Then I took out the prescription slip from my pocket, the one from last week, and flipped it over. The back was blank.

I picked up the pen he'd left on the desk. Wrote a number on the back. Then I pulled open his drawer and placed the prescription slip inside.

The drawer held a half-box of nitrile gloves, a spare glasses case, a stack of blank prescription slips.

And a St. Mark's High School yearbook. The cover was worn, the spine cracked open and mended with medical cloth tape.

I didn't open it.

I closed the drawer and walked out of the exam room. At the end of the hallway in the waiting area, Chloe was sitting there, flipping through a magazine with a corner torn out.

"Emily! What took you so long? Is it bad? Did you—"

She stood up, dropping her voice. "See the super hot doctor?"

"I saw him."

"And???"

I put my hands in my coat pockets. My fingers brushed the folded exam table paper.

"He scheduled a follow-up."