Prescribed (The White Coat Series) Read Free

back on the ground and handed her back to the nurse in charge.
    “Fought off those icky sticky monsters yet?” Ryan asked, bending down to her level. 
    “Yes!! I’m all better! Look, no more sharp things,” she said, pointing down at her tiny forearms. I noticed the red pinprick marks scattered around her arm. 
    “That’s great to hear! But what are you doing up you crazy girl?” 
    “She needed to go to the bathroom,” her nurse answered, smiling down at her precious charge. The girl’s grin beamed between the both of them and shone an even brighter light on Ryan. He gently ruffled her golden blond curls and sent them off to her room. 
    “She had to be the cutest thing ever,” I said once Ryan came back to my side and we continued on our trek to the cafeteria. He smiled down at me, a new glint in his hazel green eyes that replaced the tired dimness from earlier. 
    “I’ve known her since she was two, and you’re right. She’s an angel,” he said, looking straight ahead but still keeping that wide grin on his face. 
    “You really like kids don’t you?” I asked, unable to ignore how passionate he was for children. It made for a very attractive quality that just propelled him to a whole other level. 
    “I do, yeah. Hopefully have five of my own some day.” 
    “Five? Wow! My mom came from a family of four and that’s crazy to me, five sounds like you’ll never be bored at Thanksgiving.” 
    “Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Martin Luther King Day. I'll always be entertained. It's something I never really got to experience. I had… well have a brother but I always wondered what it would be like to have more siblings,” he replied, pausing for the briefest moment at the mention of his brother. I looked over at him but couldn’t make out his facial expression. I wanted to dig in and find out what would make him pause. I wanted to find out what would make him tick as well. I basically just wanted to find out everything about him. He was becoming more and more interesting as the night went on.  
    I felt like there were layers I wanted to peel off of him. I imagined nights spent just talking about our lives, learning the histories and the small stories that followed us to adulthood. I imagined listening to each other talk about a first pet dog or the biggest fears we had when we were little compared to the ones we fear now. They were all questions that had no real substance unless answered and I wanted him to answer them all. 
    “Are you close to your brother?” I asked, needing to know more about him. I wasn’t sure if it was against some hospital rule to get close to a doctor, but I couldn’t help it. There was something there that excited me to no end. 
    “Well, sort of a complicated story,” he started as we finally entered the cafeteria. It was largely empty, with only two cashiers and a few cooks working by the cheeseburger grill. 
    “Hate to talk about such strong subjects, but since you asked. I was put up for adoption when I was born and just recently found out I have a brother I never knew about." He paused, letting me digest the history he was giving me. "I went through some lawyers and other doctors, trying to find something that pointed me in the right direction,” he said as he motioned over to a pre-made cheeseburger warming up under some heat lamps. Meanwhile, I was hanging on his every word. I knew how hard it was to go through foster care just by the stories Eric would tell me. The foster system was set up with the best of intentions but some people just aren’t meant to foster, and Eric had to deal with a lot of those. Yet Ryan seemed much better adjusted than Eric. 
    “Yeah, so I was finally able to reach out to my brother about a week ago. My actual brother. It feels weird to say out loud,” Ryan said, almost laughing at the way brother sounded coming out of his mouth. I could see that he was a man who never dreamed of connecting with his biological family