by K. S. Thomas
“Filed them,” I add in case it wasn’t clear enough for her.
She nods, then begins to scribble something else. I shake my head thinking how long this could go on for, especially considering all the curls and hearts she embellishes with while she writes.
“Melissa.” Her head lifts, and based on the look she’s giving me and the way her pointy little nose is slightly scrunched, I’m not pronouncing her name quite right. I try not to let it get to me and force myself to say two more words. “Text me.” I hold my phone up and wave it back and forth. Then I reach up and take one of the pens Cam keeps stashed in the breast pocket of his scrubs and write down my number on the back of Melissa’s original note before I hand it back to her. Yes, texting will definitely be the easiest way for us to communicate.
She glances down at the number and back at me. It takes a second before it sinks in, then she actually smiles and I can see the relief in her eyes. This has been stressing her out almost as much as it’s been getting to me. Maneuvering the path toward efficient at work communication is never easy in the beginning. Everyone seems to have their own ideas of what’s comfortable or convenient and sorting through those can be tedious and anxiety inducing work.
I nod, a final acknowledgement that we’ve sorted through our minor hurdle and head for the staff door again, my phone still in hand and anticipating the text Melissa is bound to send through any minute.
I’m halfway down the hall headed to the office in the back when it vibrates in my palm.
Just wanted to let you know that the 8 a.m. surgery was canceled and the next procedure isn’t scheduled until 11.
I smile. That works for me. Normally I hate downtime, today I think it’s probably the safest thing for everyone. Primarily the patients. I need to get my thoughts sorted out before I start injecting people with drugs.
I’m about to shove the phone back into my pocket when it goes off again.
And also, thanks!
I suddenly get the feeling things are going to get a lot friendlier between Melissa and myself. Considering how fussy she is about keeping everything at the front desk just so, it was probably bringing her to the brink of insanity me being such a wild card what with being deaf and all. It’s funny really, how often my lack of hearing inconveniences others.
“Hey,” Nat greets me with a wide eyed smile. Clearly, she’s a morning person.
“Dude, how long have you been awake?” Because I won’t look that alert until like three hours and two more coffees from now.
“I get up at four thirty every morning so I can hit the gym before I come here.”
I shake my head all the way across the room until I reach my desk and have a seat. “I thought we were going to be friends, I really did. Apparently, I misjudged you.”
She laughs. “Having an early riser for a friend isn’t all bad.”
“How’s that?” Because I’m highly skeptical at this point.
She points back at the door I just came through. “Well, for starters, coffee is always made by the time you roll in here. And, I’ve been known to stop for something pastry-ish on my way to work. Usually from the French bakery downtown.”
I’m impressed. And a little confused. “You go to the gym at ungodly hours and then eat pastries? You know, you could trade in the sugar for another two hours of sleep easy.”
“Oh, I don’t eat that crap. Blake does.”
Makes more sense.
“Meanwhile, if you’re not into mornings why are you here half an hour early?”
I shrug. “My bed was a little too crowded this morning when I woke up.”
Nat pushes back in her chair dramatically and it sways up and down several times. “Do tell!”
“Don’t get too excited. It was just Penn.” Her eyes narrow and it occurs to me I might have forgot to mention he and I live together. “We’re roommates. So, you know, he’s always there when I wake up, just usually in his own bed.”
She taps her chin thoughtfully for a moment before she responds. “Let me get this straight, yesterday, you were sitting here insisting you two could barely stand each other and expressing a distinct interest in our very handsome Doctor Blake, and today you’re waking up with Penn and strolling in here sporting a shit-eating grin like I’ve never seen on a human being before.”
“God, you make me sound so slutty and confused.” I grimace painfully. This is why I need someone to bounce my thoughts off of, so I can register what they actually sound like.
“Confused, yes. Slutty...depends, were you naked when you woke up?” She’s got a wicked grin on her face already, and I cringe knowing how I have to respond.
