Can't Always Get What You Want (7 page)

I wander back to the checkouts, and see that Brett is already waiting for me. I notice once again his broad shoulders and impeccable posture. He turns his head to the side, displaying a full profile. My eyes trace over his square jaw and strong chin.

Hmm…I can imagine myself running my tongue along his jawline.

GAH! Friends zone, Sophie! Keep it in the friends zone!

His expression appears serious and guarded. Is this the side of Brett that Samira told me about? As if he can feel my eyes boring into him, he starts looking around and finds me. The serious expression on his face melts into a cocky smile.

A smile that says,
“Oh, I’ve so got this.”

“You look pleased with yourself,” I say. “Okay, let’s see what you’ve got.”

Inside his basket are steaks, bell peppers, pineapple juice, and some jumbo shrimp.

I snort with laughter and cover my mouth when I see his three items:

Mousetraps, BBQ sauce, and a package of bamboo skewers.

“That’s nasty,” I say.

He jerks his chin at my grocery basket.

“What’d you find, missy?”

I show him the basket in my hand. His expression turns from curious to disgusted in about two seconds.

“That’s messed up,” he chokes out. “What do you plan on doing with the breast pump?”

In the basket, besides my groceries, are a breast pump, plastic cups, and a package of Oreos. My stomach hurts from laughing so hard. I won’t need to do crunches for a week if I keep this up.

“I’ll just return it unopened,” I say once I catch my breath. “Or give it away. There is an endless parade of baby showers at work, since the nurses are constantly getting pregnant. I’m starting to think they put something in the water.”

He shoots me an assessing look, but then bursts out laughing.

“You’re so weird,” he says.

—

“I can’t believe you won!” I whine in the parking lot.

The cashier actually gagged when she encountered Brett’s rodent BBQ supplies. My three items barely received a cursory glance.

“Stick with me kid, and you’ll learn a thing or two,” he says, nudging me in the ribs. He walks me to my car, and I stand there shuffling, fiddling with my keys.

“So…see you tomorrow night, then?”

“You bet. Good night, Soph.”

Chapter 6

Brown Sugar

This is my last shift for a few days, and I’m looking forward to some time off. When I have a free moment, I pop in on Larry and Lorna. They’re watching an old western on TV, and don’t notice me right away.

“Hi there,” I say quietly.

“How’s my favorite nurse?” booms Larry.

“I bet he says that to everyone.”

“He’s always been such a flirt,” Lorna replies, smirking.

“I’m good, Larry,” I say. “How are you feeling today?”

“Like shit, kiddo. But, watching ol’ Duke up there sure puts me in a better mood.” His gravelly voice sounds like it would really suit a western movie.

I glance at the TV, and see John Wayne sauntering across the screen.

“He’d watch westerns all day if he could. And hockey,” Lorna says, shaking her head.

I note that his morphine drip is almost empty.

“How’s the pain today, Larry? How would you rate it on a scale of one to ten?”

He scrunches his nose up and raises his hands in an evaluating gesture.

“Meh, it’s about a three or four, I guess.”

That’s way better than it has been. Larry’s pain was really hard to control earlier this week, but the docs finally prescribed a sliding scale for him, so we can adjust the dose as needed.

“It looks like your morphine is about to run out, so I’ll go fill another bag for you.”

“What’s that stuff made out of, anyway?” Larry asks.

“Opium,” I say, while taking his pulse. I hold on a few seconds longer so I can count his breaths. Sometimes toward the end, people begin to breathe really quickly, and often feel short of breath. Morphine slows their breathing rate down, and helps them relax. We just need to make sure that they don’t slow down
too
much.

“Opium, huh. Hear that, Lorna? I’ve been kicking the gong around, and I didn’t even know it!”

“Be right back,” I say.

While I’m in the med room, the charge nurse approaches me.

“You work occasionally in ER, right?

“Yeah, I do. What’s up?”

“They’re completely screwed. They’re short-staffed, and up to their eyeballs in blood and broken bones. A car crash or something. They asked if we had any staff we could send down to help.”

