Examining His Ex

Start Reading

I went to the hospital for a breast ultrasound. The doctor walking in was Bennett. My ex-boyfriend.

He stood beside the bed, his knuckles white around the ultrasound probe, his gaze flat and unyielding as it locked onto mine.

What are you stalling for? Lift your shirt.

You're just a patient. Gender doesn't exist in this room.

I clamped my jaw shut so hard my teeth ached, grabbed the hem of my top, and yanked it up in one sharp motion. A deep flush of red instantly exploded across Bennett's neck, creeping rapidly all the way up to the tips of his ears.

Chapter 1

Clutching the examination slip in my hand, I pulled back the curtain to the ultrasound room and froze the second I saw the doctor.

"Number 58, Maeve. Breast ultrasound. Lie down, lift your top, and angle your body slightly to the side." His voice was flat and completely void of any emotion, like a piece of clinical machinery.

It was the exact same tone he used to use.

"Maeve, get up here stop squirming."

My stomach plummeted, the blood rushing straight to my head. This stoic, unapproachable doctor holding the ultrasound probe was my ex-boyfriend.

A good ex-boyfriend was supposed to act like he was dead. Not standing in a hospital ultrasound room, ordering me to strip and lie down.

My chest, already throbbing from the stress knots my boss had given me, flared with fresh pain.

Watching me drag my feet, his gaze turned icy. "What are you stalling for? Lift your shirt. There are thirty people waiting outside, and you're wasting everyone's time."

"You're just a patient. Gender doesn't exist in this room."

Fine. Great. Bennett, you bastard.

I threw myself onto the bed and, without a second thought, yanked my thin top all the way up.

"I know, Doctor. I feel the exact same way." I refused to show an ounce of weakness in front of this man.

Except I forgot my actual chest was currently radiating pain. The violent motion pulled at my sore tissue, forcing my teeth to sink hard into my lower lip to hold back a hiss.

Bennett's gaze flicked over me, and a sudden flush exploded across his face. My pulse hitched.

A memory slammed into mehow he used to flush that exact same shade of red while being utterly relentless with me in bed. Right as the memory blurred my focus, the freezing gel on the ultrasound probe hit my bare skin.

I sucked in a sharp breath and squeezed my eyes shut, desperate to hide my flustered state. It was supposed to be the most routine medical exam, but under his hands, the air felt thick and entirely wrong.

Bennett and I went to the same university. We met for the first time at a completely mundane inter-department mixer. I was an undergrad studying foreign languages; he was in a joint med-school program and three years older than me.

Back then, every single girl in the room was inevitably drawn to him. He was aloof and unapproachable. Tall, strikingly handsome, with pale skin, he politely rejected every advance, standing in the corner like some untouchable, brooding ice prince.

I was young and arrogant. I had a football team's worth of guys chasing me, but I didn't care about a single one of them. I only wanted the high-and-mighty guy who seemed impossible to conquer.

Right as the party was ending, I "accidentally" spilled my drink all over his crisp white shirt. He didn't lose his temper. He just locked his dark, heavy gaze onto mine. In that split second, I felt like his eyes sliced straight through my skull and exposed my every thought.

Just like that, I got his number and volunteered to wash his shirt.

Even now, I still remember the day he took off that shirt to hand it to me outside my dorm. The tips of his ears were burning red, making him look like some innocent boy I was bullying. How the hell was anyone supposed to resist that?

"All done." Bennett pulled the probe away, tossing a wad of cheap paper towels onto my chest without looking.

His movements were as rough as a bastard who turns his back right after a one-night stand, completely different from that innocent boy back then. Mentally cursing my past self for being so blind, I scrambled to wipe off the gel, yanked my clothes back into place, and bolted for the door.

My hand barely grazed the door handle before a voice stopped me. The medical assistant who had been typing up the notes in the corner rushed after me. She had her hair pulled into a tight ponytail, and her eyes sparkled with a strange excitementlike she had just sniffed out some prime gossip.

"Ms. Maeve, you forgot your paperwork."

Chapter 2

"Excuse me for asking, but do you know Dr. Bennett?"

My stomach dropped. She could tell? Was I really being that obvious?

