30. Chapter 30
Chapter 30
Morgan
“ M org.”
I ignore Cassidy, rereading my most recent text chain with Walker.
Remember when we agreed to something more exclusive?
I meant hooking up with other people.
Not marriage.
Must have missed the memo.
Now that you have it, you should divorce me.
No.
Please divorce me.
Not happening.
But I love the manners, little devil.
You’re the worst husband ever.
DIVORCE ME!!!!!
Nothing I haven’t heard before.
The answer is still no.
There are over fifty iterations of this exact conversation with my “husband” over the past month. Sometimes I offer sexual favors in exchange for a divorce. Sometimes I send depressing paragraph-long pleas, hoping he’ll take pity on me. And sometimes I simply resort to pictures of my middle finger.
Unfortunately, nothing has been successful with the most stubborn man on planet Earth.
“Morg,” Cassidy repeats, finally getting my attention.
I look up at my best friend. She’s leaning over the tall triage desk, looking irritated.
“Yes?”
Her hazel eyes soften. “Are you okay?”
I should be the one asking her that because she looks like she’s been through the ringer, and it’s only nine in the morning.
“Are you okay?” I echo, taking in the mystery liquid staining the front of her scrubs and the disheveled nature of her ponytail.
“You know what I mean.”
I take a slow, steady breath to ensure that I don’t say anything I’ll regret. Being a filterless queen is one of my best character traits, but great power comes with great responsibility, and I have to be careful when I’m speaking to people I really care about.
But that’s really hard at the moment because Cass is on my last nerve. She’s been constantly checking in about my relationship status and won’t leave me alone. Sure, I might be legally wed, but nothing in my life has changed since Las Vegas other than the fact that I’m officially celibate again. It’s kind of funny, actually, because I’m pretty sure marriage is supposed to go the opposite way—with all of the life-altering sex happening after your vows, not before. But until Walker agrees to end things with me under the eyes of the law, there’s no damn way he’s getting back in my pants. Regardless of how much I miss him.
“I’m dandy, Cass,” I reply, stretching my arms above my head casually. “Just like I was when you asked me yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. What my blackout-self did in Las Vegas is none of my sober-self’s business.”
Her voice lowers in concern. “Have you talked to Walker yet?”
I yawn to signify my indifference, though inside, my feelings are anything but calm. Other than the daily spats on our marital status, Walker has left me completely alone. Which, to be fair, I did ask him to do as soon as we got back from the trip so that I could process the situation. But I don’t know . . . I expected him to try harder, I guess.
“What can I say? The three D’s get us all eventually.”
She looks at me like I have two heads, so I clarify. “Divorce, death, and disability.”
“Morgan.” She lets out a resigned sigh. “Is that really what you want?”
“What I want,” I reply, though my conviction waivers slightly, “is for this to have never happened.”
After Vegas, it only took me a few days to come to the conclusion that divorce was the logical answer. Yes, I recognize that a very small subset of the population gets their own happily ever after, but life doesn’t usually end like it does in the romance novels. There will always be fights, or lies, or lackluster apologies. And I don’t want that for the rest of my life.
I want what Walker and I have now—or what we had—just without the title of husband and wife. Because from everything I’ve seen, marriage is just a confirmed sentence for heartbreak.
And that’s not just anecdotal. If you view it statistically, more marriages end in despair than in blissful happiness. Just look at my parents—they’ve both been remarried several times. Hell, look at Walker—he married his high school sweetheart, and she left him for another man. So regardless of how our relationship, or whatever you’d call it, was going, we need to nip this in the bud before one of us gets really hurt.
“But it did happen,” Cassidy reminds me. “And you need to have an actual conversation with him.”
“Do I though?” I lean back in my chair and cross my arms. “It’s really not a big deal, I promise.”
The problem is—apparently it is a big deal in the eyes of the law. From the little research that I did before I frustratedly threw my phone across the room, not only do you both need to agree to the divorce, but you also need the physical marriage certificate. And since we meet neither criteria . . . we’re in big, fat, accidentally married limbo.
“You’re impossible sometimes,” she hisses, slamming her hands down on the desk so aggressively that the unit secretary looks over to make sure everything is okay.
