"I THINK I'M being stupid," Lindy sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. Beth was sitting in front of her in her living room, staring up at her with a mix of admiration and jealousy.

"Stupid?! You'd be stupid not to go out with him! He's a fucking beautiful doctor!" Beth cried, her eyes bugging slightly with added emphasis.

After she had gotten off of work, Lindy had phoned Beth and demanded that she drive to her apartment immediately. Beth had obliged, arriving and nearly collapsing at Lindy's feet when Lindy had explained to her what had happened with Doctor Turner. 

"I'm not his type," Lindy contended, looking for any sort of excuse as to why a wealthy, handsome doctor would have asked her on a date. The idea of being only arm candy to a man disgusted her and she held a great deal of skepticism towards Doctor Turner and his motives.

"Shut up, you're amazing. And besides, whose type are you then?"

A sensitive, weird, funny, sweet, grunge rocker's type, Lindy thought to herself. Realizing how corny this sounded, she shuddered and shook off the passing image of Kurt's face. Now was not a time to be thinking about him, not when she was deliberating on whether or not she would take a leap of faith and go on a date with another man.

"I don't know, Beth. But I'm not his. And I'm not going to bow down to him and fawn over him like every other female in that hospital. I have my own shit to deal with. Just because he's Mister Gorgeous Doctor Man --"

Beth interrupted her with guffawing laughter, lifting her blonde eyebrows. "Mister Gorgeous Doctor Man?"

"You know what I mean," Lindy snapped. "I'm not going to be something I'm not for this guy!"

"Lindy, I highly doubt that he's expecting you to change. He sought you out for being you in the first place. You know, the prissy girl who walks with a stick up her ass."

"I do NOT walk with a stick up in my ass," Lindy fumed. "You're being so sexist right now. Just because I'm a woman who takes her job seriously --"

Beth interjected again. "Relax, Linds, I'm kidding. You're an incredible woman, okay? Just don't pass up Jack because you have misconceptions about him. And hey, I'm one of those females that you're talking about. Jack's great, cut us all some slack." 

"Jack?" Lindy snorted, unable to believe her ears. "Is that what we're calling him now?"

"Yeah. You only get to call him Doctor Turner once you guys are in bed together."

Lindy made a noise of revulsion, gagging and pretending to lean forward with a heaving motion. She would have rather died on the spot than daydream about being in bed with anyone. The timing felt all wrong. Maybe months ago she would have considered it, even enjoyed the thought of intimacy with a good-looking guy, but after seeing Nirvana's music video, she'd yearned for nothing except celibacy. 

Of course she wouldn't allow herself to daydream. 

And that included dreaming of Kurt. Dreaming about him was as healthy for her as banging her head repeatedly into a wall.

"Ugh, ew, please no."

"Alright, but c'mon, admit it. How cool would it be if you both hit it off, fall in love and get married? You'll be Mrs. Turner, badass nurse who has a great career, great husband, big house and most likely adorable kids."

Lindy sighed, but the picture Beth was painting did drift through her head. It was a very different future than the one that she had imagined for herself. Back then, she had already had all of what Beth had listed minus the big house and Doctor Turner himself. She'd had Kurt in all those scenarios.

Upon thinking his name, Lindy gritted her teeth. She had to stop. She had to snuff out his name from her thoughts once and for all. 

"I don't want to be Mrs. Turner, Beth. I want to be Lindy. I don't want this to fuck things up."

She could easily list all the reason why dating Doctor Turner would mess with the stability of her life. Obviously work was a huge issue and she didn't even want to imagine the whispers that would consume every hall in the hospital, but she also wondered vaguely if she was really only afraid to let go of Kurt's memory. She bit down hard on her lip, another silent command to herself to stop thinking about Kurt.

For some reason, the idea of dating Doctor Turner -- Jack -- felt far different from any other relationship that she had explored after ending things with Kurt. Those had all been so futile, as she had never anticipated them lasting more than a few months, if even that. But now was not like before. Lindy felt that if she did decide to go on this date, it would lead to something more serious, something she had not experienced in ages. And perhaps that is what frightened her the most. 