“Not today.”
From here, Nat bursts out laughing so hard she rocks back and forth, slapping her knee several times. She doesn’t stop for a solid five minutes and apparently is so loud she’s drawing attention because Dr. Blake shows up in the doorway to inquire about the early morning joke session without him.
I blush just contemplating all the possible answers Nat gives him, and whichever she goes with has him turning on a dime and rushing from the room without even making eye contact with me.
When she finally reigns herself back in, her eyes are leaky and she seems out of breath.
“Okay. Before I insist that you tell me everything there is to know about you and Penn, let’s just settle one thing.” She inhales long and deep and it finally regulates her breathing pattern again. “For the last six months I’ve been sleeping with someone who still has a boyfriend, a boyfriend whom she has no intention of breaking up with because she insists she’s not really into women, even after I’ve assured her multiple times that I am, in fact, a woman and she seems very much into me. Point being, we’re all fucked up. So, your turn. Spill.” And she settles into her seat again, leaning as far back as possible and waiting for me to tell her my sordid tale. Which it is. Who am I kidding?!
“Alright, but only because I’m assuming this is now a judgement free zone.” I pause, just in case she wants to contradict this statement in any way. She doesn’t. “Even though Penn and I spent like twelve years hating each other’s guts, when Bo died, it changed things. I mean, we still hated each other, but we also understood each other. How could we not? We’d spent every day together from the time we were six, unhappily or not, you can’t not know someone after that much time. And he knows me. Inside out. He’s seen it all. The good, the bad...the crazy. None of it changes things between us. Any more than all of his shit does. And believe me, he’s got plenty. I’ve been watching him fuck his way through life from the time he was fourteen. Literally. Like, the women just line up out of thin air, he fucks them and they disappear again to make room for the next one. I don’t know how he does it.” I stop. “Okay, I know how he does it. Penn is smart. And surprisingly kind. And, shockingly, generous. You know, plus he’s an inked up bad boy fucking firefighter with dimples for days, a mouth you want to smother, abs you want to lick and amber eyes so deep and dark you can’t help but fucking drown in them. Not that you would care about any of those things, but I’m telling you, straight girls tend to wind up mysteriously naked two seconds after he glances in their direction.”
The corners of Nat’s lips curl up. “Is that what happens to you?”
I can feel the heat flood my face and I want nothing more than to bury it in my hands. But I don’t. I need to keep talking. Keep putting it all into words. Not to satisfy Nat’s curiosity, but to ease my own. I can’t go back home until I know what I want. Really want. And not just tonight, but in general. If our relationship is really shifting off course, I want to be steering it where I need it to go.
“No. But not because it wouldn’t have been easy to just fall mercy to his charms. I had to fight those feelings the whole time we were growing up. And I was good at it. Most of the time I was perfectly content with hating him because I thought he was gross. I mean, pretty. But gross.” I sigh. Here’s where things get complicated. “Then, Bo died. And I was a mess. A big mess.�
�� I feel my leg start to fidget like it always does when I get nervous. “My parents and I were barely speaking, none of us were coping. And Penn, he just kept showing up day after day, like he always had when Bo was alive, only now, he was coming for me. Getting me out of the house. Keeping me busy. And it worked. Sort of. Then, one night, everything just kind of hit. I had a total meltdown. I was screaming. Throwing things. Punching the walls. Kicking the furniture. Penn was the only one there.” I’m staring down at my knee which is bobbing up and down at record speeds right now. Maybe this was a mistake. I’ve never actually told anyone about this. Ever.
Nat’s foot moves up to nudge my calf and I glance over at her. “He comforted you.” Her eyes are swelled with sadness and a sense of understanding and I think maybe she really gets it.
