Chapter 2 - Danae
Two
Danae
By hour ten, my feet feel like someone swapped them out for concrete blocks and forgot to tell me.
It doesn’t matter what shoes I buy even the fancy nursing shoes, the closer to the end of a shift the time comes, my feet ache.
I’m on my final hour of this twelve hour day and absolutely ready for shift change.
The ER never really slows, not in the way people imagine.
It just changes needs. Early mornings bring chest pain, overnight dehydration due to illness, or an on the way to work motor vehicle accident.
Midday is on the job accidents and stubborn infections.
Nights are when the real messes roll in, when alcohol and bad decisions collide with gravity.
And kids happen throughout because there is nothing predictable for the life of a parent, that is what nursing has taught me.
Today is all of it. And as the day came down to late afternoon, into dinner, and now the early evening, I feel the ache of every patient I’ve encountered.
I move from curtain to curtain, clipboard tucked against my chest, brain running on muscle memory and caffeine.
A teenager with a broken wrist. A man swearing his pain is a ten while scrolling his phone.
Is he here to get a fix? I don’t know. It’s not my place to judge.
Pain manifests differently in every person.
He says his pain is a ten so I will treat him with the proper care.
As soon as the doctor orders meds, I’ll make sure he gets them.
As a nurse, though, I can’t diagnose him, nor can I put in the order for pain meds, even if the man has already told me exactly what he requires down to the milligram.
Beside him, there is an elderly woman who most likely has a urinary tract infection, it’s quite common.
I’m waiting on the lab to give me the results and a doctor to order her meds and set up discharge instructions.
Every bed is full tonight and the one that hurts the most just arrived about an hour ago.
A woman crying quietly because she is miscarrying and she’s alone.
Those are the moments that really hurt my soul.
Watching anyone suffer alone is hard, but knowing her suffering comes at the loss of an unborn life is a special heartache.
The life wasn’t born, it didn’t exist in a physical form, just in her hopes and day dreams of what was to come.
And now, she’s facing what never will be.
I chart. I medicate. I smile when I need to and shut it off when I don’t.
“Danae.”
I don’t have to look to know who it is.
Dr. Lucas Reeves, late thirties, good hair, good teeth, and the kind of confidence that comes from being told you’re impressive one too many times. He leans against the counter like he belongs there, coffee in hand, gaze lingering longer than it needs to.
“Yes, doctor?” I ask, keeping my tone neutral as I scan vitals on the screen.
He smiles. It’s practiced. “You’ve been running nonstop. You eat today?”
“I had a granola bar,” I reply. “At noon.” Why does he care what I’ve ingested? My meals or lack thereof haven’t impacted my job performance.
He winces theatrically. “Tragic. Let me take you to dinner after shift. You can tell me how you survive on air and willpower.”
I finally look up at him. “No,” I state simply. Something I’ve had to work on is my instinct to over explain. I don’t owe him a reason. In the past, I would want to justify the rejection even when it isn’t necessary.
He blinks, like he wasn’t expecting that word to exist. “No?”
“No,” I repeat. “I’m not interested.”
The smile flickers. Not gone, just cracked for a moment before he plasters it back on. “Come on,” he says lightly. “It’s dinner, not a proposal.”
“I know,” I reply. “And the answer’s still no.” I turn back to the chart, signaling the conversation is over. Or it should be.
Lucas clears his throat. “You always this direct?”
“Absolutely.” That should end it. Except, it doesn’t.
He laughs softly, leaning closer. “You know, people might get the wrong idea.”
I pause. Slowly. Deliberately. “What idea would that be?” I ask knowing that he thinks he can somehow manipulate me into giving him a yes. I don’t work that way, though, and I see through the game he’s trying to play.
“That you think you’re better than everyone else.”
I meet his gaze, calm and steady. “I don’t think that. I just don’t want to go out to dinner with you.”
Something hardens behind his eyes. “Right,” he says. “Of course.”
He walks away, and I feel it, the shift. The temperature drop. The subtle change in the air that says this isn’t over. I learned a long time ago trust my gut. And I have a feeling I’m going hate that I’m right and something definitely changed after this rejection.
It isn’t long before it shows. The first thing he does is question a med order I’ve followed correctly a hundred times before.
