Our Last Time: A Novel (7 page)

Willow

I wasn’t dreading work
today, because I had two new patients to distract me from Wyatt. I wouldn’t be as stressed, and I’d feel more like a nurse rather than a slave. Tessa had four patients to care for, and she had told me she should have taken Wyatt because she cared for him before, and would know how to handle him. I told her it was too late now, because he was set on having no one but my attention. I hadn’t known why he was set on me. Maybe it was because he hated me for some reason, and wanted to see me with red eyes and satanic demon coursing through my veins. He’d gotten his wish, if that were the case. I’d felt like I was ready to murder by the end of all of my shifts.

I had my hair up today in a small ponytail. A few strands settled on the back of my neck, because my hair was too short to be in a ponytail, really. I hadn’t minded it. I no longer had bangs like I’d had when I was a teenager. My hair was layered now, which made it harder to put it up any type of way. My face was bare, and I was exhausted from lack of sleep. I was going to be sluggish today, and Wyatt was going to have to deal with it.

Karrie Timmons was my first patient to arrive; she came in sometime in the middle of the night. She was only twenty-two years old, and she had a visitor with her who appeared to be a boyfriend or maybe a husband. She had to get her stomach pumped because she accidentally overdosed on pain killers when she had too much to drink. She had
claimed
it was an accident. I believed she had suicidal thoughts, and hadn’t wanted to admit it in front of her visitor. I’d talk to her alone later, when she felt like talking to me. She’d probably be leaving sometime around noon, but that only depended on what she’d tell me when we’d talk.

Farrah Albrooks was my second patient; she arrived this morning a few hours before I came in. She was thirty-four, and had been four months pregnant. Her husband was with her, and I noticed the grief held under both of their features - they were sad. She had complained about overly discomforting cramps, and an excessive blood discharge. It was something out of the ordinary, she’d said. I knew what was wrong after the mentioning of cramps, and blood in one sentence. She had a miscarriage. I noted for Doctor Venice to check her out immediately. I was fairly certain she had lost her baby, and I felt for her. It was sad, and it was terrible how often women would come in with this same problem,
same
tragedy. I wouldn’t have a soul left within me if I were to lose my Annette.

It was now time for me to go and check on Wyatt, and I was surprised he hadn’t been calling my name so far this morning.
Maybe he had a visitor,
I thought. That would relieve me significantly. I was ready for him to be taken out of here, and dealt with by someone else. Someone that
loved
him - if only I could convince myself that someone out there had loved him enough to take care of him. If he had a mother, I hoped she was close, so she’d eventually realize what had happened to him, and take him off my hands. Only a mother’s love could be strong enough to love Wyatt Blanquette, I believed.

I opened
209
’s door after knocking, hoping to see someone sitting in one of the chairs on the far side of Wyatt’s bed. I came to find something very different from that. It was something I was starting to believe to be impossible.

“Hey, Willow.”

He was smiling at me. He said
Hey
to me, and he was actually smiling. I was freaking out on the inside. Was he playing a trick, or was he truly happy to see me? Why hadn’t he called my name - screamed it? He’d always be screaming my name when I came in for work. I approached his bedside slowly, waiting for the answer to be revealed. This was strange, and it only got more unfamiliar as I got closer.

“Wyatt…” I paused, my tone thick with suspicion. “Are you ready for breakfast? Are you hurting this morning?”

He touched my hand, and I flinched. I just studied him as he moved his hand away from mine, and rested it on his thigh.

His eyebrows were scrunched, and there was an uncomfortable line lying across his forehead. “I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry for my behavior. I have my own personal issues, and I shouldn’t have treated you the way I did. Can you forgive me?”

I was dumbfounded and hadn’t known how to respond. An apology from him was the last thing I had expected.

“Are you apologizing because it won’t happen again, or because you feel sorry I have to put up with it?” I asked.

I thought he’d have a snarky comeback, but he looked defeated and
guilty
when I asked him the question.

“I won’t be...unreasonable.”

He wouldn’t be unreasonable. If this had been a true statement, I’d be pretty satisfied.

“So you’ll be nice, and stop asking for things you don’t need?” I asked in a fiery tone. My arms were crossed over my chest, and he was staring at me. It made me feel a little bit uncomfortable, because he’d never done it before. I liked his eye color, and I wasn’t supposed to like anything about Wyatt Blanquette. He had basically been my arch enemy. His eyes bored into me, consumed me, and made me feel like I was being trapped in this black hole kind of thing. Who had silvered-brown eyes, anyway? They were like a dark shade of brown, but this silver reflection was what made them so mesmerizing, and distracting.

I never made eye contact with a man for so long since I lost my forever, and it pissed me off that Wyatt Blanquette was the following. Remembering it was August, I thought that he couldn’t be April fooling me.  This could be a real apology.

“Yes,” he answered. He cleared his throat. “But you have to be nice, too.”

I smirked, because he was the only patient I wasn’t nice to, and that was his entire fault. “The fire within me didn’t start until you showed up, Mr. Blanquette.”

“Can you not call me Mr. Blanquette?” he groaned. “It’s kind of weird.”

I smiled, shaking my head. “So it irritates you when I call you Mr. Blan-”

“Yes, it does,” he interrupted me. He sighed, and then dragged his hand softly over his facial hair. He had let it grown out over the past few days. “Sorry, I’m just a little moody, because I have no one to talk to here. I miss having students,” he said, then waved his hand at me, because he realized I hadn’t known what the hell he was talking about. “I’m a teacher,” he clarified.

I nodded. “You can always talk to me, though, Wyatt. It’s kind of my job. You might not like me, but I’m someone,” I said softly.

