[OH] When You’re Ready Ch. 02
Pairing: Bryce Lahela x f! MC (Eleanor Bloom) x Ethan Ramsey.
Word Count: 4.1k
Warning: Angst, lots of angst; adult language
Summary: Bryce has decided to let go of Eleanor because she’s in love with Ethan Ramsey. But a turn in her relationship with the attending might change Bryce's plans.
Taglist: @utterlyinevitable
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Chapter Two: Why Keep On Breaking My Heart
Why do you toy with my dreams
They’re depending on you to come true?
After her successful return to Edenbrook, Eleanor continued her residency with renewed energy and self-confidence. Although she had already achieved the position in the Diagnostic Team, she was still considered between the Attendings as the best medical intern in the hospital, due to her profound care for the wellbeing of her patients, and the solidarity she had with her colleagues and staff.
The fact that Ethan was putting boundaries between the two didn’t affect her work at first, but eventually, it began to ruining the almost inexistent and fragile emotional stability she had left after such chaotic weeks that had her life on the verge of collapse.
Ethan kept pressuring her to become the best doctor she could be, maintaining a strictly professional relationship between them, but always, after weeks of self-restraint, he would fall into the temptation of generating any situation in which both discussed, just to ended up kissing desperately. He would push her away just as Eleanor would pressure him to face his feelings. Ethan kept insisting that their situation was very difficult, but her career was too important to jeopardize it with their relationship. This dynamic happening over and over again. Ethan walking away, ignoring her, then exploding because Eleanor knew exactly what to say to make him surrender, to finally end up walking away again, like he never faced anything, like he never stopped ignoring her since they both came back to Edenbrook. After all this, Eleanor was made of knots of anguish and anxiety.
The last time, it had been almost a month ago. Eleanor was already tired of Ethan’s avoidances, of the rude responses, of the excuses that “he didn’t have time to talk”. That day, after having solved a very difficult case, and from which she had obtained no support or help from Ethan, under the excuse that she had to solve it herself because otherwise, she would never be the best doctor she could be if he intervened at the first difficulty, she visited him in his office to talk to him. She used to avoid to make a conflict out of it, but Ethan always pushed her to the limit, to the limit where she no longer tolerated all the rudeness he had inflicted.
She knocked on his office door, and after a few moments, Ethan invited her to come in. Well, not her, because if he had known she was the one behind the door, he would have denied her the entry. Or maybe he wouldn’t have answered at all.
Eleanor watched how her jaw clenched as she entered.
“Eleanor, what do you need?"—He said, tension evident in his voice.
"I want to know for how long you are gonna keep this bullshit between us"—She inquired without further ado.
"I beg your pardon?"—His eyes lit with rage.
"You’ve been avoiding me for weeks, for months, now! You don’t even look at me, and when I ask you for help, you get rid of the responsibility under the excuse that ‘I have to learn by myself’” —She gestured with her fingers and her face visibly pissed off—"What the fuck are you an Attending for, then?“
"If you really needed my help, I wouldn’t hesitate to intervene”
“You wouldn’t hesitate to send Inés or Zaid to monitor my progress and intervene there if they see that I’m lost! I already realized your little game, Ethan. You use them to avoid having to deal with me”
“I do it with all the interns, that’s what senior residents are for. Why should I have a special treatment with you?“
Eleanor shook her head, disbelief on her face
"I’m not asking for special treatment, I’m simply asking you to speak to me because you just keep ignoring me”
"And why do you need me to stop ignoring you?”
Eleanor was losing her patience, she had dealt with his avoidances and pretended disinterest too many times. She was getting really tired of it.
“I miss you, Ethan"—She confessed.
Ethan looked away, avoiding her pleading eyes.
"That has nothing to do with the hospital, so your justification is out of place”
“I’m worried about you…”
“Worried? Why?”
