Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Miranda
The fluorescent lights in this hospital have never been my enemy. Today they’re personal.
I squint at the hallway, and my eyes water. The low-grade throb behind them has promoted itself to a full percussion section, and whoever is in charge up there has no concept of rhythm. Whatever was in that beer of his, it was not what it said on the label.
Noted. For next time.
There won’t be a next time. There won’t be anything because I am going to die in this corridor, and no one will find me until the smell gets bad.
The morning handover goes fine until Axel walks in.
He doesn’t look at me. He picks up the patient board and starts reassigning without explanation, and I watch my morning reshuffle in real time.
The two straightforward post-op vitals I was expecting disappear.
In their place: bed four, who hasn’t had a bowel movement in four days and has been vocal about it, and bed nine, who is eighty-three, incontinent, and has already soaked through two changes this shift according to the night nurse’s note.
She adds, helpfully, that he’d been eating curry.
Axel caps his pen and walks out without a word.
I look at the board. I look at Brooke. She is looking at the ceiling.
“Right,” I say.
Bed nine is everything the note promised.
I change him, dispose of everything, change him again when he goes a second time before I’ve finished washing my hands, and stand in the bathroom doorway for a moment with my forehead against the door frame.
My stomach is climbing into my throat. The percussion section behind my eyes has found a second drummer.
I am a senior nurse. I have held a man’s bowels in my hands while a surgeon worked, and I did not flinch.
Today, with a hangover that is making the air visible, I am flinching.
Bed four is worse because he wants to talk about it.
At length. He wants to describe the exact nature of the blockage, his working theory on the cause, and his opinion on the laxative the last nurse gave him, which he has ranked as inadequate.
He says this while I’m inserting a suppository. I am not in a position to leave.
“Fascinating,” I say.
Brooke catches me in the corridor afterward and falls into step beside me. “Why is Axel acting as if he’s out to get you?”
“Because he is,” I mutter.
“The date went that bad, huh?” She makes a sympathetic noise. “You look like you got hit by something.”
Rubbing my temples, I mumble, “I feel worse.”
“So what did happen between you two?” Brooke presses. “I was waiting for you to call me when you got home, but you never did.”
“Because there was nothing to tell, Brooke.” I strip my gloves and toss them without slowing down. “I really don’t want to talk right now. I have the mother of all hangovers, and I can barely function right now.”
My friend tilts her head. “You drank last night?”
“Yeah, big mistake. I was with a friend, and the end of the night is just gone.”
“Fine. I’ll leave you alone.” She pats my arm before hurrying off.
She does leave it—for twenty minutes, which is a personal record. She opens her mouth again in the corridor outside the medication room, and I raise one finger without looking at her. She closes it.
Axel passes us at the nurses’ station and says, without breaking stride and without looking at me, “Carver. Bed seven needs a urinary catheter. The other nurses are busy.”
Bed seven is a forty-year-old man who has been awake since six and is not, by his own admission, particularly comfortable with the procedure.
I know this because he tells me. Repeatedly.
In increasingly creative language. Getting sworn at while holding a man’s penis really makes me wonder about my life choices sometimes.
As I’m pulling off the gloves, the patient grabs my wrist and twists, making me whimper. Another male nurse nearby catches the incident and pulls me away, but the damage is done. My wrist is swollen and needs icing.
Son of a bitch.
I don’t get to the icing either because as I’m halfway down the corridor, Axel comes out of a bay behind me. “Carver.”
I stop.
“Do you want to tell me why bed seven’s chart still doesn’t have the pre-procedure note?”
I turn around. He’s standing in the middle of the corridor with two residents flanking him, all three of them looking at me. The residents don’t meet my gaze. “I’ll complete it now,” I say, holding my injured wrist.
“You should have completed it before you went in.” His voice is even and loud. He doesn’t shout, but his tone is harsh. “That’s basic protocol. Is basic protocol something you need a refresher on?”
The corridor is not empty. Two nurses at the station have gone very quiet. A porter has found somewhere else to look.
My face is hot. “No.”
“Then act like it.” He turns back to the residents like I’ve already been dismissed.
I face forward and walk.
Eight years. Eight years and I have never been spoken to like a student who forgot to cap a needle. My throat is tight, my wrist still aches from where the patient grabbed it, and I would very much like to put my head through the nearest wall.
I know exactly what this is. He’s punishing me in front of the people I work with. Asshole. He just had to bring this into the workplace.
