Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 88490 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88490 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
Wes gives me a frown. “You okay?”
Fuck. I must have been staring. “Sure. ’Course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well…” Jamie chews his lip thoughtfully. “Got any hot dates lined up? You just seem a little lonely lately.”
“Lonely? I don’t get lonely.” Maybe I’m at loose ends a little bit right now, but it’s only because our season hasn’t really started up again. That and Jess Canning still refuses to accept the inevitable.
Wes and Jamie exchange a glance that irks me. Cheezus. Just because a guy spends a lot of time being the third wheel to the happiest couple alive doesn’t mean he’s lonely. That’s ridic.
“Want to watch a movie?” I suggest, changing the subject.
“Sure, buddy,” Wes says kindly. “Pick something.” He tosses me the clicker and then slides his other foot into Jamie’s welcoming hands.
I scroll through the new releases on their streaming site and select one at random, then sit back to watch. I put the massage chair on the quiet setting and relax into its comfy robotic embrace. And everything is just great.
Of course it is.
Chapter 12
The Leader of the Alien Race
Jess
One month later
I’m freaking out.
Again.
This isn’t me either. I’m not a worrier. Or I didn’t used to be. I’m a California girl, damn it. We’re chill. We take each day as it comes and make the best of it.
But a month into nursing school, I’m not any more relaxed than I was on day one. It’s still hard, and I still feel like an alien dropped onto a planet where everyone else has a photographic memory and speaks Latin with great fluency.
The leader of the alien race is Violet Smith. She’s squinting at me right now, in fact, as I lean against a hallway wall in the pediatric oncology ward at the hospital. My evil roommate can tell that I’m not paying enough attention to Nurse Hailey, our instructor. But I need a moment to compose myself, because around the corner, there’s a playroom for patients on the pediatric oncology ward. I am about to come face-to-face with kids fighting cancer.
My classmates are all bent over their clipboards, taking notes as the instructor speaks.
“The play dough is nontoxic, but we still don’t want anyone eating it.” Nurse Hailey smiles at us. “So feel free to shut that down right away. And if you have any trouble with the rubber-band looms, I’m pretty much an expert now. And just have fun with this. Interacting with the kids comes first. And then, when you’re feeling settled, that’s when I want you to start to check off all the observations we’ve been working on in the classroom with regard to patient assessment. Since this is a stealthy assessment, you don’t need to ask the patient any questions. But even without verbal queries, you should be able to learn things from the patient’s movements, skin tone, audible breath sounds, et cetera.”
I clutch my bag of play dough and follow the rest of the class into the big room. It looks like the set of a Nickelodeon show—bright furniture in interesting shapes, a wall painted to resemble the facade of a castle. There are tables and chairs and a TV playing an animated movie.
It’s paradise until you look a little closer. A dozen heads turn in our direction as we enter. The kids are all shapes and sizes, but my worried gaze trips over a small bald head and then another. One little girl—she’s wearing a glittery T-shirt that says Girl Power on the front—is so thin that it hurts to look at her. She smiles, though, and her front teeth are missing.
I want to bolt from the room.
My hesitation costs me. The other nursing students scatter like heat-seeking missiles. They each pick a child and sit right down to do their thing. Seconds later, they’re bonding already.
I look frantically around, but all the kids have been taken. My evil roommate smirks at me over the top of the painfully thin little girl’s head. For the last four weeks, she’s enjoyed my discomfort. Whenever I have to ask her a question—when my notes aren’t clear enough or when I just don’t understand something—it makes her entire week.
Now I’m standing here in the center of the room, uncertain. My eyes sweep one more time, finding only unaccompanied adults around the edges of the space—nurses in their bunny-rabbit pediatric scrubs and a parent or two.
And a teenager.
Oh.
She’s sitting at a table alone, stabbing angrily at her knitting. Her fingers are white sticks against the dark yarn. She’s wearing a scarf tied around her scalp, and there’s a dark circle under each of her eyes and a scowl on her face.
I wander over, feeling tentative.
“Don’t want any,” she mutters as I approach.
“Well…” I sit across the table from her anyway. “I’m here to force you to make a play dough jack-o’-lantern with me. My entire semester’s grade is riding on this, so make it good.”