“Right?” Danny says again, taking a puff of his smoke and crossing an arm over his chest. “It’s fucking sad. Like this girl, she’s young, hot as hell. Her eyes are fucking ridiculous. How hard could life be that you’d want to do that, you know?”

I stand up, my blood boiling and my fists balled.

Robby stands up next to me. “Be careful, Josh,” he warns.

The short nurse says, “That’s fucked. What do you think happened?”

Danny scoffs, blowing smoke out at the same time. “Same old shit. Some fucking guy doesn’t love her and she thinks the world’s over.”

Three steps.

That’s all it takes for me to get to them. I push the short one out of the way and within seconds, my fist is on Danny’s stomach. Blow after blow until he’s on the floor. From the corner of my eye—I see Robby holding back Danny’s friend. I open my mouth to speak, but no words could ever convey how I feel, so instead I communicate with my fist, twice more, before I stand.

Danny scuffles, but I’m ready, waiting for his exchange. “Call the cops,” he tells the other nurse, his eyes on mine. He won’t fight back though. He’s a pussy. And a fucking asshole.

I step back and start walking away—the adrenaline, the anger, the understanding, all of it pulsing through my veins.

“You call the cops,” Robby says, his voice loud but even. “I’ll share with the medical board every single thing I just heard.” I stop in my tracks and turn back around because Robby’s fighting my fight and he doesn’t need to. “What do you think would happen to your license if they hear what I’ve recorded?” He holds up his phone. “Maybe next time you can watch your fucking mouths and keep your fucked up shitty opinions to yourselves.”

Danny silently brushes down his clothes and heads back into the hospital.

Robby comes up beside me and we walk together, side by side, step by step. “Did you really record it?”

“Nah.” After no response from me, he says, “I’m sorry, Josh.”

Neither of us mention what they said and whom it was about. But at least I know why she’s here. Only now I wish I didn’t.

28

-Joshua-

Hunter sleeps on the floor of the waiting room. So does Robby. Eventually, so do I.

“Joshua?” I hear, and for a moment I think I’m a kid again and it’s my mother’s voice trying to wake me for school. For a second I’m annoyed—but then reality hits. Fuck, I wish I was that kid. I’d take all the Monday mornings in the history of the world if it took me away from this reality.

I sit up and thank Nurse Ruby when she hands me the coffee. “I figured you could use it,” she says, the same pitiful smile from yesterday.

“Do you know anything more?” I ask, not sharing the fact that I do.

She shakes her head, her lips pressed tight. “My shift just started. But I checked in on her first thing before I even knew you were here.” She glances at Rob and Hunter still asleep in the corner of the room we’ve deemed as ours. “She’s beautiful, Josh,” she says, her gaze dropping.

She checked in on her… saw her file. She probably thinks the same of me as those asshole nurses from last night—she just doesn’t have the guts to tell me to my face.

“I know,” I whisper, a lump forming in my throat. “She’s… my everything.”

Nurse Ruby clears her throat. “She’s still not ready to see anyone, Josh. Why don’t you go—”

“Not you too,” I cut in. “You can’t make me leave, right? I mean there’s no law that states I can’t be here.”

“No,” she says, looking right in my eyes. “You can stay.”

She starts to leave but I grab her arm. “I know she doesn’t want to see me. I know she hates me. I know that seeing me will most likely make it worse. I know that you know that, too. But I can’t not see her. I just… I need to talk to her and I need to touch her and I need to know that she’s okay. And I need to tell her that I love her, that she’s everything to me and that…” I choke on sob. “That I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

Nurse Ruby takes me in her arms, holding me, all while I cry unashamed.

“I love her,” I mumble. “And I don’t want to exist without her.”

She pulls back, her tear soaked eyes on mine again. With her hands on my shoulders, she nods once, and then she’s gone.

She doesn’t speak to me for the rest of the day.

Rob and Hunter barely speak to me.

I wonder if they’ve worked it out—that I’m the reason she’s here. I wonder if they hate me as much as I hate me.

At some point, Chazarae walks out. She sees me but she doesn’t acknowledge me. An hour later she returns, showered and changed, Bible in her hand. Like the fucking Bible can rewind time and erase the past. It can’t do shit. And even with that in mind, I find myself pacing the floors, praying to a God who knows I don’t believe in him.

Kim calls. She says Tommy’s been asking for me. He wants to talk to me, so I let him. He talks about anything and everything and I listen to his voice, hear the joy in his words, and I try—I try so damn hard—to hide the sadness in mine.

I go back to breathing without really existing, all while the world moves on around me.

Seconds turn to minutes, minutes turn to hours.