Chapter 24. Ethan
The days at the hospital are incredible. Time moves fast, I always have something to do, and before I know it, the shift is over.
Of course I get tired sometimes. Actually, exhausted, starving, and falling asleep during classes back at the facility when I return. One of those days, a teacher calls me out in front of everyone.
“Is the class so boring it’s putting you to sleep? Maybe you’d like to step out and explain to Griff why you’re not sleeping at night.”
“I’m sorry,” I say immediately, while the whole room stares at me, and I feel sick with embarrassment.
I’m not used to getting called out like that.
I have no idea how Jack survives it so regularly.
It’s awful. But I stay awake for the rest of the class, pressing my nails into my palms, and start drinking extra coffee to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Either way, I love it. The hospital, I mean. I’m shocked by how right the choice has been. I’d chosen nursing because it seemed practical and because I knew I wanted to help people, but I hadn’t understood until now how right it would feel. To be, for them, what I’d never had for myself.
I’m also making friends at the hospital.
One of them is a blonde, blue-eyed resident named Clarice, who is teaching me how to draw blood efficiently, and we talk a lot.
I don’t usually open up to people. It’s hard for me, but she makes me feel at ease.
She’s thirty-seven and says she regrets going into medicine, that she should have followed her dream of going into theater.
“Now my husband keeps trying to convince me to go back to school and chase what I actually wanted, but when you’re already at this stage of life and you have kids, you can’t just reverse course that easily. So think carefully.”
I know very well what it feels like to regret something. But I don’t say that to her.
At first I have no intention of telling her about Aspire.
I’m scared of what people will think once they find out where I come from.
There are government incentive programs for employers who hire people coming out of the system, meant to give people like us a second chance, and I don’t know how that will land.
But something in me starts talking and I don’t stop.
I tell her everything. My parents, my brother, and eventually a black-haired, blue-eyed boy who is back there waiting for me and is convinced that because I’m getting out soon, we’ll have to end things.
That thought just destroys me. He’s distant.
Quiet. And I just know this is on his mind.
It makes me almost angry. After Harry’s house, I thought we’d be fine. But that isn’t the case.
The worst part is that I know it’s my fault.
“I don’t know if you understand, but I wouldn’t end things with him for anything,” I say.
“I don’t care that I didn’t have time to explore or whatever people say you’re supposed to do.
What’s the point of exploring when you’ve already found what you want?
I found him on the first try. He makes me happy.
He treats me like there’s nobody else in the world who matters to him.
All I want is to build a life with him when we both get out. ”
It’s the exhaustion, I think. We’re at the end of a long overnight shift, sitting in the nurses’ break room in case we’re needed, but the floor is quiet.
The room is all white the way hospitals are, I’m probably on my eighth cup of coffee, and Clarice is wearing her white coat with her stethoscope hanging around her neck, her hair dry and frizzy, probably from the insane routine of being a mother of three and working there.
“I understand completely,” she says.
I’m startled because she isn’t judging me. She’s smiling and nodding. I look into her eyes to see if she’s lying, but she isn’t. She just looks very, very tired. There are deep dark circles under her eyes as she pushes her pink glasses up her nose.
Deep down, I always expect people to have a very negative reaction to my story. The truth is I’m ashamed of it. Ashamed of where I’d ended up. Ashamed my parents put me there and I couldn’t do anything to change it.
“Everyone told me it wasn’t going to work with my husband.
He works in the maritime industry, he’s always away.
They said, ‘How are you going to juggle medicine, your kids, and someone who’s never home?
’ But I didn’t want to hear it. He’s my safe harbor.
He’s everything to me, and I wouldn’t trade our life for anything.
Of course I’ve given things up. I couldn’t do the master’s program I wanted in Florida.
” She pauses. “Yes, it was in Florida specifically to be near Disney,” she says with a small smile, and we both laugh.
“But that’s adult life. It’s making choices.
And I chose him and my family. I’d choose it again, no matter what I had to give up. ”
“Thank you for saying that,” I manage, trying to keep it together. The truth is I don’t know what to say.
“Of course, sweetheart,” she says.
Not everyone at the hospital is like that, obviously.
There are difficult people too. Two nurses who answer in monosyllables, explain nothing, and roll their eyes whenever I ask for help, like I’m the stupidest person alive.
And an older, heavyset doctor who comes around to correct me constantly with that air of supreme superiority.
“My God, you couldn’t find the patient’s vein in bed thirteen and now he’s bruised like this? We’re going to get sued. Did you fill in the charts correctly? I don’t think so. This isn’t some little hobby, you know.”
But honestly, those people are so far from being a real problem that most of the time I just ignore them.
Which makes them even angrier. They want me to engage.
But whenever they tell me to do something, I do it without opening my mouth, and when the nurses won’t help me, I find Nouha or Clarice or whoever else is around with some patience.
I’ve dealt with worse things my whole life. They don’t make a dent.
No matter what happens there, it’s an escape from everything happening at Aspire.
At Aspire, things are not good.
Liam and I are spending less and less time together, and on top of that, my brother isn’t doing well at all.
Every time I get back, Griff has an update, until the worst one comes: “Tyler is in the infirmary, and if he doesn’t improve, they won’t be able to keep him here.
