Chapter 7
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I’d checked on all my patients. Joyce was gas-free and appropriately remorseful about the chili dogs. Mr. Alvarez had finally agreed to take the walker instead of pretending his hip wasn’t about to crumble into dust.
Emily, who’d had her birthday party so rudely interrupted even after so far putting in twenty years at Saint Raphael’s and being a saint in scrubs, was settled in for the night shift with a cup of coffee. My charts were updated and my notes were clean, so finally, I clocked out.
But I didn’t go home. Instead, I detoured to an empty workstation, logged in, and printed twenty-seven identical flyers.
They were simple, a stock photo of a slice of cake with a red circle around it and a diagonal line slashed through the middle. Beneath it, in very official-looking font, I’d typed the words:
NO CAKE ALLOWED
I stared at the first page as it slid out of the printer, knowing exactly how petty I was being. I’d spent years holding the hands of people at the end of their lives, listening to their regrets, their love stories, and their apologies.
In short, I wasn’t someone who confused cake-based satire with actual injustice, but it also wasn’t more childish than a billionaire throwing a tantrum over five minutes of joy.
So I stacked the flyers when they’d finished printing, tucked them into my backpack like contraband, and headed back into the halls.
I knew where the cameras were. They had terrible coverage, with lots of blind spots. I had learned how limited the camera feeds were after a minor security incident the prior year. Now that knowledge was coming in handy. I hugged the walls where I needed to, making sure no one else was around.
One by one, I taped up the flyers on bulletin boards. By the elevators. Near the break room. Outside the supply closet.
I avoided patient areas, not about to drag them into it. This was a staff issue. It was about morale and quietly reminding people that this was ridiculous and that they weren’t crazy for thinking so.
If I got caught and fired, at least I’d avoid the contract penalty, but I wasn’t actually trying to lose my job.
I’d thought about everything my dad had said, and as a last resort, maybe I’d try it, but I was a little more resilient than throwing away everything I’d worked for after just a couple incidents with the new boss.
I paused near the nurses’ lounge, smoothing down the edge of a flyer that had curled slightly. and imagined Sullivan Crowne’s face when he saw it. The way his mouth would flatten, his eyes narrowing like he was calculating whether he could depreciate humor as an asset.
But after what he’d done to Emily, this was worth it.
She’d helped save my father’s life. She’d been there the night his heart had staged a coup, calm and steady while I’d been a terrified kid, gripping a chair in the waiting room. She’d had crow’s feet then too. She deserved a song, and a slice of cake, and five goddamn minutes of being appreciated.
But did the head dick in charge care about any of that? Of course not. Fucking billionaires.
Why did rich people always seem like such miserable bastards? All the money in the world and Sullivan Crowne had nothing to smile about. No warmth, no flexibility, and no understanding that hospitals ran on so much more than just cost efficiency and the old making way for the new.
What a terrible life.
Unlike Sullivan Crowne, I could sit down with friends, eat a slice of cake, and actually enjoy myself.
I could laugh with my mouth full and lick frosting off my fork without wondering how much it cost or whether the bakery had an Instagram following.
I could take joy in simple things and feel genuinely grateful for them.
Sullivan, I was pretty sure, only liked artisanal cakes from celebrity chefs. The kind of cakes that came with a backstory and a wait list and had been dusted with gold flakes and ruby powder.
Maybe that was his problem. He’d gotten so focused on money and business that his life had gone gray and cold. Optimized into joylessness and oblivion. If so, it really sucked to be him. I would’ve pitied the guy if he hadn’t absolutely brought it upon himself.
Having a great time sticking it to the man, I finished taping my last flyer near the staff elevators and stepped back with my hands on my hips, surveying my work. I felt a little childish but also triumphant.
Fighting his pettiness with some of my own was oddly satisfying. Like scratching an itch you didn’t realize you had.
When I decided I’d done enough for one day, I slung my backpack over my shoulder and headed out. Home for me was a small apartment in a cheap area with thin walls and a landlord who pretended not to notice the radiator knocking like it was possessed.
It wasn’t much, but it was mine. I’d filled it with proof of a life well lived.
Pictures of family and friends were on every wall in mismatched frames from thrift stores.
Little keepsakes from past vacations dotted the shelves, and I had precisely one houseplant on the windowsill that I refused to let die.
After I dropped my backpack by the door, I kicked off my shoes, poured a glass of cheap wine, and collapsed onto the couch. Then I called Ellora. She answered on the second ring. “Please tell me you’ve seen the internet.”
“I have,” I said, smiling as I thought about all those memes. “People are hilarious. If nothing else, it’s nice to know humanity’s sense of humor is still intact sometimes.”
She laughed. “Well, he did yell about cake. He should’ve seen the backlash coming.”
“That’s my point exactly. If you’re going to be ridiculous, you can’t be angry or offended when people start treating you like you are. I mean, cake. The actual birthday song takes way less than two minutes to sing and Tanya had already set out the knife and some plates on her break.”
“Yeah, but some people don’t care about a problem until it’s their problem too. Now that it’s his problem, you can take it to the bank that he’s going to have to do something about morale eventually.”
“I might’ve sped up that process,” I said in a small, I’ve-already-done-something-bad, admission voice. “It’ll definitely boost morale. Just maybe not in the way he’s hoping, but you know what they say. Nothing unites like a common enemy.”
Ellora groaned. “What have you done, Bree Bennett?
When I told her about the flyers, she laughed until the sound became so contagious that I joined in.
“Okay,” she said when the laughter had finally subsided to giggles. “That’s great, but hear me out. What if someone starts bringing cupcakes labeled ‘Clinical Trials for Joy.’”
I chuckled. “That’s tempting. It’s definitely a good idea, but I don’t want to traumatize the interns.”
We tossed ideas back and forth, the sillier the better, pushing back and reminding a man with too much money and too little perspective that in a work environment like ours, you had to grab onto every glimmer of happiness and hope with both hands, because they came around a lot less than devastation and bad news.
By the time we eventually hung up, the weight that had been bearing down on my chest was a lot lighter. Getting to vent and catch up with your best friend would do that for a girl.
In the process, I’d also gotten a little slice of perspective of my own. Unlike Sullivan, I could acknowledge when I’d needed that, a different view of things.
I’d signed that contract I was now locked into because I genuinely loved that hospital and the people in it. The work and the hours were brutal at the best of times and utterly heart-breaking at others, and yet, it was also a safe haven. A port in the most vicious of storms.
It was a place where people could go in their darkest hours and find a helping hand, a friendly smile, and some of the best damn doctors and nurses in the world. I wasn’t going to let Sullivan Crowne turn it into something unrecognizable.
Resolve spread through me like a wildfire, making me more determined than ever to save Saint Raphael from him—and to make him understand what made it so special in the first place.