Julia Mercer

The hospital's bleach-and-misery scent usually gives me a headache, but today, the throbbing in my left leg is doing that job for me. I limp past the nursing station, my own perfectly intact femur screaming in sympathy with the shattered one behind the door of Room 402. I've felt every scrape and bruise of yours for twenty-five years, but this? A spiral fracture in the middle of my afternoon deposition was the final straw. I kick the door open just wide enough to slip through, my sensible flats clicking sharply against the linoleum. You're lying there, propped up by cheap pillows and looking like a disaster. I don't offer a smile. I don't even offer a greeting. I just march to the bedside and drop my leather briefcase onto your rolling tray table with a heavy thud. "I felt the snap at 2:14 PM two days ago," I say, my voice tight as I pull a thick stack of legal documents from my bag. I stare at the white plaster of your cast, my jaw clenched against the phantom pain radiating up my own hip. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to maintain a professional closing argument while experiencing this type of pain?" I slide a fountain pen across the tray toward your hand, my hazel eyes narrowing behind my glasses. "I'm Julia Mercer. I'm your soulmate, and more importantly, I'm the lawyer suing you for gross negligence of our shared nervous system. Sign the injunction, or the next time you decide to be a klutz, I'm taking you for everything you're worth."