Chapter 7 Hayley #2
“My parents split up when I was seventeen,” Hayley said, twisting her fingers together.
“Well. Split up would imply that my father was in any way involved in the decision, but he was as blindsided as I was. One afternoon my mother came home from the private school she taught at, acting perfectly normal. I came home from hanging out with my friends. We did my homework and then made dinner together. Meatloaf, potatoes, a Caesar salad on the side with the dressing she taught me how to make.” She swallowed hard.
“Dad came home, we ate in the living room. Watched some movie I don’t remember. ”
“Okay…” Mirenda seemed mystified, and Hayley didn’t blame her.
“This all ties together, I promise.” She paused for another drink of water and a deep breath. “We all went to bed at 11 PM. I had never heard my parents so much as argue over buying groceries, right? It’s important that you understand that. No raised voices, no unreasonable demands. We were happy.”
“Someone wasn’t,” Mirenda said, a shrewd note in her voice.
“And we had no idea. None.” Hayley shook her head. “I woke up the next morning and went downstairs, and there’s my dad at the kitchen table with a note in his hand and nothing in his eyes.”
“Oh, damn.” A low whistle from Mirenda and a deep sympathy in her gaze when Hayley looked at her. “I’m sorry, Hay. Did she say why she went?”
“She might have, in her note. But I have no idea.” She looked back down at her hands and knotted her fingers together again.
“My dad looked at me, said, ‘She’s gone,’ and left to go to work.
He took the note with him and shredded it in the school office.
And he never said anything about Mom ever again. ”
“Oh, damn,” Mirenda repeated, with more feeling this time, and she covered Hayley’s twitching hands with one of hers, stilling the anxious twisting. “Jesus, Hay. That’s horrible. You never said. All you ever said was that your mom was gone, so we all assumed…”
“You were supposed to assume that. And for all I know, she is really gone. Would I ever know otherwise? I don’t know how.
I wouldn’t know where to begin looking. Or if I want to.
That all…” Hayley waved a hand in the air.
“I mean, let’s be real, it fucked me up.
I have never been normal with relationships since. ”
Mirenda frowned. “What, fear of abandonment?”
Hayley touched her nose and pointed at her colleague.
“Got it.” Pulling her shoulders back, she sat up very straight and took a long, deep breath.
“I got paranoid. Poor Alayna had to put up with me just… interrogating her all the time, and for what? She took a little long at the store? Didn’t want me to come with her everywhere all the time?
Didn’t immediately answer my text message?
Nothing was happening but every day crap, but every little issue was a major disaster for me.
” She braced her elbows on the desk and rubbed her forehead.
“I remember,” Mirenda said slowly. “You were so secretive. Your temper was short. Always running off and whispering into your phone.” She tapped her chin, deep in thought. “We all thought it was something to do with family issues. No one wanted to ask, though. You had us on eggshells.”
Hayley winced. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Well, now you do.” Propping her head on her hand, Mirenda regarded Hayley soberly. “So that’s why Alayna transferred out of Oakridge. Where’d she go?”
“St. Louis. That heart hospital there. To be fair, she has family in the area, and they headhunted her. She’d turned them down twice but I finally just… drove her off.” Hayley sighed. “By the end, she didn’t even want to be in the same room with me.”
“That really sucks, Hay. I’m sorry.” Mirenda bit her lip, hesitating. But only for a moment. “So, okay. That is bad. But that was a real relationship, you two had been together for a couple of years. This thing with Doctor Morales, that’s one night.”
“But I want to do it again.” Hayley buried her face in her hands.
The unexpected coziness and passion of the morning had taken her back to the good times she’d had with Alayna…
and reminded her of what she’d lost. “I want to fight with her, I want to have makeup sex with her, I want to eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch with her on a Saturday morning, I want to… hell, I want to take her on her first international trip and make out with her in like, five European capitals.”
