His Forbidden Bride: 50 Loving States, West Virginia Read Online Free PDF Page A

turn back around and face him like a civilized human. So I do, even though “level-headed doctor” only feels like a part I’m playing at this point.
    And his gaze once again completely and utterly catches mine as he says, “Cute as they are, it ain’t the kids I’m coming down there to see.”

Chapter Four
    S o yeah , he said that. He said that to me . The pediatric resident with a bad habit of being reduced to an incoherent babbling fool whenever he pins me with those beautiful blue eyes of his.
    I spend a lot of time…a serious lot of time…trying to pretend he didn’t say it. And by Monday, I think I’ve finally got a hold of myself.
    I ignore his presence at my rehearsal that morning. Treating him like all the other people in the hospital who come to watch the ever-changing makeshift choir of children sing.
    And yes, I go to see him again on my lunch hour that day, because I doubled up all of my lunches when I was making my weekly meals Sunday night. But that’s only because the hospital food is truly and wretchedly awful. And also because bringing him lunch gives me an excuse to casually work with him on his memory exercises.
    In any case, I decide not to think too much about how he looks happy, but not at all surprised, when I knock on his door.
    “What are you watching?” I ask when I see the black family full-out yelling at each other on his television.
    “Dunno, fell asleep watching the news and this was on when I woke up. I think it’s called Rapper’s Wives or something like that. All I know is they fight a lot and say a lot of bitchy stuff behind each other’s backs.”
    “ Rap Star Wives ,” I correct with a wry smile. I grab the remote connected to his bed and switch it off. “And trust me, there are way better shows for somebody with a TBI to watch. That show will rot your brain faster than fast.”
    “Shows like Devil Riders ?” he asks. “Cuz a message keeps popping up at the bottom of the screen to say it’ll be on next.”
    “Shows like Jeopardy ,” I answer.
    “Do they yell at each other and get into a lot of fights on that show, too?”
    I laugh and hand him a bento box with today’s lunch.
    While eating the tofu and quinoa dish, we talk a little more. He tells me the few things he knows about himself. It’s a disturbingly short list that includes “likes Lynyrd Skynyrd” and “knows how to ride a motorcycle” and he was “maybe not surprised” about “them neuro evaluation scores.”
    He tells me “the head doctor” advised him to watch TV—see what sparked his memory. But he doesn’t like it much—that feeling is old. So far he prefers radio. He switched over to the country station this weekend and found he really liked that kind of music. Especially a singer called Colin Fairgood.
    “No surprise there,” I tell him. “That guy seriously crosses over. I mean, he’s even done a song with C-Mello—that guy you were watching on Rap Star Wives. ”
    “Is he on that playlist you gave me?” John asks.
    “No,” I answer. “But I do actually like his stuff. Especially his second album. Here, let me download it for you…”
    He hands me his phone and after I download C-Mello’s career making album onto it, I scroll to look at John Doe’s “recently played” list. Almost everything on the playlist I gave him is there. “Is any of this old?”
    He shakes his head. “No, it’s all pretty new.”
    Maybe not so surprising. There’s some Top 40 mixed in, but mostly it’s a wide range of pop, rap, and indie songs I’ve come to love throughout the years. Some of them well-known, some of them not so much.
    But I have to ask, “Even Eminem is new to you?”
    “That’s the ‘Lose Yourself’ guy, right?”
    I nod without adding that nine out of ten of the white boys I knew back in California loved his tracks when I was a kid.
    He frowns hard before answering again. “No, you’re right, he ain’t completely new. But it’s kind of hard to explain. I feel