“He did. Looking back, I don’t even know how it happened. One second I was behaving like a raging lunatic and the next he had his arms wrapped around me so tightly I could barely breathe. Before I knew it, we were kissing. Not like any kind of kiss I’d ever shared with anyone before. It was different. Scary. It was too much.” I shake my head. “It was too much because it would never be enough. Not for him. And I knew that then already.” I would never be enough. And there it is. The clarity I needed. The thought I needed to formulate. And I’m so far past smiling now, I can’t even remember what it felt like when I walked in here twenty minutes ago.
“But you didn’t stop.” Nat’s looking at me with an expectant expression. Just because I’ve gotten all I needed from this impromptu girl chat doesn’t mean she has yet.
“We didn’t stop. But we never kissed again after that first time. It’s helped us keep things separated. Uncomplicated.”
Nat chuckles but it’s bittersweet. “I hate to be the one to break it to you, Trix, but what you and Penn have is anything but uncomplicated.”
“That’s the thing. I need it to be.” I stand up, the frustration is making me so antsy, sitting still is no longer an option. “Last night, there was this moment, when we were lying next to each other watching a movie. God it was so dumb, all he did was hand me the cat so I could cuddle her, but...those knowing eyes...that smile on his face...it’s like, I realized, I’m the only one he ever looks at like that. And...it made me think things. Feel things. But it was stupid.”
There’s no longer any sign of amusement on Nat’s face. It’s been replaced by concern. “Why? What makes it so stupid?”
I shrug helplessly. “I need him. I need him more than I want him. So, I can’t have him. Because having him the way I want him would be temporary. And after that, having him the way I need him would be out of the question.”
Nat doesn’t say anything else after that. She simply stands to meet me and wraps me into her arms snugly. I’m not a hugger. And I wouldn’t have pegged Nat for one. But she is. A good one. A good hugger. And, a good friend.
Penn
Since we’d both planned on being out late last night for the game, and whatever fun times we could have conjured up after, Tony and I had already given up our shifts today to two rookies desperate for overtime. Now, I kinda wish I hadn’t. Being at the firehouse knee-deep in chores would make a nice distraction right about now.
Thankfully, Tony shows up to work out an hour after Trix leaves, but after running nearly eight miles and then spending another thirty minutes with the punching bag in our garage, I’m still not feeling any better. My head is a mess. A fucking Trix induced mess. Tony knows. I can tell by the lame-ass comments he makes every five minutes or so. I don’t know whether he’s trying to make me laugh or piss me off. Mostly, he’s probably just trying to get me to say something. Anything. But I can’t. Not to him. He won’t get it. He’ll just tell me the same damn thing he’s told me from the first moment he met her: to get my head out of my fucking ass and grab hold of the once in a lifetime treasure staring me straight in the goddamn face. And that’s the last thing I need to hear right now, because after last night, and this morning, I just might fucking listen to him.
With no hope of pulling myself out of this tunnel closing in on me from all sides and leaving nothing to grasp onto except the aching need I feel for her at the pit of my being where I keep it buried from myself and the rest of the world, I take another shower and head straight for the only voice of reason I have left in my life.
“Pop?”
“In here!” His voice echoes down the tiled hall. Of course he’s in his study. He’s always in there. I don’t know why he lives in a four bedroom house. He doesn’t use any of them. Shit, I moved out eight years ago and my old room still looks exactly the same way it did the day I left. Somehow I’d thought that leaving all my old crap behind had implied I was done with it and just couldn’t be bothered to make a dumpster run because I was eighteen and a selfish ass, but my father had apparently taken it to mean it was stuff I didn’t use but intended to keep anyway. Maybe for sentimental reasons? Fuck if I know. My dad is brilliant but he’s eccentric as hell and could easily double for a batty old wizard permanently holed up in a library reading books about us mere mortals and chortling to himself every so often about how endearingly stupid we all are.
Point being, he sees value in things I see crap and is usually all too happy to let me know when I’m placing too much importance on something which really, in the grand scheme of things will probably turn out to be fucking insignificant. Which is why I’m here. For some perspective. From the batty old wizard. Only now, I’m having second thoughts about it.
