42
Zander
Midnight Watching
ANOTHER WEEK FROM HELL ENSURED I HAD no time to sleep, let alone freak out over my lack of a love life or how many lies I’d told.
Between shifts, I spied on Sailor with my cameras and found comfort knowing she happily pottered around at home.
She hadn’t tried to message X again, and when I’d contacted her as Zander two days ago, her reply had been polite and reserved instead of open and honest, and I couldn’t do it.
I was too tired. Too drained.
I missed her.
I missed the way my heart would catch when a new text pinged. I missed her forwardness, pushing me to accept pieces of myself I would never ordinarily allow.
But no matter how close we’d gotten and how great the orgasms had been, it’d been based on lies. And I’d had no choice but to end it.
Hitching my satchel up my shoulder, I left the hospital and headed toward the staff car park. Honestly, I probably shouldn’t drive. I could barely see straight. I think the last time I slept was fifty-three hours ago and I literally couldn’t remember what my last meal was.
The thought of returning to an empty house, an empty fridge, and an empty bed almost made me turn around again to see if Colin was still in his office.
But I didn’t. Because if I didn’t crash soon, I’d crash not just my car but my health.
At least I have three days off.
I’d had two rostered off but added a vacation day purely because the thought of coming back here so soon almost made me want to quit. As much as I loved helping people and seeing sick people enter and healthy people leave, I was at the end of my rope.
Maybe I need a proper vacation?
Somewhere with sun and sand and two weeks of nothing but the tropics.
Unlocking my car, I slid in and rubbed my eyes beneath my glasses. A break sounded fucking awesome but the thought of being the single idiot on a deck chair with no one to share cocktails with sounded dreadfully unappealing.
Ah well.
At least I had seventy-two hours of freedom before the grind began again.
And the first thing I was doing was crawling into bed and forgetting about everything.
* * * * *
I woke sometime around two a.m.
Hunger pangs cut through my belly, causing enough discomfort that I couldn’t get back to sleep.
Exhaustion clung to my thoughts as I hauled myself unwillingly out of bed and stumbled down the stairs to the kitchen. Yawning, I checked the fridge and lack of supplies, settling on a bag of grapes that I’d bought last week and completely forgotten about.
Rinsing them under the tap, I stuck them in a bowl, grabbed the rest of the cheese slowly cultivating its own penicillin, then carried my midnight snack out to the living room.
A crescent moon hung in the sky, dotted with silver stars. No lights shone in any of the houses. No foot traffic or car traffic. Everyone was fast asleep.
Shoving a few grapes into my mouth, I bit off a corner of cheese and sat in the chair by the window. The view angled right into Sailor’s front yard, revealing she’d mowed the strip of lawn at some point and yanked out a few offending weeds.
How was she going with the renovation?
Was she still painting the living room and deleting Milton’s presence?
How’s her mental health going?
Seeing her appearing occasionally on my cameras between surgeries wasn’t enough to know if she was happy. Alive yes, but anything else…I had no idea.
Movement caught my attention as I worked my way through the grapes and cheese.
Sailor.
I froze as she stepped out of her front door and headed toward the swinging egg chair by the railing. Scooting onto the swing, she nursed a cup of something, wrapping both hands around it as if it was snowing outside and not hot enough for crickets to chirp.
Her face tipped toward my place. I couldn’t make out her features in the gloom, but I swear she stared exactly where my front camera was. Shrinking into the shadows, I hoped she couldn’t see me.
What was she doing up so late?
Had she had another nightmare?
A panic attack?
My heart pounded at the thought of her struggling on her own. I should never have cut contact with X. What if she still needed to vent? To talk to a faceless stranger and get rid of all the darkness inside her?
Fuck.
Putting my empty bowl down, I padded back to the kitchen where I’d left my phone.
Swiping on the device, I scanned a text from Colin and my younger sister before clicking on the thread with Sailor.
I couldn’t let her sit out there alone.
It just wasn’t possible.
I’d text her as Zander.
I was her neighbour, after all.
I’m allowed to spot her out the window without it being creepy.
My thumbs flew over the screen as I made my way, in my boxer-briefs, back to the living room. I didn’t go near the window, just in case she saw me.
