Chapter 5 #2
A terrifying thought entered her mind. Is this why Jade had always been able to get under her skin so easily?
Because Lillian liked her? No. That wasn’t possible.
This storm and the excitement had everyone on edge, it was nothing more than that.
Misplaced anger at its best. Damn if it didn’t feel good, though.
Lillian changed course from the ER and made her way to her office to write up the report from the surgery, but she could still feel everywhere Jade’s fingers had touched.
Lillian forced herself to focus on the paperwork in front of her.
Forced all thought of Jade from her mind, but she found it challenging.
As soon as she allowed room for a fleeting thought, the heat and desire washed through her again like a tide.
There was no way Jade was interested in her for more than a good time.
Lillian shuddered with the image in her mind.
It would most certainly be a mind-blowing time.
She imagined Jade naked, legs spread in front of her, just heat and wet and waiting.
Lillian shook her head again as waves of desire coursed through her again.
She couldn’t keep doing this. The kiss was a mistake.
Heightened emotions, stress from the job, the electricity of the storm.
That was all it was, tempers boiling over and manifesting in something completely unattainable. Nothing more.
Lillian finally finished her reports and checked her phone; she had not received any pages, so she went downstairs to check on her patients.
Especially Stephanie, she would likely be getting ready to repair the skull where she had released the pressure, at least if the swelling had gone down enough.
She went to the recovery room where Stephanie was still in an induced coma, but she was almost immediately struck dumb when she saw Jade already standing by the woman’s bed. She looked up and her eyes flared with heat before she schooled her expression.
“I’m just checking in,” Lillian said, her voice catching and making her cheeks flare with heat.
“You think she’s ready for the rest of it?” Jade asked, standing next to Lillian as she looked over the chart.
“It was an intense surgery, I think it might be better to let her recover for a while yet, but she is doing really well,” Lillian said with a slight smile.
Though she could feel how close Jade was to her shoulder.
She fought the urge to turn and kiss her again.
When she did look up at Jade, she noticed that Jade’s jaw was clenched, and Lillian couldn’t help but wonder if Jade wasn’t fighting the same compulsion.
Jade took a step back as Lillian put Stephanie’s chart back on the end of the bed. “I agree,” she said, looking pointedly at Stephanie. “As long as there’s no problems, I would let her rest for a while longer.”
“It looks as though she is recovering well, though,” Lillian said and nudged Jade with her shoulder.
Lillian’s eyes went wide. What was she doing?
She was acting like a horny teenager. She took a step to put some distance between herself and Jade.
Jade’s eyes tightened almost imperceptibly, but Lillian chose to ignore it.
“The ER needs a surgical consult. There’s another spinal injury, though I’m not sure if surgery is necessary,” Jade said without looking at Lillian.
“I’ll check it out,” Lillian said and turned, practically fleeing from the room.
Once she was outside, she pulled in a deep breath.
This was going to be hard. She needed to maintain a professional distance from that woman before she did something much worse than she already had.
Arm’s length, that was what she was going to do, no matter what.
Lillian headed down to the ER and found one of the doctors who directed her to another patient’s room. This was a new patient, someone who had slipped and fell, but was complaining that she couldn’t feel her legs.
Lillian pulled the curtain around them and introduced herself.
The woman seemed to be in a good state of mind, though in a lot of pain.
Lillian asked her to move her toes, but the woman clearly couldn’t, so she pulled out her tools and started a full neurological work-up.
Once she was done, she called in Dr. Hu.
Lillian determined that the woman had a slipped disc in her back, and ordered an MRI, but she was fairly certain that she would not need surgery.
She made the rounds with the rest of the ER patients, checking in and seeing if they needed anything before circling back to Hannah.
The woman was still asleep, and Jasmine was nowhere to be found, likely with the hospital social worker.
For some reason, Hannah pulled at her heartstrings.
Maybe it was because of the difficult relationship Lillian had with her own mother growing up.