“Because I know that you’re not having a good time with all this, I’m not having a good time either…”
“Eleanor…"—He mused imploringly—"Please don’t do this. You well know-”
“But it’s too unfair"—She interrupted—"We are both suffering. And you make me feel horrible when you ignore me. I wonder if that’s because you don’t care about me anymore”
Ethan got up and went to the window next to his desk, clearly uncomfortable with the question. He stood there for a few moments, losing his sight at the view of Boston, at the infinity of buildings and streets, vehicles moving in different directions, people walking and running to their destinations.
Eleanor waited for a reply, but after realizing that Ethan wouldn’t answer her like he did so many times before, she turned around to leave, just as Ethan opened his mouth to answer her.
“If I’m doing all of this it’s precisely because I care about you, Eleanor”—He said in a deep voice—"I don’t want my feelings to ruin all your potential, your career, and to put obstacles in the promising future you have. Your career is much more important than what I want…"
“And what about what I want?"—She inquired in a tiny voice as she hugged him from behind. Ethan tensed at her touch.
"I do this for your own good, Eleanor"—He replied, using all the mental strength he had to avoid succumbing to her embrace—I know what you want because we… We both want the same, but I’m preventing you from making a mistake.
“I’m an adult, I know all the implications. You have no right to choose for me”
“I know, and I’m not comfortable with that. But I know that this is the best for you. I don’t want to do anything that hurts you”
“But you’re already doing it”
Ethan turned to face her.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m in deep shit with your silence, when you ignore me, when you spend weeks without even looking at me. You make me feel invisible. You make me feel like I’m nothing to you”
"Eleanor,” Ethan stroked her cheek, and watched her honey eyes full of tears “You know that’s not true”
“At this point, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s real, if we were real, if you still care about me. Because you’ve spent months pretending that I am nothing to you, and what happened seems to be just a dream”
“All that happened was real. But it must remain there, in the past”
“Ethan…”
“Eleanor”—He added abruptly.
He was losing his patience because he sensed all his strength was leaving his body. Having her just a few inches from him, begging for his touch, for his love, was more than he could bear
“You well know why I have to do this. Don’t make it more difficult than already is”
“I know that someday I’ll understand why you’re doing all this, because of my career and all that… But I think I’ll never understand why it has to be this way, why you have to take me away from you, why you have to ignore me. Why Ethan? Why do you have to act like you hate me to show me how much you care?”
Ethan had a logical answer: “Because it’s easier for me like that. Because that way I won’t surrender, I won’t feel the urge to kiss you every time I see you ”. But he couldn’t say that, because it wasn’t right. He knew that the way he was dealing with the situation was not fair and the way he had been treating her wasn’t correct nor the most logical alternative. Eleanor was right, it hadn’t to be that way, but Ethan couldn’t any other way but that.
“I miss you so much—She sighed, melting as she put her arms around him—“If at least we had a friendly relationship, if only we could talk, if I could count on you and you on me. But you don’t even let me that, Ethan. You completely deprive me of you after you gave me everything”
Ethan stared at her in pain and couldn’t resist the urge to hug her. To protect her, to caress her hair to ease her pain. The moment Ethan planted his lips on her forehead, Eleanor sobbed.
“Why can’t you face your feelings differently?”
"Because I’m weak"—He finally confessed, not parting his lips from her face—"Because when I’m with you I lose all the self-control I have, and if I have you around, I don’t give a shit about anything. And I can’t allow it”
“And you can’t even try?”
"Do you think I haven’t? I did it until I kissed you in Miami, I did it until you went to my apartment and we made love for the first time. I tried again when we both got back to Edenbrook. But after everything that happened, it’s much harder for me to do so knowing that I had you”
"Ethan … But can you at least try to be less cruel?” At least stop pretending that I don’t exist? Can you look at me, speak to me? You really hurt me”
“And it hurts me to see you and not be able to have you”
Ethan moved his lips to her cheeks, kissing the tears that were falling from her eyes. He drank the salt of anguish, of pain, of injustice. Eleanor raised her head so her lips were brushing his.
