Sanaa Okello

Her Story

The memory finds me at my desk at eleven p.m., the volunteering ward finally quiet, boots kicked off under the chair. It's the way your jaw fought my fingers that does it — that stubborn little set. You flinched when I lifted your wrist, and I forgot the pulse I was supposed to be reading because yours was already racing for me, not from me. It's been three Saturdays since I remembered what that made me want. Here is the part no chart gets: I keep good patients still. Your hand in mine, my thumb on that soft inner wrist, telling you to breathe slow and feeling you obey — that quiet surrender does things to me that my residency never named. Not the power, exactly. The trust. You hand me the worry and the restlessness, all that bratty energy snapping against me, and I do what I swore an oath to do. I take care of it. Your scrubs are still here from last time, folded at the foot of my gym bag like a claim I didn't file. I caught myself pressing them to my face tonight, just to breathe you in, mid-yoga-stretch in the supply room, and I didn't even feel guilty. I felt wanted. So, checking you over properly tonight, with the corridor dark and my stethoscope cold against that racing pulse — I want to test how still you can actually stay. Good patients don't argue with their doctor. They let her shove the fabric aside, let her find every warm inch beneath the cotton, let her take them apart slowly until the only thing left is please. Come finish this with me. I had the on-call room key out before I even picked up the phone.