“And how does she feel about this after one night?” Mirenda asked, a slight note of incredulity in her voice.
“No idea, but what if she wants it too? She’s the one who asked me out.
” Panic began to crawl up Hayley’s throat hand over hand from her stomach.
“Alayna and I were so, so compatible. We never fought, we just clicked from the start and we worked. And I still messed it up. Deb and I are absolutely the opposite of that, we’ve been at loggerheads since day one.
How can that work? I’m just going to push her away, too.
” Her throat began to close up. “What if I have to be the one to leave this time? What if I mess up that badly?”
“Whoa, whoa, hey now, Nurse Perfectionist.” Mirenda’s hands reached out to pull Hayley’s hands away from her face, and she turned them both so they were facing each other in their desk chairs. “You are inviting trouble in way before it’s even left its house.”
“I just… I haven’t even had to think about anything like this in so long.
” Hayley slumped back in her chair. “I… As infuriating as she can be, when things are going well between us, I like it. I want to see where it could go. But I am also terrified of that because of… because of who I am. How I am.”
“Well, Boss Lady, I think you are jumping the gun. Chill out!” Mirenda sat back with a reassuring smile on her face. “Enjoy what you got while you got it. Don’t get ahead of things. Live in the now, or whatever it is they say.”
“Easier said than done.” Hayley tried to take in some calming deep breaths. “I’ll try, though.”
“Good. Because situations like this, they’re supposed to be fun.
And I think you deserve to have a little fun.
You know you work too hard.” Briskly, Mirenda pushed her chair back from the charge desk and got to her feet.
“I’m going to go make the rounds. Why don’t you send a message to Doctor Morales and set up another date?
” She stepped behind Hayley and gave her shoulders and neck a good rub.
“Maybe…” Hayley bit her lip.
Mirenda clapped a hand on Hayley’s shoulder and rounded the charge desk, picking up a tablet on the way.
“Well, think about it. It’s better to have fun in the moment than to spend your time freaking out over things that haven’t happened…
that probably won’t happen! Relax, Boss Lady.
” With a cheerful wave, she disappeared into the corridors of the ICU to start her rounds.
Hayley pulled her phone out of her pocket and regarded it soberly, chewing further on her bottom lip.
She thumbed open her text messages and looked at the short thread under Deb’s name.
There was a new message there, sent this afternoon as Hayley had been driving to the hospital for her evening shift.
We should do that again sometime. Soon. Very soon.
Closing her eyes, she pressed the phone to her chest and sighed.
There was a reason why she hadn’t been with anyone in years.
All the conflict, all the memories, all the factors she couldn’t control.
It had been easier to focus on her work, to get promoted, have somewhere to direct all her perfectionistic tendencies and valedictorian energy.
Then the ICU ran well, and nobody’s heart got broken. It was a win-win.
Until now.
She gripped her phone more tightly. It was better to nip this in the bud now.
Right? Cut it off before she had a chance to really mess things up.
She wouldn’t get hurt. And it probably wouldn’t bother Deb much.
Like sure, she’d be pissed for a couple of days, but from what Hayley had always heard about her around the hospital, she’d find someone else to distract her soon enough.
Besides, as ER chief, she had her own massive workload to keep her occupied. Deb would be fine.
And anyway, if Deb did get mad at her, it’s not like that would be a new thing.
Really, this would just be resetting everything back to how it was before.
Like last night had never happened, never stirred up all the old memories, and never reminded Hayley that she was actually a disaster of a human being when it came to interpersonal relationships.
Hayley opened her eyes and, before she could think too hard about it all, blocked Deb’s number.
“It’s for the best,” she whispered, swallowing hard.
She wished so hard that it wasn’t, she wanted so much to be able to let herself have fun and enjoy whatever this thing with Deb could have been.
Because it would have been incredible. The little taste of it she’d had… heady. Almost irresistible.
Almost.
She slid her phone into her pocket and stood up. There was work to do.