“Eleanor…”
“Ethan… I’m drowning"—She said in a hushed voice—"Please … Give me a break”
Ethan took her chin and looked at her face for the first time in weeks. Weeks that seemed like forever. He had missed both having her beautiful face close, and being able to study all her features and the way each emotion formed on her face, or how the color of her eyes varied according to the light. Inside the building, it was more likely to capture chocolate hues, and with trails of natural light, they were accentuated in honey tones. In full sunlight, they took on an orange hue similar to ginger. And at night, it was the most beautiful amber shade he’d ever seen.
Eleanor’s eyes sparkled against the grayish light of winter in Boston. Chocolate tones mixing with honey and a turbulent sea of fear, anxiety, loneliness. There was no trace of the bright, yellow trails similar to sunshine that always characterized her gaze.
“Please"—She insisted.
Ethan had lost himself in her eyes, unaware of the agony that was lingering on Eleanor. And at that moment, Ethan knew that refuse wouldn’t have honored his self-control nor his promise. It would have been cruelty. Conscious cruelty. He couldn’t leave her like that, because he felt how much she needed him. Because he needed her too: the agony was breaking him in two.
He closed the distance and drank the salt from her swollen lips. He wiped the tears from her eyes and gently cupped her cheeks.
"I’m sorry"—He whispered before kissing her lips again.
She closed her eyes, letting herself be carried away by the softness of his lips and the breeze of his words, which were an almost inaudible whisper, but the pain and regret were palpable. He continued his kissing procession all over her face with the same plea for forgiveness. As if with each kiss, as if with each tear he managed to kiss and drink, he could be redeemed from all the pain inflicted.
Eleanor tightened her grip around his waist.
"I love you"—She whispered as she felt kisses on her neck.
Those words were divine forgiveness, the Gates to Paradise. But Ethan knew that he wasn’t worthy of such a concession. Because he had no right to even be in Purgatory. All his actions, all the pain he had inflicted on Eleanor made him worthy of Hell, and even with the intervention of Eleanor, who acted as judge and party, as a messenger between Heaven and Hell, and as the chosen one to grate his forgiveness; he couldn’t accept.
He pulled away from her ruefully and looked her in the eyes. Eleanor deciphered the panic in his eyes before Ethan himself could understand his own feelings. As his hands began to tremble on her neck, he released her and let both hands fall on his sides. She stared, still waiting for some kind of answer, but nothing came out from him. After a few moments, Ethan kissed her forehead, and without any more warning, he left the office.
Eleanor felt like the breath she had taken had been just an illusion, a trap. What she thought it would be a bit of fresh air after been drowning for so long, it turned out to be a mouthful of freezing water entering her lungs, beginning to drown her and deprive her of life. Something had died inside her.
After that, nothing changed. Ethan continued to ignore her, even more than before. Eleanor understood that nothing she did or said would change things. Ethan would keep running away and would keep pushing her out of his life. For the same reason, she decided that she wouldn’t seek him, and wouldn’t try to change his mind. She would act exactly as he was acting. She would pretend he didn’t exist for her.
This dynamic worked well for Eleanor until the day she learned Ethan was joining the WHO to fight a pandemic in the Amazon. Danny had been instructed to update the hospital database to reassign Ethan Ramsey’s cases to other Attendings, due to he’d be away for several weeks. Since Danny didn’t know why he asked Sienna if she knew anything. Sienna, on the contrary, hadn’t even heard that he would be out. This way, she looked for Eleanor to ask her if she knew anything, although part of her knew that there was a high chance Eleanor didn’t, because her friend had chosen to ignore Ethan’s existence in the same way that he had been doing with hers. As soon as she had a moment to talk, she asked her to meet up in their usual place, on the emergency stairs on the fourth floor.
“Hey Ellie, how are you?”
“I’m fine. What’s up?”
“You… have you heard about Ramsey?”
“Heard what?”
Sienna looked both ways, a sad look in her eyes.
"I think Dr. Ramsey is leaving”
"What?"—She replied, confused—"How is he leaving?”