Lillian had spent her life here in Los Angeles, trying to survive on her mother’s meager disability checks.
Her mother had come from a small town in the Midwest, and her family had all disowned her when she decided to move to California.
Like so many others, she chased a dream of acting, and was doing well for herself.
She had been in a couple of movies, and even landed a long-term guest-starring role on a popular crime drama, but that’s when the voices started.
Within a couple of years, her mother had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
The acting roles disappeared, and she was too proud to go back to Missouri.
She still tried, still struggled, and even landed roles that she was never able to fully commit to when a predatory agent took her under his wing.
It wasn’t long after that, Lillian was born, though she had no idea who that agent was.
In her mother’s words, he was a monster, a demon in the flesh.
It was after Lillian was born that her mother had run from the man and tried to start her own life.
She worked menial jobs—cleaning rooms, waiting tables—anything that would hire her, but her mental state would flare up and she would lose the jobs as quickly as she gained them.
Still, she always tried to do her best for Lillian.
She was the only thing that her mother consistently recognized, even when she was in the worst of her “episodes,” as she liked to call them, she always knew Lillian.
Lillian learned early on that she was a point of calm for her mother’s tortured mind, and from that early age she took on much more responsibility than any child should have to—but she didn’t know that until much later.
Initially, Lillian had thought that she wanted to pursue psychology, but neurology began to fascinate her.
She made her way through college and medical school, using scholarships and working full time at night.
Most of the other students had no idea how much she struggled, but she wasn’t going to let that show; she was determined to do the best she could.
Once she left for medical school, she had been almost forced to put her mother into a full-care facility, her mind had fractured to the point that there was almost nothing left.
The only thing that brought her comfort, the only thing that seemed to calm her fear and paranoia, was Lillian.
It had eaten away at her to leave her mother behind for her dream, but on the rare occasion her mother was lucid, she told her to please go.
She told her that all she wanted was for Lillian to be happy, and the look of pride on her mother’s face when she could tell her about school and how well she was doing would make it all worthwhile.
Lillian choked back a sob remembering her own mother. This little girl, Jasmine, needed her mothers. They had to survive. This storm would not take this child’s parents away from her. Hurricane Kate, just like Lillian’s mother.
Her funeral had been small, only a handful of nurses from the care facility had attended.
They were all terrified of a lawsuit from Lillian when she had found out during residency that her mother had taken her own life, but no matter how many times Lillian assured them that she was not going to pursue anything like that, they still treated her with a sort of detached professionalism.
When Lillian had come to claim her mother’s remains, she couldn’t help but feel like her mother looked more peaceful than she had ever seen her before.
She was beautiful again, like she had been so many years before.
It had to be a relief from such a tortured existence.
A tear slipped down Lillian’s cheek as she looked at Hannah.
The woman’s vital signs were strong, and she knew Jade was doing everything possible to see what had gone wrong and make sure that both Hannah and Stephanie were alive and well to provide Jasmine with the best life possible.
It was a beautiful thing. Lillian didn’t know any of these women, but she knew that Jasmine would have the chance at a happy life with them, and she didn’t want anything to happen to either of them.
Suddenly realizing just how tired she was, Lillian looked around the ER.
The lights were muted, and the patients rested as best they could.
Even the crowds in the waiting areas had calmed down and were dozing in corners and on chairs.
The wind still whipped around the building, and as though to make sure that Lillian stayed on her toes, thunder sounded overhead causing the lights to flicker.
They flickered a second time, then everything went dark.
Machines started beeping as they moved to the back-up power, nurses and other medical staff whisper-shouted for everyone to stay calm, that the back-up generators would be coming online quickly.
The emergency lighting kicked on, quieting the anxious crowd, the monitors calmed their alarms, and exhaustion fell over Lillian.
After one more check of her phone, she decided to go back up to the breakroom and get a coffee, just to find a quiet place to rest for a few minutes. The storm should be abating soon, and the ER was packed but calm. It seemed that that night was finally coming to an end.