"I've been working here for a month, and I've never seen him act like that," she whispered, her voice conspiratorial. "The tension between you two was just intense. I don't even know how to describe it."

I swallowed hard and forced out a dry, practiced laugh. "You're completely mistaken. We don't have any kind of relationship."

"Unless you count doctor and patient?" The words barely left my mouth before a chilling, heavy gaze landed squarely on my back.

The ponytail girl was still staring at me, her eyes practically screaming, Yeah, right. I don't buy that for a second.

You should be working for the paparazzi. Being an ultrasound typist is a serious waste of your talents.

I spun on my heel and bolted, refusing to stick around for further interrogation.

After standing in line to pick up my prescription, I kept my head down, counting the little boxes in my hands as I walked. Suddenly, I slammed face-first into a solid chest wrapped in a stiff white coat.

The harsh scent of hospital disinfectant mixed with the sterile, metallic smell of medical tools hit me. But buried underneath it was a faint, clean colognea tiny sliver of private intimacy cutting right through his professional armor and sneaking into my senses. It was the exact scent that used to devour me, dragging me to the edge of bliss over and over again.

"You came alone?" Bennett stood there with both hands shoved deep into the pockets of his white coat, a pen clipped perfectly to his chest pocket. He looked like the picture-perfect professional.

"Yeah," I lied smoothly. "My boyfriend is swamped with work. He couldn't make it."

Bennett's jaw clenched for a fraction of a second, or maybe I just imagined it. It took him a long moment to finally speak. "Look at you, being so understanding now. Not dragging your boyfriend to your appointments?"

"It's just a minor issue. No need to bother him." As I spoke, I dug an antibacterial wipe out of my bag and deliberately scrubbed at the spot on my shoulder where I had bumped into him.

His brows pulled together into a tight frown as he watched my hands, like the motion unlocked a very specific memory.

"Don't take it personally," I said lightly. "A friend just once warned me about how absolutely filthy doctor's coats actually are."

I tossed the crumpled wipe into a nearby trash can, met his eyes, and gave him a bright, empty smile. "Left me with a bit of trauma, you know?"

The color instantly drained from his face, leaving his expression tight and rigid.

A sharp, vicious thrill of satisfaction spiked straight through my chest.

"Why so curious, Dr. Bennett? Is asking about relationship status part of the hospital's patient care package?"

"It's nothing." Maybe he snapped his professional mask back into place instantly, or maybe he genuinely didn't give a damn. Just like a million times before, his face was a blank, impenetrable wall. "Just making conversation."

When you're young, you're stupidly pure. Back then, I acted like some fearless kamikaze, scooping up every ounce of passion I possessed and desperately trying to shove it right into his hands, entirely blind to whether he actually wanted it or if it was just suffocating him.

Looking back now, it was nothing but a completely undignified obsession. Once I started dating Bennett, I turned into this spineless, clinging vine, shamelessly wrapping myself tightly around him, completely ignoring the freezing, towering walls he constantly threw up between us.

I used to trek all the way across campus every single day just to wait for him at the grad student dining hall. I was the kind of girl who couldn't even boil water, yet I spent two agonizing months knitting him a pair of stupid woolen gloves. I demanded hour-long phone calls the second I got back to my dorm, begged him for kisses every day and was constantly dragging him into tight, desperate spaces just to get my hands on him.

On my birthday that year, I waited in my room all alone until midnight. When he finally rushed through the door, still wearing his white coat from his shift, I launched myself straight into his arms.

"Don't take it off," I whispered, holding him tight. "Leave it on. I like the way you look in your white coat, Dr. Bennett."

But his hands came up, pushing me away with obvious distaste, his voice dripping with that cold, clinical rationality. "Do you have any idea how filthy this coat is?"

"Maeve, do you seriously not have anything better to do with your life? My workload is suffocating. I am exhausted."

"When you act like this, it just suffocates me. Can you please just grow up and be a little more understanding?"

Chapter 3

I got a call from my gay best friend, Felix, on the cab ride back. His nagging voice pouring out of the speaker actually managed to ground me.

"I told you I should have gone with you! I Googled it. Breast tissue knots are no joke, you can't just brush it off. With those god-tier chest genetics, if you're just going to ruin them, you might as well transplant them onto me."