I keep telling my friends that Walker and I will figure everything out once the paperwork comes through next month, but none of them seem to understand my reaction. Cass thinks I’m in denial, clearly. Claire is delusional and wants us to stay married. And Caroline, well, Caroline doesn’t say anything because she’s busy as fuck.
The reality of the situation is that it doesn’t matter what they think because this isn’t their stupid problem—it’s mine. And this problem is making me mad as hell. I’m mad that I finally gave in to Walker and let myself be happy. But I’m even more upset that I went and destroyed that happiness with the one thing that always fails—marriage.
Cass lowers her voice. “I can’t believe you’re just going to let what the two of you have end without a single word.”
My throat thickens against my will, and I swallow to loosen up the ball of emotion that’s trying to choke me.
“We exchange words everyday,” I correct. She’s seen screenshots of the messages, so she knows exactly what I’m talking about. “And they’ve gotten us nowhere because he won’t agree to what I want.”
“Do you even know why he isn’t interested in getting divorced?”
I roll my eyes as far back as they’ll allow. “Because he’s a physician, and refuses to admit that he made a mistake. Because he enjoys controlling me. Because he’s stubborn. I don’t know, Cass, the possibilities are endless.”
Honestly, I just assumed it was because he was intent on pissing me off. That’s our bit—opposing forces that each push as hard as we can until one of us breaks. I guess theoretically there could be more to his reluctance, but again, that would require us to have an actual conversation. And that’s something I refuse to initiate, because if he’s not going to give, neither am I.
Cassidy pinches the bridge of her nose in frustration, letting out a long sigh. “Both of you are being stubborn in this situation. Hell, both of you have been stubborn this entire time because you’ve just been dancing around the truth for months.”
I bark out a harsh laugh that’s completely void of humor. “What truth?”
“That you’re obsessed with each other, idiot. But you’re too proud to admit it, and Walker’s too . . . Walker’s afraid to lose you.”
I scoff. “Yeah, right.”
I ignore her criticism of my own emotional capacity and focus on my “other half.” If he’s so damn afraid of losing me, why hasn’t he tried saying anything more to me than no for the past few weeks? Why hasn’t he tried showing up at my door? Why hasn’t he made me feel like he wants to keep me?
“I wish you could see what I’ve seen for months, Morg. Walker looks at you like you’re the sun. Like he knows he shouldn’t be staring because you’re only going to burn him, but he just can’t help himself.” Her tone softens again. “I know without a doubt that he doesn’t want to lose you.”
I purse my lips, trying to come up with an argument. But I can’t. Because in the deepest parts of my heart, I know what she’s saying is true. And if I really think about it hard, I don’t want to lose him either.
** *
“ M org,” our charge nurse Marisa calls to me from across the triage waiting area. “Can you take Kat’s patients for a few hours?”
I frown, slowly looking up from my phone because that’s the absolute last thing I want to do.Kat is great and all, but she’s a new grad and her patients are always a shit show. Even if I take them for two hours, there’s no doubt in my mind that I’m going to be running around the entire time.
“Do I have to?” I whine, locking my phone and placing it on the cluttered desk. “I’m a little busy here.”
I’m actually not busy at all because triage has been uncharacteristically quiet. So quiet that the only thing on my mind for the past few hours has been composing and deleting the same text to Walker over and over again. Each message contains some variation of the phrase “ Can we talk ,” but I just can’t bring myself to press send.
Marisa pulls her shoulder-length bleached hair up into a ponytail as she enters the circular triage desk. “I’m up to my ass in modules, girl. Gotta finish them by tomorrow, or there’s going to be a nasty-gram in my inbox. You’d think I could get a moment of peace after my honeymoon, but apparently that’s too much to ask.”
I totally forgot she was out for two weeks because she got married, but now the sun-kissed skin makes more sense. Honestly, the more that I look at her, the more I notice that she’s glowing.
Is that what a happy marriage does to you?I wouldn’t know.
“Where’s she going?” I ask, logging off the computer before I stand to give up my coveted position.
“ACLS recertification,” she states, swapping places with me. “It was the only time she could do it. Her assignment isn’t bad, I promise, and it shouldn’t even take that long. Two hours max.”
Yeah right.
It’s already four in the afternoon, and I doubt she’s going to rush back after the two hour advanced cardiac life support class. If it were me, I’d take as long as possible before returning to this circus of chaos too.
