“Lara?”
“Jake,” I breathe, heart starting to beat a mile a minute.
He looks the same. He looks impossibly different. Only five years older, and yet still so grown up. The same dark hair, same glinting amber eyes.
At once, I realize why he’s here. I’d heard the news of his father’s passing. So why hadn’t I put it together that Jake might be back in town for the funeral?
Probably because I thought he would skip it. He hasn’t been back in town once in five years — not since the night he left. I wouldknow because all the hockey fans in this town either love him or hate him, and they would definitely mention if he came home.
“You’re—” he starts, stops, and starts again, smiling at me, even as he’s still holding his arm, clearly in pain. “You’re a nurse? You’remynurse?”
And he’s handsome — so much more handsome than before. Or maybe just in a different way, that stubble from our senior year grown out into proper facial hair, his jaw stronger, almost square now. I want to take his face in my hands, run my fingers through his hair, feel every way that he’s changed. But I don’t.
He looks thicker, stockier, like he’s spent the past five years wrapping his body up in muscle. Obviously, I’ve seen him playing hockey on the TV, but he’s always covered up with all his gear, so it was hard to get a sense of what his body looked like.
Now, he’s wearing a pair of jeans and a snug gray T-shirt, and I have to keep my eyes from staring at the way the cuff of his sleeve hugs his biceps.
“I am.” I laugh, forcing myself to break out of the moment, forcing myself to focus on the process; find the suture kit, wash my hands, put on gloves. “Yeah, finishing up my BSN right now. And they sent me in to do your sutures.”
“Wow,” he says, shaking his head. “That’s— that’s great. And you like it?”
It’s a question I get a lot, people assuming I’ve gone into nursing because I don’t have any other choice. Jake knows better, though. He knows my parents, knows that I had every opportunity at my fingertips. Like my kids, I’ve been introduced to artists and astronauts, surgeons and world-famous performers, from before I could walk.
“Yes,” I say, thinking about the first time I got to assist during a birth. “I really like it. I like helping people, and keeping people calm when they feel like everything is falling apart around them.”
I realize the moment I say it that it’s more than I would have said to anyone else in this chair, but it’s Jake — even with the history of our last meeting between us, I can’t stop myself from talking to him, opening up to him.
It’s always been like that for us. An instant, easy click.
“Did you—” he stops again, like the words are getting clogged up in his throat. “Did you know? When we… back then?”
“No,” I admit, shaking my head as I sit next to him with the suture kit. I try to keep myself from looking up into his eyes, but it happens anyway.
They’re just as electric, just as captivating. Something between caramel and bronze. My heart is beating hard and fast enough that I wonder if I should flag down someone else to do his stitches.
But I’m not going to do that. I need this moment for myself. Up until now, I didn’t recognize how much I missed this man. And now that I have him sitting in front of me, I can’t fathom the thought of losing a single second with him.
Normally, you would ask the patient if they’ve had stitches before, if they know what to expect. But I know that he fell off the top bunk when he was little and had to get stitches in the middle of the night. I know that his mother held his hand during and got him a candy bar after.
I know that it’s one of the last memories he has of her.
“I’m going to numb the area, okay?” I ask, and Jake nods. He sits completely still as I do, then stays motionless as I pull out the needle and the driver.
The work goes quickly. The cut is on the outside of his forearm and not very deep, so he only needs a couple of stitches. I close it up, disinfect it, wrap it, and find him an informational packet about dissolving stitches and how to notice signs of infection.
“Thank you,” he says, his voice quiet. And I don’t want him to leave. I’ve already taken way too long on this, tying the sutures a few extra times, taking a while to disinfect, and bandaging him up with perfect right angles. It will be by far the best and most aesthetically pleasing bandage anyone has received on this floor today.
“Of course,” I force out, wanting to add something else, but also worried that if I break through the seal of these five years, he might remember what happened the last time we spoke.
When I told him I wasn’t coming with him to Michigan. When something had obviously happened between him and his dad, and I didn’t even offer to ask my parents if he could stay over.
We both start talking at the same time, and Jake laughs, saying, “You first.”
“Oh, I—” I clear my throat, gaze falling to the floor. “I heard about your dad. And I wanted to give you my condolences.”
Jake rubs the back of his neck with his hand, and I glance up at him. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“Lara?” The other nurse I was working with appears at the curtain, looking in at us. Even though I’m sitting a respectabledistance away from him, I still feel like I’ve been caught in a compromising position.
