ROMANCE: Romantic Comedy: Love in 30 Days - The Best Plans Don't Always Work! (Plus 19 FREE Books Book 13) (55 page)

She went back to see him and was all smiles. She wanted to let him know that she was confident in him, in her position at the hospital, in herself-- whatever he needed to know.

He shocked her by saying, "You're stunningly gorgeous, you know."

"Oh," she said, faltering. She had always thought her auburn hair and lackluster hazel eyes weren't something to be coveted, but she doubted her opinion of herself, now.

"Really, really gorgeous. How do you not know that, already?"

"Me?" she asked.

He chuckled and said, "Yes, you."

"Derek, you seem to have some residual brain impairments."

He sat up a little straighter, "What do you mean?"

She laughed quickly and reassured him, "A joke. You're better than fine. You just seem to not know what you're talking about, is all."

"I don't know?" he said with a half grin. "I've seen my fair share of women. And none of them could hold a candle to you, doc."

She was flustered, but said, "The name's Emilia."

He repeated, "Emilia."

"Let's get to brass tacks. How do you feel, Derek?"

"I like the first-name basis."

"I'm sorry, Sergeant."

"Staff Sergeant, you know," he said and laughed and she did too, lightly. She was slightly uncomfortable with someone that respected his title so thoroughly.

"Staff Sergeant Derek Lander, how are you feeling?"

"Better than I've ever felt in my life," he told her. "I have a hole in my neck. A few plates of metal pressed against my spine and I'm laying in my own casket."

"You're far from dying," she told him.

"Again, thanks to you. But I still feel awful."

"Awful how?"

"Mentally," he said.

She sat down at his feet and put the clipboard away.

She said, "That will go away with time. I want you to know that. All of the feelings you're experiencing now are real and they probably do hurt, but in time you'll realize that you're better off than you were before."

"You would say that," he said, face dark.

"What do you mean?" she asked naively.

"You don't have the military mindset."

She said, "No, I'm afraid I don't."

"But I do."

"That doesn't mean you have to-
,
” she said before he cut her off.

"My livelihood is gone," he said, crystal blue eyes brimming with tears. "Gone!"

She scooted forward on the bed to get closer to him. She watched as a tear ran down his face and he tightened his lips. She put her hands on his and pressed her fingers into him lightly.

"You'll be fine after this is all over."

"Can you really say that?"

"You'll have plenty of range of motion. Not like before, but I did it in such a way that-"

He cut her off again, "I want you out. Out!"

She was taken aback and stood.

"I'm sorry, it's just-"

"Say no more," she said and picked up his chart and walked out the door.

She sighed when she had closed it, perturbed and upset. She hadn't meant to make him angry, but he was, now. She made note of his health and his mental state in case the orderlies needed to know and moved on to her other patients. The interaction weighed heavily on her and she went to his door when she was off for the night and almost went in, but stood at it and rested her head against the door, instead. She stayed there a moment before snapping out of her momentary weakness and walked out of the ER and back to the army housing complex.

The next morning she was fresh and awake, ready for whatever the day threw at her, and so was Derek. He wasn't down trodden like she expected him to be after last night.

"I'm stronger than I was yesterday," he told her. "The army made me that way."

"What way?"

"It made me a man," he told her. "It made me a man that can deal with whatever life throws at him."

"Life certainly has thrown you a curveball," she said, sitting down on his bed again. "Are you sure?"

"I'm strong in body, but when my body gives out, I'm strong in mind and spirit."

"That's a good way of looking at it," she said.

"But you don't like the army?"

"I don't like what it does to people."

"And what's that?"

She said, "It can be a way of brainwashing people. Brainwashing them into doing crazy things for their country."

"But isn't that what we all signed up for?"

"What?"

"I signed up to work hard for my country. No matter what the cost. Even if I get my head blown off, I'm here for the citizens of the United States of America. Not myself. Not you. Not my family, but for everyone that wants to live freely in our country."

She remained silent as she sat next to his feet and watched him talk with conviction.

"I'm here to fight. I'm here to make sure that people like you don't have to. That's what the army has to offer me. A place to be brave for other people. They didn't have to brainwash me into nothing."

"Well," she said, breathing in, thinking. "I guess I should count myself lucky to be protected by someone with your convictions."

"You aren't lucky at all, though. Because you have the same opportunities as me, but you don't want them."

"I did," she said.

"But what changed?"

"The army changed me, I guess."

"The army makes people into who they are meant to be. Are you really meant to be apathetic?"

"Apathetic? I'm not apathetic."

He said, "You don't want to be here."

"That doesn't mean I'm apathetic."

"Then what are you?"

"Waiting," she said decisively. "And I have been. For the rest of my life to start. I'm excited for what comes after this."

"So, the army is just a bump in the road for you?"

"What got you into the army?" she asked.

He sighed, looking off into the distance before looking back at her.

He said, "I was a pretty reckless kid growing up, but then my brother died. When that happened, my whole life turned around and I realized that there are some things you have to be serious about."

"My god, I'm sorry. How did he die?"

"Brain tumor," he said, then pointed to the side of his head and said, "right here."

"That's terrible," she said. "I'm sorry."

"It turned me around, though. And I went right into the army after high school."

"And haven't looked back ever since?" she asked.

"Haven't. Not once."

"What about you?"

"A recruiter got me and enticed me with the idea of a full-ride through med school and it was too much to pass up."

"So you traded your ideals for money?"

"What?"

Derek said, "You could have gone on to a civilian career as was your ideal, but you traded that for the allure of never having to pay for school."

"Well, yeah. I traded my ideals for money."

"Regret that decision?"

"Always," she said. He smiled and she glimpsed the beautiful fullness of his lips spread across his white teeth. She could feel her heart in her chest pound a little faster and she felt herself leaning closer to her, putting a hand down on the bed next to his knee. "Except maybe now," she added.

His smile didn't fade and he gazed at her for a moment, turquoise eyes unfaltering. She could see the creases around his eyes as he smiled, like he had done it a lot and the kindness in his face. She wondered if the army had pushed some of it out of him or is he had retained his utmost happy self throughout it.

The next time she saw him, she noted his recovery, which was taking longer than she had expected, but his days in her care were limited. He would soon move on to the USO Warrior Center instead of the ER or ICU where she could check on him while she worked. She kept going back to him, though, to check on him and talk about his health and the army.

She was nervous and worried that he took his status in the military too seriously. He could be just like all of the other jarheads, she realized. Focused only on his job and the military and nothing else. She wanted to get to know him, but realized that she could be disappointed in him if she did. In that way, she avoided talking about herself and trying to ask too much about his. Instead, they talked about their opinions and the shows they watched. They went over old news in the war. They were both interested in the events that were keeping the war going and news of terrorism and attacks in countries outside of the Middle East. He told her about what the war had done for and given him and the experiences that he had to make him the person she was.

The first day he was there in the USO trauma center she went to volunteer during the afternoon hours, where he sat by the window and watched as she put autumn leaves.

She spent several weeks like that, checking on him in the trauma center and helping him to rehabilitate. At one point early on, she didn't need to keep going to see him at all, and she wondered if he noticed the way that she stopped picking up the clipboard and stopped making notes. Because she was here for him, now, for some strange reason even she didn't understand.

She came in one day to find him out of bed, staring out into the gorgeous mountain range covered view beyond the hospital.

"I've never asked you about yourself," he said to her. "I don't know how I've never thought to ask you about that."

She wanted to check his chart, see how he was feeling, do something to check and see why things had changed so suddenly, but she sat down on the edge of it, instead.

"I think it's because you were in the fog of pain from the surgery."

"Why now? You expected my recovery days ago."

She was baffled, "How did you know that?"

"I've gotten good at reading you, by now."

She looked down, smiling.

Derek continued, "I want to know about this woman I have grown so dependent on. No, close to."

"You want to know about me?" she asked.

He grinned out of his full lips and she noticed the tan-ness of his face.

"I am... an open book, really."

"Not the case. Are you like this with everyone?"

"What?"

"So closed."

"Well, I guess I am."

"How long have you been like that?"

She thought for a moment, then said, "Once I got out of my residency."

"How do you figure that?"

"Before, in high school, med school, and at my residency in America, everything seemed so much simpler. Talking to people was simpler. Developing those relationships with patients and other doctors."

"What kind of relationships?" he asked, an eyebrow up.

"The normal kind," she said, her own eyebrow up as she gave him a look. "But, also..." she trailed off, exposing herself, then realized she could trust him. She had been fully open about her anti-army sentiments and he had disagreed, but never made her felt awful for it. She felt like she could have opposing viewpoints to him and it wouldn't be that bad.

She continued, "Also the other kinds. Here, not so much."

"You don't get along with anybody?"

She thought back, "No, I just don't try to get to know anybody."

He asked, "Is that why you never ask me about myself?" He felt a barrier go up between the two of them and he faltered to get back their intimacy, saying, "I only ask because this is the first time I've asked about you."

"Maybe we're cut from the same cloth," she said as she got up. She went to the window and stared out at the crests of the mountains, their peaks beautiful to her. She wondered what it would take to see them closer, to be near to them.

"I do want to know," he said lightly from behind her, "about you. Where did you grow up?"

"California."

"How was that?"

"I was next to the coast in San Diego, so spectacular."

"Oh yeah? I trained at Pendleton. Where did you live?"

She turned, "That's so funny. I went to the movies a whole bunch in Oceanside where the Marines hang out. I might have seen you."

"Maybe, I definitely went down there a lot."

"Were you a partier?"

He shook his head and smiled, then ran his hands through his black hair and said, "I worked hard, I played hard."

She smiled, too, and said, "We are cut from the same cloth."

"Oh yeah?" he asked. "How did you ever get through med school if you were partying all the time?"

"How did I?" she asked. "Not very carefully."

"What, did you sleep with a professor of something?"

"Happy to say I did not."

He sighed, exaggerating his relief.