The charge nurse calls my name from the end of the corridor. “Carver. There’s a delivery at the front desk for you.” I’m still in the hallway when a staff assistant appears carrying a large white box with the careful expression of someone delivering something above her pay grade.
“Miranda Carver?” she says.
“That’s me.”
“Courier dropped it at the front desk. Said to deliver it personally.”
No name on the card. I take it. Brooke is at my elbow before I’ve set it down.
“What is that?”
“I have no idea.” The box is matte white with a ribbon, and the name printed along the side makes my hands go still.
That’s the brand. The exact brand of Brooke’s replica dress.
I open the box. Inside, folded in tissue paper, is the same wrap dress. Same cut. Same blue. With better quality fabric, the original.
“Oh, that’s gorgeous.” Brooke reaches in before I can stop her and holds it up. Her eyes widen. “Miranda.” She turns it over. “This is my dress.”
“It’s not your dress.”
“Yeah, that was a replica. This is the original.” She looks at me. “What is happening right now?”
I look at the dress. I know who sent this. And why. That’s why Grayson asked for the brand name. He found it and had it delivered before I had to explain myself to my best friend.
My lip wobbles. I bite down on it hard.
“Miranda?” Brooke is watching me.
“Your dress got ruined last night,” I mumble, overcome with emotion.
She doesn’t say anything.
“The one you lent me,” I continue because she hasn’t moved. “The waitress knocked a full glass of red wine across it. I was going to tell you. I was going to replace it myself.”
Brooke stares at me. At the dress. At the white box, which looks like it was purchased somewhere with a lobby and a standing appointment with interior designers. “Miranda. This did not come from your salary.”
I don’t answer.
“Who sent this?”
I fold the tissue paper back over the dress because I need something to do with my hands. “The same person who wants me to look after his son.”
Brooke sucks in a breath. “Wants you to look after his son,” she repeats slowly. “Or wants you for himself?”
My mouth is dry. “I—He doesn’t want me. Why would he want me? There’s nothing I can offer him. He just—He just felt bad for me.”
Brooke looks at me for a long moment. “Why would he feel bad for you?”
I meet her gaze now. “He saw what happened at dinner with Dr. Hudson. He was there.” I know I have to explain what happened if Brooke is going to take this dress.
“Brooke, Axel was a jerk, okay? He spent the whole time talking over me. He ordered for me without asking. He was just an asshole. And then I saw him slip a waitress his number at the table, and he pretended like nothing happened.”
Brooke’s mouth drops open.
“When I tried to leave, he got aggressive and grabbed my wrist. He wanted me to sleep with him in return for dinner. I didn’t even eat anything.”
Brooke’s face is pale. “Oh, Miranda, I’m so sorry. I had no idea he was such a pig.”
I rub my hands over my face. “That same waitress was the one who ruined your dress, and then my friend showed up and got me out of there. I felt so guilty over the dress. He must have realized it and replaced it.”
Brooke presses her lips together. “Honey, the dress I got was for three hundred bucks. This is four grand. I’m telling you, nobody spends that much money for a nanny. The guy wants you.”
I think of how Grayson and I sat outside together. I blacked out after drinking his beer, but for the first time, we were able to sit together without bickering. It had been kind of nice. However, Grayson Wolfe is a celebrity in a way, and I’m a nurse, knee deep in debt. There’s no way he wants me.
“Whatever, Brooke.” I shake off the ideas she’s putting in my head and focus on shoving the box in her hands. “Here. This is yours.”
My friend’s eyes widen. “I’m not keeping it. This is more than a month’s salary.”
“You are absolutely keeping it.”
“Miranda—” she begins helplessly, but I step back.
“I mean it.”
She stares at me for a long moment. Then she sighs through her nose and picks up the box.
“You’ll tell me who this friend is eventually,” she says.
“I really won’t.” I give her a small smile.
She gives me a look that says this conversation isn’t over and hurries away.
I just roll my shoulders and get back to work.
The day is long, and Axel is determined to make it worse as each hour passes.
I’ve been forced to stay past my shift when I climb all the way to the roof to take a breather.
It’s an hour shy of sunrise, and my feet are killing me.
The roof is three floors of stairs and one heavy fire door away from everyone.
I push through the door, and the wind hits my face.
I breathe it in until the vise behind my eyes loosens by a fraction.