When the food comes, he sits at the curb outside and pulls a slice out of the box.
“You’re not going to eat?” A ball of sausage drops from his mouth on the last word. When I shake my head, saying I’m not hungry, he grabs another slice, and says, “The food at the convention is way overpriced. And after this I’m skint. You know what that means? It means broke.”
I’ve just sent a text message to Ashley with a single word: Pineapple. It’s our emergency word. The one that shows we need out of a situation. It started off as a true emergency thing. Like if we were to get kidnapped or something. But since that never happened, we’ve used it more lightly, like when we need to get out of a truly bad date.
I can’t hide my deep breath as I decide that I can’t take any more of this. Especially not if our next destination is a building full of people Clay would actually get along with, because it means I have absolutely no chance of doing the same. “I think I’m going to go home to eat.”
“But if we don’t leave soon, we’ll miss the opening speech. It’s by this guy who was a guest star on—”
“You go on without me,” I say when he doesn’t catch on. “I’m actually feeling pretty tired.”
Clay’s jovial spirit falls away to reveal raw emotions usually only found on the faces of toddlers. “But you promised to go with me. My friends didn’t believe me when I showed them your photo. You have to come or they’ll think I was making it all up.”
I brush off the back of my jeans and begin walking down the block. There is no hope of getting a taxi out in our town, but if I’m lucky the university bus will be by soon. The driver remembers me from my school days and has no problems letting me hitch rides every now and then. “I’ll pay you back for the ticket.”
Clay is up now, trying to follow along with his box of half-eaten pizza. “I told you, we’re getting in free. So you have to go with me.” He latches onto my arm. He might be shorter than me, but he is dense, and there must be at least a little muscle under the fat. Meanwhile, I’m the sort of thin where my friends always tell me to eat more.
I’ve been nice up to this point, but as I struggle against his grip, I let loose my true thoughts on this date so far: “I cannot believe that Ashley set me up with you. Either she didn’t know you very well or she secretly hates me. Whatever, it doesn’t matter, because this date is done. I’m not walking another step with you.” Clay’s grip on my forearm tightens, but I’m not done yet. “Also, I told you that I was a vegetarian before you ordered that pizza, but you didn’t listen. Or you did listen, but you didn’t care, which is worse.”
Clay’s fingers pinch my arm to the bone now so that I can’t help but let out a little yelp. His face contorts, nose and eyebrows wrinkling, mouth spitting out accusations. “I knew you looked like a little bitch the moment I saw you. The sort of girl who thinks she should never have to pay for a meal. Well, let me tell you now, little girl. You’re no princess. You’re nothing but a slut. Even though you were too picky to eat it, I paid for your food and arranged for this night, so that’s basically the same as paying for a prostitute, so you have to come with me. Now let’s go.”
He begins dragging me down the sidewalk, despite all of my yelling and pulling at his grip. A few people look on, but no one intervenes. Some hold phones lifted to their faces, recording this horrible event that feels like it’s never going to end.
“Let the fuck go,” I screech as he yanks me down the curb.
“Bitches should just do what they’re told,” he says, jerking me into the street like an abusive owner might do to a hesitant dog on a leash. “Let’s go and—”
I will never know how Clay intended to finish this sentence, for screeching brakes leap over his voice, and the car is soon on top of me, and then there is nothing.
Chapter 2
Finn
A knock at the door wakes me. It opens before I can break through the surface of sleep. A sliver of light pours into the room.
“You said you wanted me to wake you up after three hours,” the timid Joshua says. A new resident. He’s only two weeks in, and I already know he isn’t going to make it. Just another one of those types who gets into medicine because their parents pushed him. They are the first ones to burn out. Even if he’s been primed by a lifetime of television programs promising him miraculous answers at the last minute, meaningful relationships with patients, and staff who act more like a dysfunctional family than mere coworkers, the truth is that hospitals are more full of bureaucratic red tape, exhaustion, and death than medicine or hope.
“Thanks,” I mumble and pull myself off the bottom bunk. A groan escapes as I stretch, and when Joshua goes to turn on the light, a body on the top bunk shifts and hides her face from the light. Joshua flips it off immediately. From the small tattoo of a lizard on her neck under the ponytail, I know it’s Rebecca. She wasn’t in here when I got off the floor to catch my first chance at rest in twenty-four hours, which means I must have been really asleep not to notice her clamber up onto the bed above me.
I creep out the room, shutting the door behind me quietly. Rebecca and I have been in the same class since pre-med, so I know more than anyone how grumpy she can be if woken. That’s probably why the new residents gravitate to me; I’m the less scary one. Probably why I’m burning out too. I’m nothing but a future Joshua, already degrading with only one year to complete my residency.
“Did you change Ms. Hanover’s fluids?” I ask once my mind’s eye blinks away the grime of sleep, and I can run over my checklist with semi-clear thoughts.
“Everything’s been taken care of.” Joshua says with a bit of pride in his voice. He’s still too new to know that everything’s never been taken care of. There is always something to do, someone to attend to, a family member to speak with. But the hallways are quieter than a usual Sunday.