“Sure, I’ll go. Just let me hang this morphine first.”

Before I leave, I peek in on all my patients, transfer their care to another nurse, and finish charting. Twenty minutes later, I’m standing in our hospital’s stressed emergency room.

The place is a disaster, with people crying everywhere and harried nurses scrambling around. What did I sign myself up for?

“Oh thank God!” yells out Margo, the ER’s charge nurse, when she sees me.

“Looks terrible down here.”

“You have no idea. There was a massive car accident on the QE2.”

“What happened?”

“I’m not totally sure, but it sounds like someone had a seizure while driving on the highway. At least a ten-car pileup.”

“That’s awful.”

“Half of the people were sent to one hospital and the other half were sent here. Give me a minute and I’ll figure out where to put you.”

My first job is to assess a twenty-six-year-old male who was a passenger in one of the vehicles in the pileup. I locate his bed, draw back the curtain, sit down in a chair beside him, and look up.

And wish I hadn’t.

In front of me is an attractive young man with dark overgrown hair, olive skin, and long, lean limbs. Both arms are covered in full-sleeve tattoos, and when he looks up at me, I see incredibly beautiful pale green eyes.

“Umm, just a second,” I say, my voice shaking.

I stand and roughly drag the curtain closed. I can feel my body vibrating, and run into a near hallway. Pressing my back against the wall, I slowly slide down, holding my face in my hands. My heart is racing; my body feels hot and cold all over at the same time.

Is my throat closing up? I have the sensation that I’m drowning. I rub my hands over my face and feel a cold sweat breaking out on my skin.

Is this what a panic attack feels like?

Don’t cry at work, don’t cry at work.

Okay, Sophie, don’t freak out. What can you do about this?

My mind races, looking for a solution. Anything but having to be around that young man again.

I force my wobbly legs to walk over to the unit desk.

“Margo, can I have another assignment?” I can feel my voice crack.

“What for?”

“I just don’t think I can do this.”

Margo frowns. “I’ve got forty people waiting for triage, and any minute now the guy in bed one is going to code. Suck it up, princess.”

Well, so much for that.

Okay. Deep breaths. You can do this. Just try not to look at him.

I walk back to my section of the ER and try to assume a confidence that I don’t feel.

Opening the curtain for the second time, I feel a little more prepared about what my eyes are about to see. Maybe it was a trick of my imagination?

Oh God…no, it wasn’t.

He looks up at me with a faint smile, and tries to sit up.

He looks so much like…

I can’t do this, I just can’t do this.

“Hello,” he says.

Well, at least his voice is different. And his tattoos are different.

“Hi, my name is Sophie,” I manage. “I’ll be taking care of you this afternoon.”

“Travis,” he says, and gestures to shake my hand.

I am so thankful he doesn’t have the same name.

I’m sure I would’ve died on the spot.

“So, Travis, can you tell me about what happened today?”

“Yeah, me and my buddy were driving home from work, and out of nowhere the cars in front of us started going sideways—some were flipping over. I’ve never been so scared in all my life.”

His voice cracks and his shoulders tremble, and I wonder if he’s close to crying, or going into shock.

“That must’ve been awful to see.”

Travis nods his head, and stares at his lap.

“Do you want a warm blanket to wrap around your shoulders?”

“Sure, that’d be great. Thanks.”

I return a few minutes later and hand him a blanket. The resemblance is uncanny. I can’t quite believe it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that this was…

I manage to keep my emotions in check, so long as I don’t directly look at him. As soon as I make eye contact, I start to crumble.

“Do you have pain anywhere?” I ask.

“Yeah, around here,” he says, motioning to his ribs.

He lifts up his shirt. Large purple splotches are already forming. I gently touch each side of his chest and rib cage, comparing how each side feels. His appearance affects me so much that I physically ache touching him. I’m certain that my heart is shattering into a million pieces, all over again. And are those tears in my eyes?

“Are you okay?”

“What? Oh…umm, yes. I’m just really sensitive. I hate seeing people in pain.”

He regards me suspiciously for a moment.

