Chapter 11 #2
“Nope, haven’t heard a thing. He told me to stop coming by the station in person. So I’ll give him a call, although not now. It’s 8:00 p.m. He won’t be in the office or on the clock.”
Chelsea snorted. “Of course not. Richard doing his job? I think not. Yet I’m hoping that I was just being overly anxious, and it was nothing, and the driver wasn’t really trying to run me down.”
“Does it feel that way?”
“No, it doesn’t feel that way at all,” she confirmed, “but again I don’t want to be the crazy person, dreaming up all this shit.”
He laughed. “No, worries on that. … I know you’re crazy busy, but I was just wondering if you might want to go out for dinner this weekend.”
She stared at her phone in surprise. “That sounds really great. I haven’t had a nice dinner out in a while,” she shared.
“Maybe we can celebrate your new job.”
“I can only celebrate it if I actually get the offer,” she noted, “and, so far, that hasn’t come in yet.”
“But it will,” he declared, with a chuckle. “Just stay firm, stay happy, stay strong, and believe.”
When she got off the phone it was hard not to, since he was such a nice person and everything seemed to work so much better with him around.
As she resumed her additional shift, one of the other nurses grinned at her and noted, “Now that is definitely a lovelorn expression on your face.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know about that, but yeah, there’s definitely somebody in my world who I want to get to know better.” She smiled. “He just invited me out for dinner this weekend.”
The other girl squealed, attracting the attention of others, who wanted all the details. She laughed and told them a little bit about him.
One of the women frowned at her. “I mean, I’m happy for you and all, but he’s a cripple, right?”
Chelsea frowned right back at her, trying to stifle the discomfort she felt.
“It’s really strange to hear somebody working so hard to become a nurse, then speak about someone with a prosthetic as a cripple,” she explained calmly, looking directly at the woman.
“Just because he has a prosthetic doesn’t make him a cripple. ”
“But it doesn’t make him fully functioning either,” she replied, with a sigh. “I’m just wondering why you would shortchange yourself?”
Chelsea just stared at her, incredulous.
Another woman shook her head. “That is not a way to view the world,” she told the prejudiced woman, “but I’ve got to get back to work, so you guys can duke this one out.”
“No duking necessary.” Chelsea faced the other woman. “I certainly don’t see him as less than or that I would be shortchanging myself in any way.”
“But you could do so much better.”
“In what way?” she asked curiously.
“It’s not like he’ll ever make the money that an able-bodied man would make.”
Chelsea shook her head. “My mother spent a lifetime chasing money and men,” she began, “and, in the process, was horrible to nearly everyone. That’s not a practice I care to follow.”
“And yet,” the woman pointed out, “it’s just as easy to fall in love and marry a rich man as it is to fall in love and marry a poor one.” And, with that, she got up and walked off to continue her shift.
Chelsea stared at her in shock. That was a phrase her mother used time and time again.
She hadn’t really expected to hear it from someone in her own generation, but all it really did was show her that just because Chelsea had grown and had moved past such limiting beliefs, not everybody else had.
Still, she refused to follow in her mother’s footsteps.
And she had to wonder why that one woman wanted to be a nurse.
Certainly not to help people. More likely about the pay grade.
By the time Chelsea walked out to her car later that evening, the fatigue hit her again.
As she walked across the parking lot, something in the back of her mind told her that she had heard something. She immediately bolted off to the side as a vehicle drove past her, but it turned out to have no sinister intent at all—at least she didn’t think so.
She half-smiled at her foolishness. As she arrived at her vehicle and went to open the door, somebody jammed something up against her ribs, then spoke a low voice.
“You don’t know me. I don’t know you. Let’s keep it that way. Stop talking to the police, so I don’t have to see you again.”
She froze, unable to get a word out.
“I’m warning you, if there is a next time, it won’t be pretty.” Then he added, “If you turn around anytime in the next few minutes, and I haven’t had time to walk away from here, I’ll shoot you where you stand.” And, with that, he was gone.
She stayed frozen in place, not at all sure what to do. When she heard a shout from behind, one of the security guards was coming to her.
When she looked over at him, he could clearly see the fear on her face and asked, “Are you all right?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m not all right at all,” she muttered. “Do you have cameras for this corner?”
He looked around and then shook his head. “You’re too far out. Why?”
She explained what had just happened.
“Holy crap.” He stared at her. “You really got yourself in a parcel of trouble, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know how or why.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he replied. “Come on in so we can get a report written up.”
She groaned. “I just want to go home. I’ve worked one and a half shifts today.”
“Nope,” he argued, immediately taking her arm. “This is well-past something we can just ignore.”
“Are you sure?” she muttered. When she got inside, she made a report, and they checked the cameras while she was there just in case, but they couldn’t see that corner.
The guard suggested, “You need to start parking as close as you can to the front.”
“There’s never any parking,” she pointed out. “And I have to get to work without delays, so what do you want me to do?”
He immediately handed her a pass and explained, “Use this and stay parked up at the front every day, please.”
She nodded, grateful to have it.
He added, “As soon as we get to the end of this thing, you can give that back.”
“Are you sure?” she teased. “This could come in handy.”
“It could, but we also have a new doctor coming in, and that’ll be his parking pass. Therefore, you get to use it until then, and that’s it,” he shared cheerfully. Then he looked at her and added, “And I will be contacting Richard.”
She closed her eyes and then nodded. “Great. A lot of good that will do.”
“We can’t ignore something like this.”
“Right, but Richard is not who you think he is either,” she muttered. “He’s been covering Gladys’s ass as she is his damn aunt.”
The security guard glared and shared a knowing look with the other guards in the room.
“Plus, Sterling and Joel will be all over this too, as well as watching that Richard does his damn job.”
He laughed. “That at least we understand,” he told her.
“You know, with men who find their loved ones in trouble, that’s a common reaction, and we’re good with it.
As long as Joel doesn’t get in our face about everything, we’re totally okay.
Besides, the bottom line is that, just like us, they are trying to keep you safe.
” With that, he got up from the desk and walked to the door and held it open for her.
“Now we’ll walk you back out to your vehicle, and you can go on home. ”
And that’s what they did.