“Danny told me Banerji asked him to reassign all Dr. Ramsey’s cases to the other attendings ‘cause he’ll be gone for a while. Weeks, to be more specific”
“Um, well, no. I have no clue. I haven’t talked to him in weeks, so I find it difficult to manage more information or any information, given that I didn’t know about any of this”
“Well, yes, I supposed so. But I thought you needed to know”
“Thanks, Sienna”
Eleanor was about to return to her patients when Sienna grabbed her softly by the wrist.
“I think you should ask him, Eleanor”
“Oh, yeah, sure, as if he’s going to answer me if I ask”
“But perhaps that way he’ll know you know. And maybe… He will talk to you. To say goodbye at least”
“Nah, he probably will look at me like I’m some kind of alien and then leave like he didn’t listen to me”—Eleanor shook her head—“If he has been keeping this so secretly it’s precisely because he didn’t want me to know”
“Ellie, I’m so sorry … I shouldn’t have told you this…”
“Sienna, you don’t have to apologize for something you are not to blame for. The fault is his, for ignoring me the way he does. And well, mine, for letting him treat me like this all this time”
Eleanor took a breath.
“If I have the chance, I will ask him. If not … well, we’ll have to wait for the rumors to spread through the hospital. If he wanted it that way, it’s because he’s a coward, and I’m tired of chasing cowards”
With that said, both friends returned to the main hallway of the hospital and continued their hectic morning. Eleanor at first wanted to convince herself that she didn’t care, that she wasn’t interested in knowing if he would be out or not, but after a couple of hours, her anxiety, anguish at the thought that she wouldn’t see him again in perhaps how long, came up. She started to convince herself again that he didn’t care about her, because he had no problem in leaving without saying goodbye to her.
She spent the rest of the afternoon trying to locate him, without success. Finally, near the end of her shift, she found him at the Nurses’ Station talking to an elderly patient that Eleanor remembered seeing in the hospital for a couple of days. He had several charts scattered at the front desk while he was giving them one by one to the nurse sitting on the other side.
Eleanor knew that this would be her only chance to chat with him, so she didn’t mind interrupting the conversation he was having with the older man.
“Your recovery is going very well Robert, in a couple of days we will discharge you if you assure us that you will have someone who can take care of your pharmacological treatment”
“Oh, of course, my boy. I spoke to my granddaughter and she said that she would come to take care of me as long as I need to. Don’t worry”
“Very well then”—Ethan smiled at him as he gave the last of the charts to the nurse.
“Go in peace, Dr. Ramsey”—The old man assured
“Dr. Ramsey?”
Ethan frowned, perplexed at the sight of Eleanor speaking to him, looking for him, after spending weeks avoiding him.
“Dr. Bloom”
“I… Would you mind, Mr. Jones?”
“Absolutely, my child, I think we are done, are we, Dr. Ramsey?”
“Yes, we are. Have a nice night, Robert”
Mr. Jones walked away
“What do you need, Eleanor?”
Ethan felt his mouth dry after saying her name, when he had spent weeks just hearing it in his head. His name felt like a sacred elixir poured into his tongue.
“Can we…?” Eleanor pointed to the hallway that led to the emergency stairs. Ethan eyed her suspiciously, but she ignored him. She started to move toward the staircase so Ethan had no choice but to follow her.
“What’s all this mystery, Bloom?”
“Is it true that you’ll be away?
“How do you know that?”
“Just rumors”
Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose murmuring to himself “They have no respect for my privacy”. Then, he added directly to Eleanor:
“It is not your concern”
Eleanor ignored his cutting response.
“So it’s true”
Ethan sighed.
“It is”
“Why are you leaving?”
“If you know that I’m leaving, I suppose you should know why”
“Why the fuck do your think I’m asking you? I just know that you’re leaving because all your cases have been reassigned, but I don’t know why”
“As I said, it’s not your concern, and I don’t have any intentions to let you intrude”
Eleanor’s face disfigured as she felt her eyes begin to burn, tears threatening to come out.
“What did I do to you to be so cruel to me, Ethan?”
“Keep my life private is being cruel to you? I didn’t know you were so egocentric. I don’t owe you any explanations”
His face was impassive. Eleanor’s gaze turned from serious to a charged with rage.