“How bad is the pain on a scale of one to ten? And are you having trouble breathing at all?”

“Umm, I guess about an eight? And it hurts to take a deep breath. But otherwise, I’m breathing fine.”

I consult his chart, looking for the doctor’s orders.

An X-ray requisition, trauma blood panel, and prescription for pain meds.

“Okay. I’ll get you something for pain, and then we’ll go for some X rays.”

I smile pleasantly at him, walk away with an air of assurance (a total sham, of course, though I’m rather pleased with my acting skills), and go about my work.

—

That was the longest four hours of my life.

The shift is over. I’m sitting in my car in the parking lot, staring blankly through the windshield.

Travis ended up having two fractured ribs, but is otherwise healthy. He was one of the few who had minor injuries from the car crash today. A lot of people were much, much worse.

I finally allow myself to think about my emotional collapse, or whatever that was. Am I still that fragile, five years after it all happened?

I remember it every day, but I only think about it abstractly. Focusing too much on him just hurts too much. In fact, I haven’t properly thought about him in years.

Even the good things, I’ve pushed to the back of my mind.

But they’re always there, like quiet background music.

Do I dare think about him?

Six Years Ago…

August 27, 2008

It’s a bright, sunny day and Samira and I are walking around campus, getting a feel for where our classes will be.

She is going to be a nurse. Not much of a surprise there—it’s all she’s ever wanted. I, however, am not exactly sure of who I am yet, or what I want.

Thank God for general studies.

Samira and I buy our books and lug them around in our massive backpacks.

“I wish we would have done a trip to the bookstore last,” I complain.

“Yeah, not the best idea I’ve ever had,” she admits. “But on the bright side, it means we’re getting a free workout. Just think about how ripped our arms will be after carrying these things around all year.”

“I’ll buy luggage on wheels before I do that,” I say, laughing.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot five women standing in a row, wearing bright skirts and coin hip scarves. A crowd has gathered around them.

As we approach the crowd, loud Middle Eastern music starts playing. The words and rhythms are hypnotic, and I find myself swaying to the music.

It turns out that the group of women are part of a dance troupe, advertising their skills in hopes of enrolling more people in their class. Their strategy seems to be working. All around me, I hear women saying, “I wish I could move like that!” and men saying, “That’s hot.”

The troupe leader starts beckoning to the crowd, asking for audience participation. Everyone suddenly seems shy, and she eventually notices me, still swaying to the music.

Me? I don’t know any of the moves! How do they expect me to dance along with them?

Ah, what the hell.

“Count me in!”

I join their group, and the crowd cheers me on. Samira quickly follows behind me and we’re given coin hip scarves. The dancers show us some basic moves and clap their hands along with the drumbeat.

Sam and I laugh our asses off (we’ve made total fools of ourselves), but go away feeling satisfied and happy.

I’m suddenly filled with a sense that everything is right in the world.

This is the start of something good, I just know it.

September 23, 2008

“Soph, can you do me a favor?”

We’re sitting on a beat-up couch in her parents’ basement, about a month into our first semester. Her family lives close to the LRT station, so we’re staying here rather than renting a house or using the residence on campus. It means we have to get up a little earlier for class than everyone else, but at least we’re saving tons of money on rent.

“Depends…”

“I need a lab partner for my health assessment class.”

“And that entails?”

“Basically, you’d be the person I would assess. I’ll measure your height and weight, listen to your lung and heart sounds, that sort of thing.”

“I won’t have to get naked, will I?”

“No, you won’t,” she says, laughing.

“When is it?”

She looks down sheepishly. “Umm, tomorrow.”

“Thanks for the notice!” I say, and toss a pillow at her head.

“So you’ll do it?”

“Sam, I’d do anything for you.”

The next day, Samira and I enter the health assessment room. It is filled with about thirty people: fifteen nursing students and their “patients.”

My eyes wander around the room, and then I spot a rather tall, delicious-looking young man standing toward the back. He has dark olive skin, overgrown dark brown hair, and both arms are covered in colorful tattoo sleeves.