Chapter Twenty-Three #2
I make it about seven steps away before I hear the metallic sliding sound of the curtain being opened and closed again. I’ve gone another four steps when I hear Sharon’s voice.
“Kate,” she calls out. “Wait.”
I’m metres away from the nurses’ station when I finally stop walking and turn towards Sharon. Her cheeks are still rosy, her hair is as spiky as always, and her eyes are wide with some feeling I can’t quite name. She looks alarmed, on edge, uncomfortable.
“What?” I bite out.
“Can we talk…” She looks around us over the top of my head, “… somewhere else?”
“I don’t think there’s anything to discuss.” I cross my arms. “You’ve made your feelings about what happened on Sunday very clear.”
Sharon’s chin lifts a little. “And you left without saying goodbye.”
Oh. That’s what she’s upset about.
“I left a note,” I explain and hear how my voice has lost its edge.
“A note?” She scoffs. “I love notes. Especially when they have all of seven words and no phone number.”
“You wanted my phone number? That’s what’s got your knickers in a twist?”
“No,” Sharon hisses out every word. “My knickers are in a twist because you’re not letting me explain what happened in there, with Danny.”
“Fine. Follow me.”
I don’t lead Sharon to the family room this time.
That would be highly inappropriate considering we’re almost certainly going to end up arguing again.
I don’t often give much weight to inanimate objects having energy but I can’t help but think us bickering in there isn’t going to add to the peaceful comfort I worked hard to have the room express.
Instead, I walk to the nurses’ station, grab my clipboard from the stock-take I was doing earlier and gesture with a nod for her to follow me.
Once inside the linen cupboard, I close the door behind us and lock it.
“Am I not allowed to leave?” she asks.
“We’re in a linen cupboard with a turnlock, it’s not the Crystal Maze,” I deadpan. “I just thought you’d want some privacy.”
“Yes. Fine. Whatever.”
“So?”
“So what?”
“You wanted to talk?”
Sharon sucks in a deep breath and closes her eyes. “What I said in front of Danny… it wasn’t the truth.”
“Which part?” I try to keep my voice soft, all the while resisting the urge to cross my arms again. I know Sharon well enough now to know she’s on the edge of being vulnerable and any sudden, disparaging move by me could tip her back the other way, back to defensive and withdrawn.
“About what happened between us, how it wasn’t important.”
“So that was a lie?”
“It wasn’t… the truth,” Sharon replies carefully, and as a laugh breaks free from my lips I realise how two weeks ago that kind of comment would have pushed all my buttons and had me biting back just as hard, if not harder.
“Why did you… not tell the truth?”
“Because of Danny.” Sharon steps back and leans against the door, closing her eyes.
“But… why?” As if pulled by a magnet, I step closer to her.
“Because I didn’t want to gloat. I didn’t want to be all ‘look at me finally having sex with someone, and not just sex, but incredible sex, the kind of orgasms I’m pretty sure some people never experience and look at you, sick as a dog and stuck in a poxy hospital’,” she blurts, hands waving everywhere.
“Oh,” I say, rocking back on my heels.
“I mean, it’s a little insensitive, isn’t it?”
I pout as I consider it. “I think more than one thing can be true at any given time.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, Danny can be jealous of what you’re doing and also be happy for you.
He can be sad that he’s as sick as a dog and stuck in a poxy hospital, but he can also be pleased to hear you had sex for the first time.
” I make sure I have her eye contact before leaning closer and adding, “and that it was, apparently, incredible.”
I swear the look she gives me burrows a hole deep in the middle of my forehead. “Of course you’d focus on that part,” she finally says.
“Honestly, I’m still reeling from you calling my place of work poxy.”
“The hospital is poxy,” Sharon clarifies. “But where you work, your ward, that is something else. It’s not poxy at all. It’s the saddest, most life-affirming place I’ve ever been, and that’s kind of… beautiful.”
This time I’m smiling as I consider her words. “Yes, it is. Isn’t it?”
Sharon pushes her back away from the door, bringing her little more than an inch away from me.
“So you’re not going to hold it against me?” she asks.
I take the bait. “I’m not going to hold that against you.” I close the distance between us, pressing my body against hers. She’s just as warm and soft as I remember.
“So this…” Sharon looks at my lips.
“This,” I echo.
“… is really happening? Again?” Her breath lands on the tip of my nose.
“Yeah,” I brush my lips against hers, the lightest, most teasing of touches. “This is happening. Again.”
And then it really is happening. I come up on my toes, she dips her head and our mouths line up and press together.
It’s a tug of war as I push her back against the wall, and she then recovers and forces me to step back with just as much strength.
We do this again and again as our kiss intensifies, tongues twisting, teeth grazing, lips quick and hungry, until Sharon seems to finally give up and lets me force her back against the door.
A long moan leaves her mouth and travels down my throat. I grunt in response, a quick thank-you before I focus all my attention and energy on our kiss.
It’s a kiss that has its own mind. It’s a creation, an event, a sentient being. It has hunger and want and a life of its own. A pulse. A heartbeat.
I pull back before it consumes me completely. I’m at work. Sharon’s here for Danny. It’s visiting hours.
None of these reasons to stop leave my lips which feel hot and swollen as I look at Sharon, our chests rising and falling in the same rhythm. But I know she’s thinking them too. She’s thinking how wrong this is.
But she doesn’t say it either.
Instead, she looks deep in my eyes and says, “Don’t stop.”
I wait, studying her.
“Please,” she adds in the neediest voice I’ve ever heard.
It’s all the invitation I need.