“You okay?” Marisa asks when I don’t say anything back, her eyes narrowing on me like she’s worried. “I’ve been trying to assign you to triage every shift like you wanted. Has it been helping?”
After my patient died during the ice storm, I discreetly asked to be put back here whenever possible. I was already working triage occasionally because it’s an assignment that’s typically reserved for more senior nurses, and since we’ve lost a ton of staff in the past two years, I am now part of that category.
And to be fair, the change has helped me feel somewhat better. I’ve been able to dissociate from my patients again because my main job is to delegate and plan, similar to the job of a charge nurse. I determine which patients are seen first based on their clinical symptoms, and the only direct patient care that I provide is limited to drawing labs or giving fluids.
While I like the somewhat removed aspect of triage, I’m still struggling to maintain a positive attitude. It’s like I can’t get out of this negative brain fog, and each shift only makes it worse. Some mornings I’ll sit in silence until the very last moment and only get out of the car when I’m a minute away from clocking in late.
It’s wild because I used to crave the hospital. I would pick up every extra shift that I could because I loved it. But now I feel like I’m just trying to make it through the simplest of days. Nursing was something that I was proud of, but now it’s something I loathe, and I don’t know how to snap out of this funk. The only thing I do know, is that I need to do something soon. Because if I don’t, I’m going to burn out like the rest of the damn workforce.
“It’s all good, M,” I lie, grabbing my stethoscope and a blank piece of paper from the desk. “A few hours on the floor isn’t going to kill me.”
Fortunately, our charge nurse wasn’t lying and the patients I took over really aren’t bad—one is pending discharge, and the other three are stable, or waiting to transfer to another floor. Unfortunately, right after I finished taking report from Kat, I had to help Cass and another coworker run an unsuccessful code in bay two for thirty minutes.
As I’m leaving the bay, I notice one of my patient’s family members standing outside of their door. She’s staring at me with a snarky expression while she taps her Dr. Scholls-covered foot on the tile floor impatiently.
“Nurse,” she calls as I’m washing the death off my hands. “Nurse, I’ve been calling for fifteen minutes because I need ice for my water.”
I take a breath, searching for patience that doesn’t come. Because in what world is ice more important than saving someone’s life?
Walking over to the Karen, I calmly state, “My name is Morgan. I told you that earlier when I introduced myself and wrote my information on the whiteboard. I’m a nurse, but I am also a human being with a name.”
Normally I would just take her callout with a smile on my face, but she caught me less than five minutes after listening to a mother’s gut-wrenching sobs as the doctor pronounced time of death on her teenage son. And yes, I recognize that this woman has no idea what I just witnessed. She’s probably just stressed and taking it out on me. But I simply cannot find empathy for her right now—my cup is empty.
She scrunches up her overly made-up face like she’s about to bite back.
“I was in another patient’s room,” I state calmly, interrupting her before she says something that will really set me off. “Give me a moment, and I’ll go get your ice. Do you need anything else?”
She says no and turns to go back inside the room. Under her breath, she mutters, “Lazy-ass nurses don’t want to work anymore.”
My teeth grind against each other, biting back the words that I really want to say as I walk to get her precious bag of ice.
People want to know why nurses are leaving the bedside and causing a healthcare staffing crisis? This is a prime example.
We witness traumatic events on a daily basis that most of the general population can never begin to understand. And that’s okay, because it’s what we signed up for. We signed up to advocate for our patients, to treat them with dignity, and to safely care for them like they’re our own family members.
What we didn’t sign up for is the verbal abuse, the degradation, the dehumanization of our feelings that also occurs. We didn’t sign up to be chastised if we take a moment for ourselves after simply doing our jobs. We didn’t sign up for a lot of it, but we try our hardest to rise above it.
One of the core tenets of nursing is compassion, but over time it becomes increasingly challenging to have compassion for people who do not also have compassion for us. And when you couple these daily experiences with other ongoing frustrations like unsafe staffing ratios, increases in expectations without increases in pay, and lack of support or recognition from administration, I don’t blame anyone for leaving. There are some days when I feel like I have my foot out the door too.