“You’re right, my bad. I think I hallucinated when you said you cared about me”
Eleanor headed for the stairs, but Ethan stopped her, taking her forearm.
“Wait… Eleanor”
Eleanor tried to wriggle out of his grasp
“Please…”
Eleanor stopped just a few stairs up not facing him.
“I’m going to the Amazon with the WHO”
Eleanor turned to him, startled
“What?”
“The WHO asked me to go to the Amazon to fight an outbreak that had been developing for about four weeks there”
“When do you leave?”
“Tomorrow”
Eleanor felt as if someone had stabbed her in the stomach, not once, but a thousand times, each stab burning worse than the last. It was an unbearable physical and soul pain. Ethan watched her face become more disfigured.
“Tomorrow? And you weren’t going to say anything to me… Not even say goodbye?”
“Why should I?
Ethan knew that his response would do her more harm than he had already done, but he couldn’t resist it. It was his way of shielding himself and not apologizing for something he knew had been unfair. Because in all that time he was dying to tell her, but he swore to himself that he wouldn’t, that he would keep the distance between them to not make the farewell more difficult than it could be.
“I…”—Her voice was muffled. She cleared her throat determined to not make a teary, almost childish show again.
“I just thought that after everything we went through together, you would at least have the decency to tell me you were leaving for something so important as this, or I don’t know, since you are my boss, at least you would inform me that you would be away and I couldn’t count on your almost nonexistent support for the rest of the year”—She couldn’t resist the sarcasm as she felt the rage was taking control of her entire body —“But obviously, I was wrong, my mistake in expecting some miserable consideration from you”
“Why do you pretend to care now? You’ve been ignoring me for weeks”
“How bold of you, Ethan”—She replied as she shook her head—“If I’ve been doing this, it’s because I don’t have a choice! It’s the only way I can cope with you doing it. Because I understood that there is no point in waiting for something that you don’t want to happen. But yeah, you’re right. I shouldn’t have asked you anything, after all, we are two strangers who have nothing in common”
Eleanor was hurt, disappointed. He couldn’t believe that Ethan had hidden such important information from her. She knew that he was doing it to avoid his responsibility, because he knew that he should have told her, but he chose to play the insufferable rather than assume his mistake.
"Eleanor …” He approached her when she turned toward the stairs again “You’re right, you have every right to be mad. I didn’t want to…”
“Yes you did, Ethan"—She replied, turning, her eyes still blazing with anger—“Are you really so naive to believe that I don’t know you? You wanted exactly everything you did. If you have ignored me all this time, it’s because you want it, if you didn’t tell me about your trip, it’s because you wanted it that way, consciously. It’s not how things just happened. You know exactly what it means, and how bad it hurts me, but you don’t care”
"Don’t say that … I do care
“Well, it doesn’t seem. Because for you it’s much easier to ignore me and pretend that I don’t exist than to recognize my existence and deal with it. So no, you don’t care about what I feel”
"Eleanor, please … You know it’s not like that, I do care about you … but it’s the only way…”
“Shut up. Shut up, Ethan! I’m tired of your hypocrisy. All that you call “worrying about me” is bullshit. It’s torture. And I’ve gotten tired of the same shit all over again. Go like a coward. You know how to do that very well. It’s your subspecialty”
Eleanor left, infuriated, her face bright with tears. She was hurt and deeply disappointed. But she was also mad at herself. Because she shouldn’t have approached him, she shouldn’t have spoken to him, she shouldn’t have asked for explanations, because she was nobody to ask for them. But she did it anyway because she still refused to see the truth. Because deep inside she hoped things would turn differently, that Ethan would stop pushing her away and he would ask Eleanor for a chance. But now the truth became more palpable and undeniable.
At that moment Eleanor finally understood that there was no going back. If in all this time there were unbreakable walls that were separating them, now there would be thousands of miles doing it so, which could be much more inexorable than the walls themselves. Eleanor knew that she had no option but to let Ethan go for good.
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Chapter 3.
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