“Why didn’t you push that yet?” he asks sharply in front of a patient.
“Because you ordered with instructions for it after labs,” I state, voice even.
“Labs haven’t been drawn yet.” Our hospital has a lab team that come with a cart to draw and label all labs.
I have checked twice already for this particular patient and they are in the lineup but apparently a phlebotomist called out today so they are operating with only one tech for all of the ninety bed emergency department.
He checks the chart, frowns, then waves it off. “Just do it. Draw the blood yourself and administer the medication.”
I don’t argue. I document everything instead.
The second thing he does is assign me to triage during the little bit of this shift, knowing full well I’ve already been bouncing between rooms and I have notes to prepare for shift change.
The third thing is worse. He sighs, loudly, when I ask for clarification on a patient’s discharge instructions.
Like I’m inconveniencing him. Like I’m incompetent.
My jaw tightens. I’ve dealt with men like him before.
The ones who smile until you don’t play along, then punish you in ways small enough to deny but sharp enough to feel.
I don’t rise to it. I won’t give him that. I do my job. I do it well. I move faster, chart neater and more precisely, and keep my voice level even when my patience thins to a wire.
Just before seven, I finally get five minutes to breathe. I lean against the counter near the supply room, sipping lukewarm water, shoulders aching.
“Rough day?” Marcy asks, sliding in beside me.
“Normal,” I share.
She eyes me. “Lucas being an ass?”
I hesitate. Then shrug. “He asked me out. I said no.”
Marcy snorts. “Ah. That’ll do it.”
I huff a tired laugh. “Does it ever not?”
“Men with egos?” she says. “Nope.”
I glance at the clock. I’m almost there. I just need Ashley to get in and go over shift change notes. Then I can go home. Check on my grandfather. Breathe.
The thought steadies me.
Ashley calls, she is running late but will be here within the hour so I holdover to be able to give her an adequate report. Luckily, Becky arrives to take over the triage and I can make another final round to my patients.
Lucas doesn’t speak to me unless he has to. When he does, it’s clipped. Impersonal. Professional in the way that’s meant to remind you who has power.
I let it slide. I always do. Because I don’t have the luxury of blowing up my workplace. Because my paycheck pays for medications and home health aides and groceries and things my grandfather can’t do for himself anymore.
By the time my shift ends, exhaustion sits deep in my bones. In the employee locker room, I change out of my scrubs slowly, peeling off the day like a second skin. My reflection in the locker mirror looks tired but intact. No mascara left. Hair escaping its tie. Still standing, though.
I miss the days where I could leave right away and go home.
With Papa’s situation, I don’t want to risk bringing home any germs and since I’m late, I need to be able to go right inside which is why I went ahead and changed out of my scrubs.
My homecare nurse is going to cost me double for a minimum of three hours because that is the way the contract reads.
Since I went over by an hour and a half and still have a twenty minute drive home, I will be billed a full three hour block of double time cost.
I sling my bag over my shoulder and head out through the employee exit, craving cool air and quiet. The night hits my face like a blessing. For a moment, I just stand there, eyes closed, breathing.
Then I feel it. Not danger exactly, just awareness that something isn’t quite right. There is the sense that I’m being watched. It happens from time to time and I can’t explain it or pin point it.
I open my eyes and find the same scene that comes into view every time I have these feelings. It’s crazy the undeniable pull to the stranger.
There’s a man by a motorcycle in the lot. Big. Still. Watching without making a show of it. He doesn’t move when our gazes brush. Doesn’t smile. Doesn’t wave. Just watches.
It shouldn’t matter.
It does.
Something about him feels heavy. Not threatening. Grounded. Like the world might bend around him if it had to. I look away first. I always do. I don’t linger. I walk to my car, unlock it, slide inside, heart beating a little faster than it should.
Probably nothing, I tell myself. It’s not like he speaks to me.
He comes and goes watching from afar but never engaging.
He doesn’t need to thank me. I took an oath to care for others and I did my job as a nurse.
At least that’s what I tell myself. He isn’t someone special.
This isn’t something that feels different.
Hell, the man had me at gunpoint so it isn’t like he’s one of the good guys.
I can’t help the way my body seems hyperaware whenever he’s around watching me. Everything feels like something when you’re tired, at least that’s what I’ve convinced my mind to think.