Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 3

just how creepy it would look to Niko that he'd actually put that much effort into hunting him down. Luckily for Charlie, Niko was out on sick leave. Which made perfect sense; the man had been shot, after all. Clearly Charlie hadn't been thinking straight.
    After his failed attempt to reconnect with Niko, Charlie tried to distract himself via video games. The trouble was that he was so distracted, he couldn't play any of the ones that required any thought and the mindless first-person shooters had him flashing back to the moment when Niko had been shot. Thinking of how Niko had risked his life just to protect him made Charlie want to open the phonebook and call every Stephanopoulos listed, but he resisted the urge. The last thing Niko needed when he was trying to recover from a gunshot wound was to hear from the guy who'd inadvertently caused it. Not to mention that when he did give in long enough to check, he found that there were six Nicolas Stephanopouloses, three Nikolais, and five ambiguous Ns. As badly as Charlie wished he could speak to Niko again, he really didn't want to be stuck in multiple awkward explanations as to why he was calling. With his luck, his Niko was probably unlisted anyway.
    When he wasn't busy thinking about Niko, Charlie found himself inundated with thoughts of his mother and the career path he'd abandoned two years before. His mother had been the one who'd encouraged him to go into medicine. When Charlie had first mentioned the idea, he'd been mostly dreaming. He had known how hard it would be to get into a good school, how competitive, and most importantly, how expensive it would be. Rather than let Charlie dismiss it as a pipe dream, his mother had gone to the library, checked out a book about financial aid, and helped him figure out a plan to get him into college. She'd been there every step of the way; helping him study, finding scholarship applications, and giving him support whenever he needed it. They had celebrated all night when Charlie had gotten his acceptance letter to the U-Dub. She'd claimed she was the proudest mother alive when he'd not only passed, but aced his MCATs.
    Charlie had only been in his graduate classes for a week when he'd gotten the call. His mother had gone to the hospital with persistent pain in her abdomen, and after a routine scan and biopsy, had been diagnosed with stage four stomach cancer. The day he got the phone call was the worst day of his life. Without a thought for his schooling or what it would mean for his academic future, Charlie had left the city and rushed home to be with her.

    His mother had chastised him for leaving school and he had chastised her for not having gone to the hospital sooner. It hadn't been really fair of him; he knew with the bare minimum of medical insurance, she had always put off going to the hospital until she absolutely had to. Still, he'd been angry over it. More than that, he'd been angry with himself for not recognizing the warning signs.
    Throughout the months that followed, Charlie had continuously replayed previous conversations with his mother where she'd mentioned some stomach pain, but always dismissed it with a casual, "Not to worry, honey, I took some Mylanta. It should ease up soon. Tell me more about your biology final," or some variation thereof. He had been convinced that her illness had somehow been his fault. He was a medical student at the top of his class. He wanted to be a doctor. How could he not have noticed that his mother had needed treatment?
    It had only taken three months for the cancer to kill her. Three long, horrible months of watching his strong, beautiful mother waste away while he was helpless to stop it. When she had finally gone, Charlie hadn't been able to bring himself to go back to school. His scholarships had lapsed and he'd had to sell off the tiny house his parents had bought when they had first gotten married in order to cover the funeral costs and lingering medical bills. When the dust had finally settled, Charlie packed what little had remained of his old life and moved into the city without giving medical school another thought.
    What happened in the bank had brought it back to the front of his mind with a startling force. Helping Niko had reminded Charlie why he'd wanted to be a doctor in the first place; to take care of people, to save lives. It had reignited a spark Charlie had thought long dead and forced him to re-evaluate the past two years of his life. Looking at