"Oh, screw off," I laughed into the phone. A beat passed. I swallowed hard. "I ran into Bennett."

Dead silence on the other end.

"Holy shit. Talk about worst-case scenarios. Tell me you didn't fall for his crap again."

"Do not regress, Maeve! That man is a walking red flag!" His voice hit a pitch that nearly shattered my phone speaker.

"I knew it! Have you been single all these years just waiting for him?!"

"I'm not that pathetic," I snapped back.

Yeah, I lied to Bennett. There was no boyfriend. You try finding a guy who looked better than Bennett. Once your standards are set that impossibly high, settling just isn't an option.

When I left the hospital, I thought running into him was just a bizarre glitch in the matrixa total accident that would never happen again.

Three days later, I was back at the exact same hospital. And I was in absolute agony.

"I'm not going to this hospital." I could barely push the words past my lips. Cold sweat drenched my forehead. My knees violently knocked together.

Felix struggled to hold my weight, cursing the whole way to the entrance. "This is the closest ER, and it's the best! Do you want to die? Now is not the time to care about your pride!"

"Besides, you're not that cursed. There's no way you run into him every single time"

The words barely left his mouth when a towering figure stepped out of the elevator. Bennett. Six-foot-two, devastatingly handsome, wearing that immaculate white coat like armor. He was impossible to miss.

Felix snapped his mouth shut and aggressively dragged me toward the triage desk.

"Maeve." His long legs closed the distance in seconds. Bennett blocked our path, his cold, razor-sharp gaze immediately slicing over Felix.

It was not a friendly look. I literally felt Felix flinch beside me.

I recognized that look.

Back in college, after I washed his shirt, I relentlessly flirted with him over texts for a month. I dragged him out a few times, but he was always completely unbothered. We studied in the library. We walked under the trees on campus.

It felt entirely platonic.

I thought I had zero chance with him. Until a guy dragged me out to the football field and confessed his feelings right in the middle of a cheesy circle of candles.

Right as I was scrambling for a way to reject him, Bennett strode onto the field. He shot the guy that exact same terrifying, predatory glare. Then his large hand clamped down on the back of my neck.

Right in front of hundreds of staring students, his mouth crashed down on mine, kissing me until my brain short-circuited and my knees gave out.

Back then, I thought I had the greatest love story in the world.

"What's wrong with her?" Bennett demanded, his brows pulling tight as he looked at Felix.

Like Felix had a clue.

Bennett didn't even wait for an answer. He dropped onto one knee right in front of me, his long fingers pressing directly into my stomach. "Does it hurt here?"

I shook my head.

"Here?"

A sharp gasp tore from my throat. I nodded violently. "It hurts. My stomach is killing me"

The tears I had been fighting back finally broke free, rolling hot down my cheeks.

The rigid lines of Bennett's face instantly shattered.

He snatched me right out of Felix's grip, scooped my entire body into his arms, and sprinted toward the trauma bays.

Bennett almost never showed any emotion, and he definitely never bothered to sugarcoat his words. That was exactly why, when we were together, being constantly filled with anxiety was my baseline normal.

Chapter 4

The hard, rigid lines of his face only made my panic spike faster. My knees turned to water, rooting me to the spot.

But my notoriously big mouth was still functional enough to ruin things. "Am I actually dying?"

Bennett's breathing hitched. He dropped his gaze to mine, his voice clipping out with zero bedside manner. "You are not dying."

"Hey! Bennett, what the hell are you doing?!" Felix finally snapped out of his shock, scrambling after us.

"Go handle her admissions paperwork. Leave the rest to me."

"I know how this hospital runs a hell of a lot better than you do." Bennett's voice vibrated directly against my ear, terrifyingly flat, yet dripping with absolute authority.

Felix might be dramatic, but he wasn't an idiot. Having a doctor cut through the ER red tape right now was a literal lifesaver. He hesitated for exactly one second before spinning on his heel and sprinting toward the billing counter.

Bennett carried me through the sterile corridors in rapid, eating strides. My ear was pressed flush against his chest And I could hear the violent, hammering thud of his heartbeat roaring against my eardrum.

His breathing was harsh and heavy, but his jaw remained locked tight, an impenetrable wall of clinical detachment. Through the hazy, blinding waves of abdominal pain, I barely registered the low rumble of his voice.

