My Ex-Fiancé's Memory Game novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The File

"Why me?" I asked the director. "Why name me at all?"

"Their lawyer says you have a personal grudge against the patient," he said. "After an incident at a country club."

"I put a ring in his drink."

There was a pause.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," he said. "Hazel, I need you to stay a mile away from this. If you so much as open that chart, the board will have your license on a plate. They'll say you tampered with your ex-fiancé's evaluation."

"I won't open it."

"Good. I'm putting the senior team on it. Polly will run his testing."

I thanked him and hung up.

My father was watching me from across the table.

Sam was watching the dining room.

"They want to be tested by the best," I said. "In my building. With me locked out."

"Smart," Sam said.

"Smart?"

"If he passes at your clinic, nobody can ever say he fooled some guy in an office in Bryn Mawr. He fooled the experts. Your experts."

My father put the pregnancy test back in its sandwich bag and zipped it.

"Then he'd better not pass," he said.

On Monday I threw up in the clinic restroom at seven-fifteen.

Then I saw my first patient at seven-thirty.

He was eighty-one, a retired mailman, and his daughter had brought him in because he kept getting lost on his own route.

I gave him the word list.

He remembered four of fifteen, and then he told me the name of every family on Tasker Street in 1971, in order, house by house.

His daughter cried in the hallway.

I held her hand and told her the truth, slowly.

That was my job.

I loved it.

Carter had sat across from me at dinner for two years and taken notes on it.

At eleven, Polly came into my office and shut the door with her hip.

← Chapter 4 · All chapters · Chapter 6 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend