Chapter 1
Blair
Twenty Years Later
“That’s the second one to go today.”
Darlene, the nurse that had just spoken, steps closer to me.
Her perfectly painted pink lips tip down at the corners as the two orderlies step out of the room and guide the hospital bed down the hallway.
There’s no hiding the human form beneath the thick, crisp white sheet, but it grants the deceased some privacy while making sure the other residents of Sunset Hospice Care don’t have to witness their impending fate.
“It’s a full moon tonight, you know what that means, don’t you, CeCe?” Darlene continues, her voice lowering as she leans closer to me.
I hum quizzically, albeit with some distraction. My eyes scan the deceased patient’s paperwork, searching for the point of contact. Mr. Kinsley had mentioned two sons. What had he said their names had been?
“It means at least two more are going to die tonight,” she whispers.
There’s a slight whine in her voice which puzzles me some. Surely she understands the concept of hospice care given she’s been working here for a few years now. I guess it’s a good thing she doesn’t work the night shift. If her superstitious theory bodes correct, it’ll be me that deals with it.
“Let’s hope it’s a quiet evening,” I murmur as my eyes lock onto the section of paperwork where contact information should be.
My heart sinks at the empty lines. If Mr. Kinsley had two sons, they had washed their hands of their father. There’s no one to contact, so Mr. Kinsley had died alone, with no one to mourn his loss.
“I’ll pray for everyone here, and you too, CeCe.
I remember the first couple years working in this particular field.
Working alongside death and grief can take a toll on your mental health.
So don’t worry, I know what you’re going through.
You’re not alone. If two more do head home to our Great Maker tonight, know that it was their time.
” She reaches out to grab a hold and squeeze my arm in what I think is comradery.
“You’re taking care of yourself on your days off, right? ”
My gaze flickers to her hand on my arm before lifting to meet her concerned, wide, blue eyes.
I know this middle-aged woman, who wears a bit too much make-up and sticks her nose in the other nurses' business, is simply trying to connect with me.
She, along with most of the other nurses here, have welcomed me with open arms since I was hired four months ago.
They desperately needed another nurse around here and when they realized I was competent, they were eager to tuck me under their wings.
Unfortunately, I have a hard time relating to her, or really anyone else for that matter.
That’s mostly because everything about me is a perfectly curated lie, even my name.
It’s hard trying to make connections with others when I have to be so painfully careful about keeping each and every lie straight.
It’s so hard that I’ve found it easier to remain slightly aloof to keep from getting too chummy with everyone.
What makes it even harder to grow close to people in this particular industry is that I’m not affected by death like most people are.
Death doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, I switched from being a traveling trauma nurse to a traveling hospice nurse simply so that I can remind myself that the dead and dying still are human beings.
I make it a point to talk to each one of my patients, learning a little about them so that I see them as something more than a job.
I don’t want to end up like Dad. It’s like he sees people as inanimate objects and feels nothing when he takes lives. I don’t want to be like that.
“Yeah, I’m taking care of myself,” I lie with a smile that I hope belays gratefulness.
Darlene squeezes my arm once more before her hand falls away.
“Good. It’s the first of September which means things will start cooling down now and craft fairs will start up.
You should check them out. That really gets my mind off things here.
If you want someone to go with you know you can call me. Me and my grandbaby love craft fairs.”
“I will, thanks.” Another lie.
“I’ll check Mr. Kinsley into the morgue then I’ll head out for the evening. You’re working with Tiffany tonight, right?”
I give her a nod. “Yeah, I saw her head into the breakroom just before Mr. Kinsley’s heart monitor went off.”
“Good, I’m glad she’s on time for once,” the older nurse says with a roll of her eyes. “You take care, CeCe. I’ll see you in the morning.”
"—and Daryl said that he was going to take me out Saturday night.
I was thrilled, right? Then Saturday afternoon comes around and suddenly Daryl's all like 'oh shit, my boss called.
I got to work'." Tiffany clacks her gum while she talks, her lips moving so fast it's hard to keep up with her story.
"And I was all like 'but you never work on Saturday nights'.
He told me he was gonna make it up to me and he was so sweet so I believed him.
Like, why wouldn't I, you know? He's always been so freaking good to me.
But anyway, I got this naggin' feeling in my head that I should go to the warehouse to just check.
So I did. And guess what? He was nowhere to be seen.
So I was like, 'where the hell is this guy? '"
As Tiffany talks, I go through all the charts of my patients—making sure I've filled out everything right and that I put them into the system.
Tiffany thinks it's overkill to double, triple, and sometimes quadruple check my stuff but being cautious has saved my life countless times.
That cautiousness bleeds over to other aspects of my life and has never been a problem. Why change it now?
"So where was he?" I ask, not really caring but enjoying the company. Out of all my co-workers here, Tiffany is my favorite. Her flair for dramatic storytelling keeps me sane during the long, quiet hours during the nightshift.
Our voices don’t drift much further than just beyond the nurses’ station. The rooms around us and down the hall remain silent, unbothered by our soft chitchat.
"Oh, I'll tell you where that asshole was!" Tiffany shoots me a dark look from between those super thick, superficial lashes of hers. "He was in his car in the back of the parking lot hooking up with Miranda! My best friend!"
I shoot her an incredulous look, as if I couldn't believe the news I just heard. The thing is, from the few months I've known Tiffany, picking losers seems to be her MO.
"I know, right? Well, it turns out—"
She keeps talking and I'm left to just nod along. I don't mind Tiffany’s ramblings. She doesn’t require a lot from me when she dives into her long-winded but entertaining stories. So while she talks, I work and listen.
“—and then he had the nerve to attempt to finish inside her. Turns out he was raw-dogging her on top of everything else!”
Raw-dogging? I grimace. Who comes up with this terminology?
Tiffany sees my expression and laughs. “Yeah, I know, right? I mean, don’t get me wrong, you and I both know it feels better without a condom but he was seeing me!”
I frown at the shift in her tone. She might be outraged right now but I can hear how Tiffany’s hurting. Looking up, I meet her gaze and frown. “I’m sorry Daryl did that to you. You deserve a lot better than him.”
“Thanks, hon. And yeah, I know, but pickins’ are slim around here these days.” She sighs dramatically. “What about you? You got anyone out there? You don’t really talk much about your life outside work.”
Immediately, I look away, turning my attention back to the work at hand.
“No, there’s no one,” I admit. “It’s kind of hard to date when I travel so much.”
“I mean, yeah I get that.” Tiffany nods, I can see the movement in my periphery. “But it’s not impossible. You should be out there exploring your options.”
My fingers fumble with the files as heat creeps into my cheeks.
It’s not that I don’t want to date. The idea of being flirted with, wined and dined, and growing close to someone sounds fun.
But there’s the whole inability to be completely honest with a partner that kind of ruins dating for me.
If I can’t share who I really am with someone I care for, if the very foundation of the relationship is based on a lie, then that relationship is doomed to fail.
Any attempt at anything serious would be fruitless.
When I don’t reply, Tiffany pushes. “You’re telling me, out of all that traveling you’ve done, that there’s no one you’ve liked enough to even consider something serious with?”
I hesitate as I consider her question, the heat in my cheeks intensifying.
“I, well, there was someone,” I add, deciding on a partial truth.
The whole truth is that I’m still head over heels for someone so completely off-limits that I should honestly go to therapy given how long this crush has been going on.
Tiffany’s face lights up. “Oh? Tell me more.”
I would rather kill myself.
“There’s not much to tell,” I admit, then grimace. “My feelings weren’t reciprocated and I found that out the hard way. I’ve been a lot more cautious since then.”
The instant humiliation I’d faced still haunts me all these years later.
Looking back, I can clearly see where it all went wrong.
First, falling desperately in love with a man nineteen years older than me was simply idiotic.
There was no chance in hell that would’ve ever made sense.
Second, falling for my dad’s best friend—who just happens to be my godfather.
His loyalty would always have been to Dad first.
Yeah, no… Looking back, I could see there was no way a relationship would ever come to fruition. I’d believed differently at the time—naive to the fact that love did not conquer all.