After Beth left her apartment, still gabbing on about the necessities of Lindy's possible date, Lindy did the only thing that felt right -- she called Trae.

"Yes," Trae had said soundly after Lindy retold the story to him, leaving out the more explicit details such as the way Jack had looked at her when he'd asked his question. "Say yes to him."

Lindy's jaw dropped. "You're just going to pass me off to a stranger like that?"

"Linds, you need to get out more. And I'm not talking about playing darts at the bar with Beth. It wouldn't hurt to go on a date. And he's a doctor, too. That's nice." 

"Why do all of you psychopaths think that being a doctor equates to being a good person? He could try to kill me," Lindy yelled, shaking the phone maddeningly. She desperately wanted someone to tell her to say no. Then it would have been easy to turn Jack down. She could have excused the decision as having been forced upon her. 

"Do you want me to come to the date and wear a disguise?" Trae offered. By the sound of it, he was wearing a smile.

"NO," Lindy said quickly, clapping her hand to her forehead as she imagined Trae lurking behind her and Jack in a fake mustache. "Absolutely fucking not."

"Lindy, just try it out and see. It could be a really great thing. And it will get your mind off of . . . him."

Lindy did not need to ask who 'him' was. She grunted. "I don't need another man to do that."

"I'm just making suggestions, sheesh!" Trae groaned. "Don't be pissed at me!"

That had been the end of that conversation. Lindy had gone to bed with her feathers clearly ruffled, wishing again that someone she trusted would tell her not to go through with the date. But even her own annoying inner voice was coaxing her into letting Jack Turner take her out. The possibilities of what could blossom between them were endless, even if they did admittedly scare her out of her wits. 

As she laid on her side staring into the darkness of her room, she felt guilt twist in the pit of her stomach like the sharp-ended blade of a knife when Kurt's smiling face snuck its way back into her thoughts for the umpteenth time that day.

She found herself remembering everything about him, all of their memories, and she nearly let out a soft whimper of pain when she realized it was getting harder and harder to recall the way his skin had felt against hers, or how his kiss tasted on her lips.

So much time was passing. So much time had passed. She felt ridiculous for continuing to think about him when she had a strong feeling that he had never once thought about her in the time that they'd been separated. She couldn't have even been a passing thought in his brain. And next to that, he had moved on. So shouldn't be able to do the same? 

Lindy had been through it all with Kurt. She had grown up alongside him and on that awful day when she had cut ties with him, she had leapt over a hurdle that she'd never imagined getting over. She had released him into the world without tagging along at his side. 

As Lindy laid there, she commanded herself to let him go, once and for all. This had to include even the smallest things, even just thinking about him. She had to remove him from her heart if she ever wanted to move on. If she even intended on meeting someone and having another relationship, she could no longer dote on the idea that maybe one day, Kurt would find his way back to her.

Maybe, after all this time, she had been hoping somewhere deep inside of her heart that it had all been a temporary nightmare. That Kurt would unlock the front door, walk in wearing one of his oversized flannels and grin at her before taking her face in his hands. He would kiss her nose and her cheeks and save her lips for last, laughing when she would recount the horrible nightmare to him. He would tell her that she was being ridiculous. That there was no way such an awful dream would come true. It was just a nightmare.  

It wasn't a nightmare though. It was worse than a nightmare. It was reality.

With a warm wetness dampening the rims of her eyes, Lindy's fingers skittered down her arm and to her wrist. In the darkness of her room, she did not look down as she fumbled with the K bracelet she still donned even after all that time.

Once it was unclasped, she reached out shakily for her nightstand and deposited it there. A soft clink sounded as the charm hit the wood. The sound had been so gentle, yet to Lindy, it was booming and rang in her ears with finality. She shuddered and forced herself to swallow back the cries creeping their way up her throat. The world suddenly felt very still, as if the earth had stopped turning on its axis. After months of pain, she was finally letting go. 

She had to be done with the past. It was finally time to seal her heart off from Kurt for good.