Arsenic for the Soul Read Free

she was cutting it damn
close, but her schedule had been far too chaotic lately.
    That is, she spent too many late
nights at the cybergoth club, planning a trip overseas come
December, jotting down random lyrics for songs she would never
perform—just the typical antidote for six hours of class every day.
She always did extra things on her own time. Plus, she wasn’t
particularly looking forward to this appointment.
    Vivian checked in with the clerk and
settled into one of the predictably uncomfortable
chairs.
    She followed the ticking hand on her
wristwatch until a door creaked open and someone called her name.
She looked up to see a man standing in the doorway.
    “ Vivian?”
    She popped up from her seat. She was
in a hurry to get this over with. Before she could catch a glimpse
of him, the figure disappeared down the hall.
    Vivian followed him through a white
corridor, feeling like a lost soul being heralded into this pale
afterlife.
    Why did hospitals insist on such an
alienating and cheerless atmosphere? Perhaps she would establish a
job market for beautifying hospitals.
    “ So what brings you here
today?” the man asked, turning around. Vivian paused for a moment
to gawk at his face. She roamed over his handsome, well-shaven jaw
and light brown hair.
    As silly as the comparison seemed, his
face looked angelic. Most captivating of all was the innocent spark
in his eyes, as though he had never witnessed any cruelty in the
world.
    “ I need a BCG vaccine for
the nursing program.”
    “ First Faculty of
Medicine?”
    “ Yes.”
    Vivian found herself hypnotized by his
doe eyes. She glanced from the contours of his face to the name on
his photo ID.
    Milo Dušan.
    “ It’s a good profession to
go into. You’ll find a lot of students from the nursing program
working here. Not to mention the pay and benefits keep you coming
back.”
    He ushered her into the examination
room.
    “ Did you study here?” she
asked.
    “ No, I studied abroad. I’ve
been wandering in a daze across Eastern Europe for the past six
years. Call it a quarter-life crisis if you want, but there’s
nothing quite like immersing yourself in the nightlife of Budapest
or breathing the air in a wine cellar in Estonia.”
    “ Don’t make me
jealous.”
    Milo broke into laughter.
    “ It sounds extravagant,
doesn’t it? Of course it does, but don’t get me started on the
beer. You can’t convince me that anything outside of Prague is true
beer. There’s nothing quite like a glass of honey
lager.”
    “ Ha, keep telling yourself
that. Absinthe is making its way up there.”
    Milo cocked an eyebrow.
    “ You drink the Green
Fairy?”
    “ Once or twice,” she
sheepishly grinned, although the occasions surely numbered in the
dozens. She often partook in mind-altering drinks in the cybergoth
clubs, where every vice was welcomed and sins unheard of were
invented on a nightly basis.
    Vivian shrugged unapologetically under
his gaze.
    “ You need to learn to cut
loose and relax,” she said.
    “ Maybe you can show me how
you do that sometime.”
    “ Perhaps, if you ask
nicely.”
    Milo’s eyes dimmed and he leveled an
accusing stare at her.
    “ I see what you’re
doing.”
    Vivian’s heart stalled and she
wondered if her coy attempts were not quite as coy as she believed.
She berated herself for giving in to her first impulse.
    “ I just—”
    “ You’re trying to delay
your vaccine, aren’t you?”
    Vivian laughed in relief. So he hadn’t
noticed the eye she was giving him—or he simply chose to overlook
it.
    “ Haha, of course, just
trying to delay the inevitable… So what else do you do here besides
intimidating people with needles?”
    “ Trust me, I don’t usually
do this. I work in the blood lab downstairs where the end product
comes to me. Goodness, I sort through so many blood samples a day
that the smell of iron clings to me when I leave. Would you believe
I still get a little nauseous at the sight of blood? How do you
make