“What’s today?”
“I guess you’re not into football either. I forgot today was Super bowl Sunday until I walked past a television. Don’t ask me who’s playing though. I couldn’t even tell you our city’s team if you had a gun to my head.”
The Super Bowl. That explains it. If I remember correctly, it’s being held just a state over, so quite a few people will have traveled there for the game. The rest of the fans are locked up in their living rooms or at sports bars, watching the game, not daring to move even if they were dying. Whatever is wrong can wait until after the game, which means we’ll be getting a flood of people tonight. This is simply the calm before the storm.
“I should have let you sleep longer,” Joshua is saying. “Sorry, I didn’t really even think about it. You told me to wake you up, so I just—”
I hold up a hand. My little experience with Joshua has taught me that he never stops talking; he only pauses between sentences, so your best bet for a moment of silence is to give him some errand. “It’s fine, really. But I could really do with a cup of coffee. You know if they got anything fresh in the break room on the first floor?”
He may be talkative, but he lives to serve. Joshua is already five steps away when he manages to blurt out, “I’ll go check.”
With him out of the way, I allow myself another stretch, lifting my arms above my head. In that moment, my pager goes off. I’m needed in the ER. Being in the suburbs, we’re not usually hit hard by gunshot wounds or other violence one might see in the inner city. Our ER comes alive at night with car accidents or new parents carrying in sick children that they couldn’t wait to bring in the next day. So a beep in the middle of the afternoon must mean an anomaly outside the usual drunk driver or case of domestic abuse.
I rush downstairs, catching my first view out a window. Perfect sunshine and blue sky. The window is gone as rush into the hubbub of the ER, winding around hectic nurses and family members looking like lost puppies, until I finally reach the main bay where an ambulance has just pulled up. The cart comes out the back with a clamor, the paramedics holding up an IV bag as they wheel the patient through the double doors, a
ttracting nurses, residents, and me like ferric iron to a magnet.
The girl’s wrist is marked with notes of what they have already injected into her, and from a quick glance, I interpret that this patient actually has already died once on the way here. Perhaps two from the amount of adrenaline they’ve already pumped into her system.
“Blunt force trauma caused by a car collision. Abrasions over thirty percent of the body. Asphalt.”
“She looks familiar,” I say to myself, but a nurse picks up on my words. “The chart says her name is an April Kingston.”
April.
I haven’t seen her since I was in high school and she was practically living in my sister’s room every weekend. That was before I graduated high school. Moved out and never looked back.
Now a piece of my past has found me, and she is crashing again, the long beep of her suddenly still heart pulling me out of my reverie.
“Get the crash cart,” I shout, taking charge, all feelings of grogginess sheered away in an instant.
Chapter 3
April
The darkness lifts, filled with a soft light, like moonlight filtering through curtains. I haven’t been dreaming, but I have been somewhere far away. It feels as though I am waking for the first time in a new country, like that time Ashley and I flew to the Virgin Islands after our high school graduation. That odd feeling of waking up and realizing that you are not in your home country anymore, but somewhere foreign. Somewhere you have never been before.
In fact, it is just like that morning on the island, the ocean waves rolling in and out on the beach, inviting us to soak in the sun and sip at margaritas. But when I try opening my eyes, the message falls short somewhere along the way to my eyelids. All I can do is focus on the repetitive sound of the waves, rolling in and out, in and out. Exactly in tune with my chest rising and falling. Robotic breaths that feel unnatural in my lungs, each inhale bringing with it a tad too much air, inflating them uncomfortably, only to be released more quickly than I naturally would. Just as with my eyelids, I have no control.
Someone is talking. To me or around me, I’m not sure. A male voice, though the words are lost through the water that feels lodged in my ears. Nothing gets through but reassuring tones. Perhaps it is nothing but the wind, but I feel the owner of the voice touch my hand before disappearing into the unknowable dark.
I try to go back, piecing together how I might have ended up here, wherever here is, but my thoughts are not as streamlined as they usually are. My brain is my proudest asset. I’m not bad looking, falling probably somewhere around a seven on a scale from 1-10. Without judiciously applied cosmetics, my face would perhaps be considered plain, though I’m always getting compliments about my curly hair. Mostly from other girls, but I take what I can get.
More than worrying about my appearance and fashions, I’ve always focused on learning. Reading. Investing in new skills that will improve my life in the future. I was the queen of our study group in high school, and my position transferred over when I went to university, Ashley recruiting others to join. Because she knew I was focused, and that this focus would spill onto others. But now, as I retrace my steps, each movement through my memories is exhausting, the once polished system now rusted over and creaking with the exertion.
The most I can remember is a boy eating pizza. He wasn’t a friend. I can see his face, or at least I think it’s his face, for it is foreign to my memory, and perhaps just a fabrication like a dream. We were arguing about something, but I can’t remember what. Or where for that matter. We were planning on going somewhere, but I don’t think this is the place.
