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On our seventh anniversary, Marlin Delgado and I, I was thrown back ten years into the past.
I caught hold of him in his white coat and asked one question:
"Marlin, why did you give up surgery to become a stylist?"
Ten years from now, Marlin would kiss the top of my head and give me the answer.
He told me I was a model, and he wanted to design the makeup, the hair, the clothes that suited me, all with his own hands.
But right now, I wanted to hear what a Marlin who didn't know me yet would say.
Before he could get a word out, a girl from the inpatient ward came stumbling over and threw her arms around his waist.
"Marlin, I don't want treatment anymore. Cancer can't be cured."
"Don't waste your time on me, okay?"
Marlin's arm came around her waist on instinct, and he soothed her in a low voice.
"I'm a doctor. You have to trust me. I'll cure you, I promise."
I stood frozen where I was and let my eyes travel over her, inch by inch.
Her hairstyle, her figure, her clothes were exactly the same as mine ten years later.
So Marlin hadn't switched careers to become a stylist for me.
He only wanted to shape me, with his own hands, into Carmen Fox's replacement.
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Marlin gentled the girl in his arms, his fingertips brushing the tear tracks from the corners of her eyes.
"Carmen, let's go take your medicine first. Once you take it, you'll slowly get better."
Before Carmen could answer, he slid one arm around her back and the other under her knees, and lifted her straight up into his arms.
And I, standing in that cold, dim corridor, suddenly remembered countless exhausted late nights.
Every time I'd shot a spread in heels four or five inches high until I was wrung out, too worn out to stay on my feet, I'd held my arms out to him too, coaxing.
"Marlin, hold me."
But every time, he bent down instead, swapped my shoes for a pair of flats, and said softly:
"Elle Prescott, we're in public. What if someone gets a photo?"
"Be good. I'll give you a massage when we get home."
Back then I always thought he was a quiet, restrained man.
Only now, watching his back as he carried Carmen farther and farther away, did I finally understand: he just didn't want to hold me.
A nurse passing by saw me standing there for a long while and couldn't resist coming over.
"You're hoping to win Dr. Delgado over too, aren't you? Take my advice and give it up now. Everyone in our department knows there's only one person in Dr. Delgado's heart, and that's Miss Fox."
"For Miss Fox's sake, he's turned the hospital into his home. He eats, drinks, and sleeps here."
"You know, plenty of girls have tried to get close to him before, but he sent them packing himself, before Miss Fox ever had to step in."
Her words brought back the Marlin from ten years later. Back then he'd kept the same clear lines drawn.
He never let another woman get near him. Even in ordinary work situations, the moment someone leaned in a little too close, that faint distaste would come back into his expression.
I used to feel a private thrill over that. I thought I was special to him.
Only now, looking at that nurse's face and how ordinary all of this was to her, did it hit me.
He didn't let other women near him because he was simply that kind of man, careful about where the lines were.
And the reason he let me near him was only that I looked seventy percent like Carmen Fox.
I went cold all over, like I'd fallen into a bottomless pit and would never climb out.
Seeing that I didn't react, the nurse lifted her chin toward the direction the two of them had gone and added one more thing:
"See that office? That's where Dr. Delgado lives now. It faces Miss Fox's room directly."
"He even put in a special request with the director to switch rooms, just so he'd hear the moment Miss Fox called for him."
A ringing filled my ears. Whatever the nurse said after that, I could no longer make it out.
A sharp pain shot through the place where my heart was. My knees gave way, the whole world lost its color and sound in an instant, and I fell straight backward.
The nurse beside me cried out in a panic, and then came the rush of hurried footsteps.
"Someone come quick, there's a person collapsed over here! Wake up, wake up!"