"He doesn't look like the sharpest tool in the shed, but he clearly gives a damn about you. Your taste in men has really gone downhill, Maeve."

A sharp ringing instantly pierced my eardrums. The words snagged in my chest, violently dragging me right back into the undertow of our past.

Back then, we were young, and our bodies were completely insatiable. Especially since Bennett was, for lack of a better word, incredibly gifted in that particular department. Every single date ended with us entirely consumed by each other, utterly addicted to the friction and the heat.

It was the only time his walls ever came down, the only time I could actually feel the desperate, bruising weight of his attention.

"Bennett, I am so crazy about you." I remember tangling my limbs completely around him, my voice thick and breathy against his skin.

His eyes had darkened to pitch black, catching the faint, scattered glow of the streetlights bleeding through the blinds. "Why?" he murmured.

"Because my taste is flawless. And out of a packed room, I zeroed in on you the very first second."

The lab results came back in record time. Acute appendicitis. I needed an emergency laparoscopic appendectomy under full general anesthesia.

Right as the orderlies were wheeling my gurney through the double doors of the OR, I caught snatches of the other surgeons talking to him.

"It's a textbook procedure, don't sweat it. Hey, Bennett who is she to you? Never seen you hover over a patient like this."

"Just a friend."

The heavy metal doors of the OR slammed shut with a definitive thud.

A stale, suffocating ache slowly clawed its way up my throat.

While the anesthesiologist was prepping my IV, the surgical team was casually shooting the breeze, clinking metal tools right over my head.

"Bennett is still single, isn't he?"

"Who knows. Half the nurses in this hospital are throwing themselves at him. Yeah, and they all hit a brick wall."

"The guy is a total iceberg. Impossible to read."

"I heard he is pretty tight with Serena from the provincial hospital. The gorgeous lead surgical attending? Ugh, two surgeons dating?"

"That is just asking for a miserable marriage. They would never even see each other."

Chuckles rippled through the room. The entire OR felt weirdly light and upbeat.

And then the anesthesia hit my bloodstream. My brain short-circuited, and I was plunged into absolute, heavy blackness.

I knew firsthand exactly how suffocating a medical professional's schedule could be. Even back in med school, Bennett was relentlessly buried in his work.

Desperate to play the role of the understanding girlfriend, I ruthlessly swallowed down every ounce of my own needs and frustrations. I structured my entire existence around catching him in the tiny, fragmented cracks of his free time, walking a razor-thin tightrope just to keep us together.

I resorted to being overly clingy, throwing carefully calculated little tantrums just to scrape together a few crumbs of his affection. I genuinely thought it was affection. It took me way too long to realize it was just cold, clinical tolerance, that I was constantly pushing him right to the absolute limit of his patience.

And then Serena walked into the picture. And the pathetic little fantasy I had bled to build shattered completely.

Chapter 5

I still remember the day I went to look for him at the hospital where he was doing his clinical rotations, only to be blocked at the door by a gorgeous female doctor.

Bennett's senior, Serena, stood there in her crisp white coat, expertly folding the exact same white shirt I had bought for him, looking down at me with absolute condescension.

"He just finished a brutal overnight shift and is finally getting some sleep. If you actually cared about him, you would stop suffocating him. Can't you see he is exhausted every single day?"

"People like us need mature partners, not needy lovers who drain our emotional and physical energy. He was right. You really haven't grown up at all"

I dug my nails into my palms, glaring back at her. "It's not your place to tell me that."

"Maybe not. But everyone in this department knows exactly what's going on. I just felt sorry for you, wandering around completely in the dark."

I don't even remember how I fled that hallway. All I knew was that I felt like a pathetic clown. I had been bleeding myself dry, convinced we were building a future together, while I was the only one desperately dragging myself toward the finish line.

For the first time ever, I didn't text him. And for three entire days, he didn't bother reaching out to me.

During those three days, a terrifying, icy clarity washed over me. I asked my friends for the brutal truth, and they told me I was delusional, blinded by an obsession they couldn't even talk me out of.

Three days later, his royal highness finally descended from his throne, dropping a single text message onto my screen.