On my way back with the ice, the call bell starts going off in another one of the rooms that I’m covering. I hope that Kat isn’t expecting me to chart for her because I haven’t had a second to breathe, let alone log into the computer and update anything.
“How can I help you?” I ask, popping my head into the room of her patient scheduled for discharge.
Our ER is set up like a square, with all of the patient rooms and trauma bays located on the perimeter. There’s a massive circular desk sitting smack dab in the middle of the room which allows us to help each other when call lights go off. For some reason, however, we have a single patient room that’s tucked around the corner, away from the sight of everyone else. Because of its quiet location on the hallway of physician offices, we typically put patients in there who are actively dying. Sometimes, though, night shift admits people to the room when they run out of space, which clearly was the case with this patient overnight.
“I need to get the fuck out of here,” the patient states, pacing barefoot back and forth. “Get me out of here.”
On instinct, I turn off the call light so the beeping stops. “Social work is trying to get you set up with an outpatient facility. Shouldn’t be more than an hour.”
This particular patient is a twenty-seven-year-old male who came in early this morning for an STD test. While they ran that lab, they also took a standard drug panel and found that he was positive for meth. And the closer I get to him, it doesn’t surprise me—he’s tall, but I doubt he weighs more than a hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet.
Apparently, the night shift nurse found him trying to give himself a bath with hand sanitizer and had to administer a sedative because he was tweaking from being awake too long. I didn’t have a chance to peek my head into the room before I got pulled into the code, but when I got report, I was told that he was finally calm after sleeping for a few hours.
Calm my ass.
This man is irritable as hell. His blue eyes briefly meet mine, moving faster than normal as they shoot around the room.
“Can I give you something to help you relax while we wait on orders?” I suggest, keeping my tone soothing as I walk over to the computer on the wall. Even though I haven’t had a chance to look at the medication record, I’m sure there’s an order available for comfort while we wait on the transfer details.
“Fuck no. Get me the fuck out of here,” he says, voice rising substantially. “What are you even doing?”
“I’m Morgan, your nurse,” I remind him gently as I log into his chart. “You called me because you wanted to be discharged.”
He begins to pace again before getting in my face and screaming, “So discharge me, bitch!”
I swallow down my sadness. He’s too young to have this life, and if he leaves without getting into a treatment center, I’m worried he’ll end up dead.
“Let me check with social work again,” I offer, hoping to give him some reassurance. “If they aren’t ready, you can always go against medical advice, but I’d really like for you to stay. ”
As I turn to exit the room, he grabs my arm, his grip surprisingly strong. “You want me to stay? Shut the fuck up, you dumb cunt. I’m going to fucking kill you.”
My heart slams into my throat. This isn’t the first time a patient has gotten physical with me, or even threatened me for that matter, but it is the first time I’ve felt genuine fear. Not because I think I’m in real danger, but because I’m entirely alone in this situation.
Normally we room patients who are withdrawing from drugs front and center in case a situation like this arises. Any other day, there would already be a slew of people in this room to help me, and the patient would be restrained.
“Take your hands off of me,” I state calmly, attempting to de-escalate the situation. I might be short, but I like to think my nurse voice is stern. “You can walk out of here right now, but you need to take your hands off me.”
I glance at the wall, trying to determine how far I am from the emergency button. Unfortunately, it’s all of the way across the room, and I can’t get to it without making it obvious to the patient.
“Look, I understand that you’re scared and frustrated,” I say, keeping my voice steady as I feel his grip tighten. “But I’m here to help you, not to keep you here against your will. Like I said, you’re free to leave. But I need you to let go of me so that we can walk to the desk together, and have you sign a form.”
His nails dig into my skin painfully, eyes wide as they quickly dart around the room like he’s searching for an escape.
I continue speaking, trying to keep his focus on the reality of the situation and away from the confusion clouding his mind. “It’s my job to make sure you’re safe, and that includes helping find support when you leave us. But like I said, we don’t have to do that. You can go.”
Slowly, I feel his grip loosening as my words seem to reach the rational part of him that’s still accessible beneath the drug’s influence. But before I can pull free, his fingers tighten again, and he starts dragging me across the room toward the door. Everything begins to blur as I hear the patient threaten me again, followed by a familiar, stern voice coming from the hallway.
“Take your fucking hands off my wife.”