They’ll have to move him somewhere with a more intensive detox program. ”
I don’t know where they’d send him, but I wouldn’t be there to help. That stays in my head the entire time I’m at the hospital.
When I get back from the day shift, I don’t go to my room, even knowing Liam will be waiting. I feel like a terrible person. But Tyler needs me too, so I don’t even stop to let Liam know I’m not coming back for the night. I go straight to the infirmary.
Tyler is lying on the cot in pain, eyes closed, skin yellowed. Glenn is nearby, along with another facility nurse named Hernandes. Both of them look worried.
“He’s not doing well at all, is he?” I say, pulling a chair up beside him. A regular resident probably couldn’t stay, but being a leader comes with certain privileges.
I stay beside him all night. I doze off a few times, but every time I do, I dream he has died, and I wake up to make sure he’s still there, still breathing. In the morning I have another shift, so I take a quick shower and the transport picks me up at six.
I take one patient’s blood pressure three times before I get a clean reading. Then I’m halfway to the wrong room with the wrong medication. Nouha had prescribed one medication. There’s another with a nearly identical name, and the charge nurse stops me in the corridor.
“What are you doing, Ethan?”
I look at the label. My stomach drops.
“Wrong room,” I say.
She takes it from me without a word. I stand there for a second, then go wash my face in the staff bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. A mistake like that could hurt someone. I know that. I can’t function like this.
Nouha catches me in the hallway near the end of the shift.
She doesn’t say anything, just looks at me, and I know I’m not hiding it well.
She’s a lot like Griff in that way: she notices everything about everyone, she loves what she does no matter how hard it gets, and she tries to help in whatever way she can.
“What’s going on, Ethan?”
I’m going to say nothing. But I know I can’t hide it. That could be the difference between a patient living or dying, and these people are my responsibility. I have to be honest even if there are consequences for me.
“My brother isn’t doing well,” I say. “He’s in the infirmary back at the Academy and he’s off drugs, going through withdrawal. I don’t know if he’ll be able to stay where he is, and if he can’t, they’ll send him somewhere I won’t be able to reach.”
“Sweetheart,” she says, and hugs me. She’s short, so she wraps her arms around my waist. “I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t know what to do,” I admit, and the desperation in my voice surprises me. I’ve been doing this more lately. Saying what I actually feel instead of swallowing it. It’s still new.
“What if he came here for treatment?” she asks. “We have an excellent government-funded program for people coming off drugs. I could get him a spot. After all, he’s not serving time for anything dangerous at Aspire, right?”
My mouth falls open.
“No, ma’am,” I say, even though she’s asked me a hundred times to stop calling her that. Old habit. “He’s at Aspire because of the drugs.”
“Then Aspire could approve him for treatment here. I’m certain it’s a more appropriate environment than what he has there.”
My heart is hammering. “That would mean everything to me.”
She smiles, energized. “Then it’s settled. I’ll talk to Griff about this, offer him the spot, and see about the possibility of the transfer. You think it would help?”
“More than I can say,” I say, and I’m actually trembling slightly. I don’t usually allow myself to hope about things. I think of hope as a kind of weakness. But I can’t stop it right now. I’ve even gotten goosebumps. This has to work.
“I’ll talk to him today, then. It doesn’t look like your brother has much time to wait.”
“Thank you. I don’t even know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything, honey. Just go do your work and pay attention, okay? Your little brother’s going to be fine.”
The shift runs seven to seven. When I get back to the Academy, it’s already dinnertime, but I don’t go to the cafeteria.
I’m almost through the entrance when one of the guards steps forward. Not the usual wave-through.
“Farley. Griff’s office.”
My stomach does a flip. It’s worse than being on a roller coaster.
I go straight to his office. MMA has just ended. I’m feeling a little sick. I’ve spent the whole day trying not to think about Tyler, because otherwise I can’t function. But now, standing in front of Griff, who gets up when I walk in, all of that resolve evaporates.
He looks at me the way he always does, serious and steady, and says, “We got the spot for Tyler. I called his probation officer today. He said there was no problem on his end if Aspire approved the transfer, and I approved it. We’re moving him now.
You can go too, if you want. Stay with him for the first few days, help him get settled while he’s there. ”
“Seriously?” I say, not quite able to believe it. Good things don’t happen this easily.
“It’ll be good for him to have you close in the beginning. And I know you two don’t have anyone else right now.”
I’m speechless again. But he keeps going. We have to move fast.
“Go pack some clothes and whatever you need. You can work during the day and stay with him at night. Don’t take too long.”
“Yes, sir,” is all I manage.
I run to the room.
Part of me hopes Liam won’t be there. The other part hopes he will, so I can say goodbye.
He’s there.
When he sees me, he breaks into that enormous smile that always squeezes something in my chest, but it falls almost immediately because he can tell something is off.
“What is it?” he asks.
“Baby, I’ll explain properly later. But right now I have to go. Tyler got a spot at the hospital where I work. He’s going to be admitted there. I’m going to stay with him for a few days to help him.”
He doesn’t say anything. Just looks at me and nods.
He’s so good. He’d never make a scene, not when it’s about my brother’s health.
But I know it’s hard for him. It’s hard for me too.
I don’t know when I’m going to see those blue eyes again.