I felt silly for asking, but something about him unsettled me.
“Do we know each other?”
Still, he was kind.
He explained my condition in clear, patient language.
When he described new experimental procedures, he didn’t sound as if he were chasing fame. He sounded determined.
Over the next year, he became my primary doctor. Then he became my friend. He would walk me to the parking lot after appointments and describe the sky.
“It’s one of those clear, sharp blue days,” he told me once.
I laughed. “That sounds lovely.”
He sounded determined.
Eventually, he asked me to dinner.
“I know this crosses a line,” he admitted one evening in his office, after my appointment. “But I’d regret it for the rest of my life if I didn’t at least ask. Would you go out on a date with me?”
I should have hesitated.
Doctors dating patients was complicated. But I liked him, so I said yes.
