“I can’t do that. We live together.”
“Who says you can’t? Besides, that’s probably the best setup. You’re both in the same apartment, sleeping just across the hall from each other. One of you sneaks into the other’s bed and gets freaky. You know what I mean?” I think she’s swooning now.
I’m laughing at her ridiculous behavior, and she looks at me with her big doe eyes.
“Wouldn’t that be so romantic if you guys end up falling in love and getting married? After what Logan put you through, you deserve your happily ever after.” She looks like she’s about to cry.
“Okay, calm down. Nobody is hooking up with anybody, and we will not end up falling in love or getting married. We’re just roommates.”
“We’ll see about that,” Maggie states with a smirk.
I roll my eyes at Maggie. We met on our first day of orientation. We sat next to each other, unaware that they had hired us both for the same medical-surgical unit, along with two other girls. Although the four of us completed our training together, Maggie and I bonded over the shared trauma of being assigned evening shifts as new nurses.
Unfortunately, we both got to experience firsthand what it means when “nurses eat their young.” We were being heavily bullied by the older nurses on the unit while we were on probation. Since we couldn’t exactly report that we were being bullied by our superiors, being on probation meant that they could fire us for no reason. We suffered in silence while staying well past our shift to finish our documentation. We shared late-night snacks and listened to the soulful voice of Bruno Mars to help ease our pain.
We agreed to stick together for at least six months before quitting and finding a new job. Six months turned into one year, and now we’re three years out, a little wiser but a lot more traumatized. She left to work in the ICU first. I stuck around foranother year on our medical-surgical unit before finally working up the courage to follow her here.
It’s been so nice to know that I have a friendly face among all the unfamiliar faces on the unit. I also know that she always has my back if I ever need it. So far, she’s had nothing but kind things to say about our coworkers, and I’m excited about working in a healthy environment for the first time in years.
Before clocking back into work, I open my message thread with Ben and send him a quick message.
“Hey, did you send me flowers?”
“Who else calls you roomie?”
I smile because he’s clearly the only one.
“Thank you. That was really thoughtful of you.”
“No problem. I hope it brought a smile to your face.”
I put my phone away. My heart feels light, and there are about a hundred butterflies taking flight in my belly.
I haven’t felt like this in a while, if ever.
The further away I get from New Year’s Eve, the better I feel, and I hope it continues to get better.
15
emily
I’m woken up from sleep by the sunlight streaming into my bedroom. After a long twelve-hour shift at the hospital yesterday, I came home, showered, and went straight to bed. Ben wasn’t at the apartment when I got back, and the lights were off when I went to bed.
I crack my eyes open and rub the sleep from my eyes. I hear him in the kitchen, so he must be cooking up breakfast or something. He has some soft music going, but I can’t tell what’s playing.
I stretch my aching muscles and roll over to get out of bed. Buffy and Spike are both asleep, still in the middle of my bed. I must have curled myself around their love nest in my sleep. They don’t even flinch, their eyes still closed, as I rise and quietly open the bedroom door to leave.
After taking care of business and washing myself up to look semi-human, I walk into our kitchen. The aromas of pancakes, eggs, and bacon fill the apartment and make my mouth water. I need coffee before I can think about eating food. We only have a Keurig machine, but it seems I’m the only one that drinks coffee.
“Good morning,” I say to Ben, who has his back turned to me. He’s wearing a white T-shirt and grey sweatpants. When he hears me, he turns his head to look at me over his shoulder.
“Morning, sleepyhead. I made breakfast if you’re hungry.”
“Oh, thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”
He gestures for me to have a seat at the table as he makes me a plate. Ben has already set the table with silverware. He hands me my plate and goes back to make himself a plate of food.
We sit across from each other as we dig into our food. After a few moments, he looks up at me.
