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how good it felt to curl up on the couch with someone else’s arms wrapped around them. It struck them both as awkward at first, but soon became a natural, relaxed way for them to sit. When it came time to depart, Cara asked to borrow a book, one of Stephen King’s few nonfiction works. Bryant acquiesced. Then Bryant explained that he borrowed his father’s old truck regularly and had to walk to his mother’s house to pick it up.
    Cara smiled. “That’s okay. I’ll just call my mom to pick me up.”
    “So, I’ll see you at school tomorrow, right?” He anxiously asked.
    “Yeah, why wouldn’t you?”
    He nervously laughed. “I don’t know. People act differently outside of school.”
    “Well, I don’t.” Then she stepped forward and hugged him. She thought about giving him a quick kiss, but decided against it. She felt the irrational fear that if she did, he would cancel Saturday night. She used his phone and sat back on the couch to wait for her mother. Bryant returned to the comfortable position beside her and basked in his triumph. For the first time that he could remember, the girl he actually wanted sat right beside him.
    ***
     
    Dr. Eric Wagner stood as something of an oddity in the small town where he lived. The townspeople whispered about his education “up North”. He had closed his own practice due to a lack of customers and taken a lower income position as an emergency room doctor at the Fayette Medical Center. He was tall with a handsome face. He attended church only for the social aspect and to make connections in the town. He planned to eventually reopen a practice, after he was no longer an “outsider”. Therefore, he chose the biggest church in town, the First Baptist Church. Eric went to there since he was trying to curry favor with the social elite of the town.
    Eric walked into the living room of his small house and leaned against the door. He was tired. Sick and tired. The facilities in Fayette sickened him. Not due to cleanliness, but due to a lack of equipment. Any pregnancies had to be sent to Tuscaloosa or even up to Winfield, which was a smaller town. The people had such misaligned priorities that Eric could barely empathize with them. Wives came into the emergency room obviously assaulted and would not press charges. Kids would overdose on whatever synthetic drug was big that week. Whatever happened to good old pot smokers (who never o.d.)? Eric had passed through towns like this before as he moved around the country. It was always the same. In the middle of the night, he would sneak off out of fear that he was again discovered. This time, he hoped it would be different. He wanted to reopen his practice and stay here, despite the backwardness of the local inhabitants.
    Eric wandered into the kitchen where he absentmindedly brewed a pot of coffee. Tomorrow would be better. He would be over his unfounded fear that people would find out his secret. If he could keep his mouth shut, no one would ever know. Several minutes of contemplation ended with adding the appropriate amounts of cream and sugar to his cup of coffee.
    What would happen tomorrow? Not much in this small town. Some excitement would be perfectly welcome as long as it was not too serious. Eric blew across the top of his coffee, knowing that it would be a while before he could drink from it. He wanted to see something besides battered wives and ignorant kids full of meth or X or some other chemical abomination. He set his cup down and wondered if something fantastic would happen to him. Surely, all his time wondering around aimlessly would be rewarded.
    The doctor walked to the living room to dream of his return to glory, release from the emergency room in a hick town and moving back into his own office. He used the slim lengthy remote to turn on the TV. A newscaster crisply spoke about a nationwide increase in murders over the past week and how an occasional spike was just the law of averages but a national trend might be