[I have the night off tonight.]

Like a master whistling for his stray dog.

[I'm busy.]

I texted back.

He called me immediately, demanding to know what my problem was. And I just snapped, triggering a massive, explosive fight. Or rather, a completely one-sided screaming match.

"Do you think you're filming The Bachelor, and I have to rip out the hair of twenty other crazy women over a single rose just to earn a scrap of your attention?! Get this straight, Bennett. I have men lining up around the block for me!"

"Maeve, just come over tonight. We need to talk." His tone dripped with a sickening, patronizing exhaustion.

Screw his exhaustion!

"We are done talking." The string I had been pulling agonizingly tight for months finally snapped. "I have a life too! Why am I always the one torching my own schedule just to beg for five minutes of your time?"

Every ounce of cautious, desperate effort I had poured into maintaining us shattered into dust.

"I found someone else. We are done."

"Maeve, you"

"It is over. Whoever crawls back first is a pathetic bitch. Don't make me lose the last shred of respect I have for you, Bennett."

I fell into a heavy, suffocating dream. When I finally dragged my eyes open, Felix was sitting right next to my hospital bed.

He stared at me, his lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line.

"Thanks" I rasped, my throat feeling like crushed glass.

"Thanks for nothing." Felix stared at me in absolute disbelief, actual tears welling up in his eyes. "Maeve, seriously I am dying of second-hand embarrassment here"

Pure panic spiked through my chest. "Did the surgery fail?!"

Felix shot me a murderous glare, whipped out his phone, and shoved a video right in my face. On the screen, I was lying completely flat on the hospital bed, my eyes half-open and glassy. My words slurred heavily togetherthe classic anesthesia wake-up phase.

[Bennett you are so terrifyingly cold it just makes me look like a total psycho.]

[I am completely stable I only lose my mind when you push me.]

Then, on the video, I started aggressively mumbling the theme song to SpongeBob SquarePants, totally out of tune.

By that point, I wanted the hospital floor to just open up and swallow me whole. But the worst part was yet to come.

A few seconds later on the screen, tears started streaming down my face, making me look utterly pathetic.

[I only clung to you because I was crazy about you I only cried because I actually cared]

[If you wanted some mature, independent, perfect girl like Serena, why did you even bother dating me?!]

[You bastard!]

Chapter 6

In the video, a tall figure in a white coat stood rigid beside my hospital bed. The lighting was terrible, cloaking his expression in shadows. It was Bennett.

Heat blasted my face, my breathing turning shallow and fast. "That is not me. Delete it right now!"

Felix hesitated, tapping the screen. "I mean, sure, he is your ex, but Dr. Bennett really pulled a lot of strings for you this time."

I pressed my lips together in silence.

Felix leaned closer. "You also never mentioned he was that drop-dead gorgeous. When a man looks like that, a little mental instability is completely forgivable. I admit, I might have been a bit too harsh on the doctor earlier"

I forced out a dry laugh. "That is your type now?"

"A straight guy with a titanium rod up his spine who doesn't know how to speak like a human being? A pretty face can only take you so far. Hard pass."

Felix narrowed his eyes, seeing right through the bullshit. "But What if he still has feelings for you?"

"What feelings?" Even as the words left my mouth, my brain aggressively flashed back to his violently red face in the ultrasound room. "We are done." I sank back into the hospital pillows, squeezing my eyes shut.

After all this time, the brutal truth was obvious. Even if Serena had never shown up, a relationship running entirely on my desperate fuel was always going to crash and burn.

Felix shot me a heavy, loaded look, once again swallowing whatever he was about to say.

During my hospital stay, I looked like an absolute wreck and refused to see anyone. But Dr. Bennett decided to completely ignore normal boundaries. I had never seen the man this free in his entire life; he kept casually doing laps around the inpatient ward for absolutely no reason.

The first time he showed up, he walked right in as I was reporting my bowel movements to the nurse. He just leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, face deadpan as he listened to me desperately flush while explaining the exact details of my post-op gas.

The second time, Felix was struggling to help me out of bed to walk off the scar tissue risks. Bennett took one look at Felix's flimsy frame, his brows snapping together, before striding right over and grabbing my arm.

The second our skin made contact, we both went completely rigid