“New book?” I nod toward the one he’s holding gingerly in his hands. The jacket is long gone and the spine looks like it might fall apart at any moment, meanwhile the pages seem to be so thin they could turn to dust from the slightest breeze, I swear I can almost see right through the one he’s got carefully between the very tips of his thumb and index finger. It’s ancient. Older than ancient. God was probably reading it that first Sunday after he made earth, and then forgot it here when peeps ate forbidden fruit and shit got all complicated, leading reading to fall by the wayside.
My dad’s eyes lift slowly from the page they were glued to before I walked in. I can tell he’s smiling before I even see the rest of his face. “New to me.” Carefully, he closes it and sets it down on the small table already stacked with multiple towers of equally old books. He’s got God’s entire library sitting right there. Then he gets up and comes toward me with outstretched arms. He’s a hugging wizard. Outside of Trix, he’s the only one who ever puts his arms around me. It’s weird. I’m all about physical contact, but I’m not much for being embraced or touched in ways where said contact lingers.
When he finally releases me, he points at the small sofa in the corner, also covered halfway with books. These are still pre-print though. I take my seat among the endless pages of paper and leaf through the nearest manuscript.
“These on your to-do list?”
He settles back into his leatherback chair and glances over. “Nah. Those are the ones that didn’t make the cut.”
My dad’s an editor for one of the biggest publishing houses around. He’s been doing it for nearly thirty years and to this day I’ve still never seen the man without a book in hand.
“If they suck why are they here?”
He smiles. “Because I want to read them. Just because they’re not commercially appealing doesn’t mean they’re not still excellent.”
Also doesn’t mean they aren’t the worst pieces of written garbage ever. My dad just loves words. Any words. He can read the warning label on an aspirin bottle and find something fascinating about it. He can also find a typo in it or a misplaced comma or a grammatical error no other English speaking person will ever be able to detect. Like I said. Brilliant and batty.
“Speaking of things that are here for no apparent reason, what brings you home for a surprise visit this early on a Tuesday? Aren’t you supposed to be at work as of a few hours ago?” He’s not concerned exactly. Curiosity is probably outweighing worry at this point.
“Switched shifts. Don’t go in until tomorrow now.” Then I remember that really he’s asking why I’m here. “And I need some advice.” I pause, but there’s really no point in beating around the bush with the old man. “About Trix.”
He shrugs. “I think you probably know her better than I do.” But his eyes are laughing at me again.
“Is this going to be one of those conversations where I spill my guts and you basically wind up telling me in a very longwinded way that I already have the answers I’m looking for and it’s up to me to find them for myself? Because if it is, I can just skip right to raiding your fridge for some lunch before I move on for the day.”
Pop laughs out loud. “Longwinded, huh?” He sits up straighter. “Alright, lay it on me and I’ll do my best to set you straight.”
Relieved, I sink deeper into the sofa cushions, a position I realize is completely opposite to the eager edge of his seat one he’s taken on my behalf. “Okay, so, remember like three weeks ago when she called me to video chat from the fucking jungle telling me about all the horrible shit going down all around her and then we got disconnected shortly after there was a loud bang and yelling in the background?”
Pop frowns. “Do I remember the night you showed up here drunk off your ass to dig through my office in a frantic search for your passport because you were on some manic mission to jump on the next plane out and go find her? Yeah, I faintly recall.” The sarcasm notwithstanding, that’s actually a really accurate depiction of the night that followed said call.
“I get it, it was a bad night. That’s not what I need to have clarified.”
He shifts in his chair. “Was it? A bad night?”
My thoughts stop loading and I freeze. “What? Yes! It was a fucking disaster. Wasn’t that what your snide tone was meant to convey?”
His mouth contorts into something I’ve come to determine is his parenting mouth. He wants it to look serious, but really he’s just trying not to laugh at me. “No. The tone was referencing your implication that I could have possibly forgotten about that night. Not the night itself.”