My awareness spreads from the sound of waves and beeping machines to my dry mouth. I can move my tongue around, but something is blocking it. Like a giant snake has fallen asleep halfway down my throat. The sensation becomes suddenly unbearable, and I begin choking, trying to pull the foreign object out. The beeping sounds leap ahead, the maestro controlling the orchestra apparently waving his baton around in a frenzy, frothing the players up to speeds they cannot sustain. From this cacophony comes more voices, their words all blended together into unbroken blurs. Hands grab my wrists, pushing them down while others grip at my jaw, my forehead, venturing between my teeth. An impossible number of hands that no one could hope to fight against, but still I struggle. A lurching scream is blocked from escaping my throat.
Then ice spreads up my arm, numbing everything in its path. Nerves go dark as the storm spreads its tendrils until I can no longer struggle. No longer feel the snake in my throat. No longer remember what I was thinking about before or how long it has been since I fought against the army of disembodied hands. A relaxing thought brings me down: it was just a nightmare. A bad one, but nothing that could truly hurt me. This place I’m in now is just the between place, the transition from one dream to another, filled with nothing but the rising and falling of waves on some distant shore. If only I let go, the next fantasy will pass over, and soon I will wake, all of this long forgotten.
Chapter 4
Finn
“I’ll stay right here, alright? You need to go,” I say to my sister, her torso slumped across the foot of April’s bed. “She wouldn’t want you missing classes.”
Ashley hasn’t left this room for a week. If I wasn’t bringing her food on my breaks, I doubt she would eat anything. Even then, I have to stay to make sure she actually eats what I put in front of her.
“I should never have set them up. If I hadn’t tried to play matchmaker, none of this would have happened.” Ashley has been repeating renditions of this sentiment each time I visit. Nothing I say helps. Only April waking up, looking my sister in the eyes, and explaining that there is nothing to forgive will bring them both back to life. Until then, all I can do is monitor both girls.
The only thing is that I can’t predict when April will wake up. We’ve taken her off of the meds keeping her under. Her brain swelling has gone down. The ventilator was removed two days ago. She’s living completely on her own power, but for some reason medicine can’t explain, she continues to sleep. April is somewhere too deep for my sister’s anguished cries to raise her above the surface.
Thankfully, my supervisor understands. I’ve been excused from all of the other duties that would pull me away from this ward. There are other patients to attend to, but for the most part, nothing stops me from checking in on my sister every hour.
“Enough is enough.” I place a hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t shrug it off, which I take as a sign that I can continue. “I’m here. All the time. You’ve seen that. I haven’t seen my apartment in three days. And only then to sleep and shower before coming straight back here.
“April isn’t going to die. I don’t know why she hasn’t woken up yet, but we’ve patched up everything major. Her heart is not suddenly going to stop. She’ll be here when you get back. So will I.”
Ashley’s eyes hold the wear and tear of constant crying. But at least she has looked up at me. “I won’t be able to concentrate on anything, so what’s the use?”
“I don’t expect you to concentrate. Your professors won’t either. But your showing up will prove to them that you’re willing to try. It will also give you a chance to explain the circumstances face-to-face. There might be one pretentious asshole who doesn’t care to listen, but I guarantee most of them will try to work something out with you. Will you finish this semester with straight A’s? No. But when have you ever?”
Her face cracks into a wan smile. It’s the closest she’s been to her old self since the accident. “No wonder you still don’t have a girlfriend,” she says. “Your pillow talk is awful.”
Now it’s my turn to smile. If she is back to trading insults with me, it means my sister is somewhere under this tragic, sun-starved shell.
“Look who’s talking,” I come back with. “What was it your last girlfriend said? Oh, I remember, that you were—and I’m paraphrasing here—a cold-hearted wench. Did she actually say ‘wench’? I still can’
t believe that.”
“I just said that in case mom was listening in on us. She actually said something far worse.”
“We’ll, she obviously didn’t know you well enough.” Taking both of her hands in mine, I help her stand. “You have two hours before classes start. Get home, get a shower for god’s sake—” She punches me in the shoulder here “—and come back as soon as classes finish. But not before picking up enough take-out for the two of us. I’m in the mood for Mexican.”
“OK,” is all she says, but it’s enough.
I begin to hand her a twenty, but then add an additional ten dollars. “Why don’t you make it enough for three. Maybe she’ll wake up by dinner.”
“If she does, you’ll call me?”
“I swear.” Ashley begins to collect her things—her phone, books, random bottles of water and soda I’ve brought her—but I tell her not to worry about any of it. “You’ll be back tonight. Besides, patients like having their rooms filled with personal items. Even if it’s not theirs, it shows they’ve had visitors.”
Ashley gives me a peck on the cheek before leaving. “You’re not such a half bad brother sometimes.” Then she is out the door after whispering something into April’s ear that I don’t catch. As soon as the door clicks, I collapse on the chair she was sitting in and sigh, letting out the air that has been holding me up. Giving up my break times to watch over Ashley has taken a toll on me. With her gone though, maybe I can catch a few moments of sleep. Just a power nap before I need to do my rounds.
A Sweet, Sexy Collection 1: 5 Insta-love, New Adult, Steamy Romance Novellas (Sweet, Sexy Shorts) Page 7