He exhaled, his eyes remained on me. “It’s not that I don’t like you, Willow.”

“Then why are you so mean?”

“To avoid attachment,” he shrugged. “I might be here for a while. I have had two heart attacks in my lifetime. I will drop dead one day, and that could happen sometime soon. If I show vulnerability towards anyone, I’ll regret it.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Are you mean to everyone, or am I just an easy target?”

“I’m mean to just about everyone, but as you can see, I’m trying to be nice now,” he explained. “To you, anyway, because I can tell you hate me because of it.”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “You observe well,” I sighed. I was biting my lip, and my eyes were drawn to his hard facial expression. “How are we going to make this an easy drive-by? To where I won’t hate you and to where you won’t fall in love with me?” I tapped my chin. I was still being sarcastic with him. I hadn’t known if that was a good idea. My teasing could piss him off, and that probably wouldn’t be a good thing.

“You don’t hate me, and I’d never fall in love with you,” he smirked. “You’d have to be very hot, and persuasive to be a candidate. You don’t seem to want me to fall in love with you, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

I smiled, because I noticed that he technically called me a hottie. It was probably the closest thing I’d get to a compliment from Wyatt, so I hadn’t asked to make sure that’s what he meant.

“I’m pretty sure love runs out before you can catch up with it. It did for me, anyway,” I muttered. “I’m not going to be chasing after something that isn’t there, so that shouldn’t be a problem, either.”

He swallowed hard, and his eyes drifted away from mine. I had been thankful he was the first to look away. He confirmed the nonexistence of whatever deep and engraved thoughts I had starting in my head. I was starting to hate him less, already - just from this little step.

“We should give a compliment to the other if we’re about to say something mean, or out of line. And if we say something mean or out of line, we have to give
two
compliments. It’s handbook on the road to being nice,” he half-shrugged. “I’ve never done this before, so consider yourself lucky.”

“You’re strange,” I grumbled.

“That’s not a very nice thing to say, Willow,” he tilted his chin at me, and his eyes were on mine again. I gulped. I was thinking this might not be easy. I was already used to insulting him.

“Your hair looks nice,” I mumbled. “All swirled, and twinkie-looking.”

“Oh, yeah? What else?” His mouth was curved at one side, and I wanted to growl at him so he’d stop doing that with his mouth.

“You smell like shit today. You should smell like shit
every
day, because it’d fit you.” My voice was pitched a little bit too high, and he definitely hadn’t smelt like shit.

He sighed. “You should have the word
bitch
tattooed on your forehead, because it’d fit you,” he squinted, and his mouth was still curved on one side. It was like he was mocking me with just the use of his mouth, and I hated that.

“Your feet are nice. All bare, and caveman-styled,” I said, briefly skimming over the feet I saw everyday that peeked out from the end of the blanket draped over him.

He looked down at
my
feet, as if he was insulting them with just the use of his eyes, and I hated that, too.

“New Balance really brings out your…ankles. You have nice ankles, Willow.”

I caught a breeze over my ankles as the air began to circulate, and I cursed under my breath. I was wearing high-waters. The shred of hatred that temporarily disappeared was back.

My teeth were clenched under a falsely presented smile. “Yeah, and your thighs are pretty nice, too. Like two thanksgiving hams mating.”

“You’re jealous of my juicy thighs, aren’t you?” he smiled, showing off his teeth, and I nearly vacated my entire body from air.

I coughed, the inside of my elbow pressed to my lips. “I prefer clean-cut,” I replied, my voice muffled.

There was a long pause, and awkwardly, we just stared at each other for a while.

My lips were parted, and his were parted, too.

Chuckles caught in both of our throats, but then we laughed for a short moment in unison - like we both realized at the same time that we could never genuinely compliment one another.

“This could be simple,” he sighed. “Or you could just get me my breakfast and my two cartons of orange juice, like you do every morning around this time of day. What do you think?”

“I think I should get you that stick you asked for a few days ago, and shove it up your-”

“Ass? You were going to say ass, weren’t you?” he shook his head, amused.

I had let out an obnoxious laugh. “No, your
cast
, remember? You wouldn’t want
two
sticks up your ass, now would you?”

A deep laugh vibrated through his chest, but his mouth remained closed until he said something in response. “Touché, Willow.
Touché
.”

5:02p.m.

“You look like you’ve had a…
decent
day, Willow,” Caitlyn studied me. “What makes today different from the rest?”

I hadn’t known what she meant, so I told her, “I don’t know what you mean.”

It was after five o’clock in the afternoon and Annette had just finished her homework. She was sitting at the buffet counter on a stool, now, eating Craft macaroni and cheese. Caitlyn came from her room, and sauntered over to the couch where I was, and sat down. Our thighs touched, and she was staring at the side of my face as I stared at a commercial on the television.

“You look like you might be infatuated, or something. As ridiculous as it sounds,” she whispered. “Do you have a crush on someone?”

I crinkled my nose as I looked at her from the corner of my eye. “Work wasn’t too bad today. My upbringing has nothing to do with the opposite sex; only a dumbass would have a crush. I’m a smart-ass, Caitlyn. I can’t hide the fact that I’m a little insulted by your assumption,” I scoffed.

“So what does that mean?” her eyes widened. “You already found in a new booty-call?”

“I’m not a whore, asshole.”

She giggle-snorted. “We all need sex, though, Willow. Especially us, because we know what it feels like.”

I was pretty sure I glared at her. “My eight-year-old daughter is currently in the kitchen eating macaroni and cheese,” I hissed under my breath, “and sex is the last thing I want to be discussing right now.”