She’d tucked her legs up and sipped her drink. Peng had joined her and sat curled on her lap. She looked so young, so innocent.
Just as alone as I felt.
My chest ached.
Me: Turns out, we’re both night owls. If you can’t sleep, you can talk to me.
I pressed send and watched for her reaction.
She didn’t move.
She didn’t reach for a phone, hinting she’d probably left it inside.
Minutes ticked past, then half an hour.
My eyelids drooped and my shoulders sagged. I swayed on my feet, doing my best to stay awake all while fighting a losing battle.
Finally at three a.m., she vanished back inside, and I tripped up the stairs.
I barely made it back to bed before I was out cold.
* * * * *
Next time I woke was to brightness and noise.
My phone screeched with its obnoxious ringtone, flooding my system with adrenaline.
God, please don’t let it be work.
If I got called in, I honestly didn’t think I’d make it through the day. I’d never been this… sore . Not just physically but emotionally. It felt as if that proverbial train had come back and not just run me over but dragged me behind it for miles.
Fumbling in the bedcovers, I found the wailing device and swiped it on.
“Dr North speaking.”
“Oooo, hello Dr North speaking. Don’t you look at caller ID?”
I scowled and flopped back onto my pillow. “What the hell are you doing calling me so early?”
“It’s eleven o’clock.” Colin snickered.
“Fuck, is it?” Stretching, I reached for my glasses. My foggy eyesight suddenly became crisp, revealing the sun was high in the sky. “Shit, so it is.”
“I take it you crashed hard?”
“If you told me the world ended last night and you’re the last person alive, I wouldn’t be able to argue.”
“Love those nights when you’re dead.”
Sitting upright, I scratched my scruff and shoved a pillow behind my back. “Still feel like I’ve been run over, though.”
“I have the perfect cure for that. A friend of mine is going out on the lake with his boat this arvo. I asked if I could bring a plus-one.”
“Aw…and you thought of me.” I yawned. “So sweet.”
Placing the call on speaker, I brought up my inbox, making sure I hadn’t missed anything urgent.
Christina and Jolie had messaged me in the family chat, along with a couple of colleagues at work. Colin’s text loomed unanswered from an hour ago when he presumably tried to contact me.
“If you’re keen, you’re welcome. All you have to bring is yourself and some beer. I could swing by and pick you up on my way?”
I kept scrolling.
“Sure, sounds—” I choked as my eyes locked on a name.
A name that shouldn’t be so recent in my inbox.
Lori.
What the fuck?
Colin’s voice echoed as he spoke, but I couldn’t understand him. I couldn’t focus on a single thing apart from tapping on the message.
Lori: Turns out you’re not just a stalker but a liar too. How do you know I’m up right now if you aren’t watching me? Tell me, X, do you still spy on me all while forbidding me to see you again? Because that’s not fair. I might’ve been okay with you watching me on a mutual basis, but if you think I’m going to put up with this being one-sided, think again.
“Oh, fuck, what did I do?”
“What?” Colin asked. “What did you do?”
“I fucked up, that’s what.”
“How?”
“I messaged her as X last night in my half-comatose state. I thought I’d messaged her as Zander. I completely blanked I have two goddamn phones.”
“You are definitely not cut out for this spy shit, Superman.”
My heart plummeted as I read Sailor’s second message, sent at three thirty a.m.
Lori: I’ll give you twelve hours to tell me where you put your cameras so I can rip them out. If you don’t…I’m going to the police. And this time, I’ll give them my phone, and they can deal with you.
“Fuck, I have to go.”
“What do you mean go ? I’m coming to get you, remember?”
“No, I mean. I can’t come to the lake. I have to…. Shit, something super fucking important just came up.”
“Super fucking important, huh? Does this important task begin with an S and end with an R?”
Launching out of bed, I dashed to my window and looked into Sailor’s back garden.
I froze.
There she was, lugging a ladder twice the size of her from the back gate to the corner of her house where weeds grew out of the veranda gutters.
She didn’t mean to clean them herself, did she?
Didn’t she know how many accidents I saw in the ER, thanks to idiots and ladders?
Fuck.
Hanging up on Colin, I tapped Sailor’s number and called her.
I paced while the ring tone echoed in my ear and watched her marching toward her house with a life-destroying ladder.
She never answered.