“Karin, listen. I think that you are a pretty talented woman, you’ve got a lot to offer someone. But I think that someone isn’t me.”
“What do you mean?” She asks, pulling her hand away.
“You know that I don’t have a lot of free time, and the time that I do have, doesn’t really mesh with what you want to do. I work a lot and that won’t change anytime soon. I feel that someone else would be a better match for you. Someone who can give you a lot more time to hang out.”
“It could be us, if you went strictly to teaching, you know.”
“That’s not why I got into medicine. I’m na ED, emergency medicine is where my heart is. I divide my time up between the two and there’s not going to be any sacrificing either one.”
“So, you’re going to sacrifice us for your job? What happens when you don’t have the job anymore?”
“I can’t see the future, but I can tell that you want more than what I can give to you. I’m sorry, but I think that we should just go our separate ways.”
She says nothing as she looks at her hands.
I stand up and wipe my hands down my jeans.
“I should hit the road, I’m sorry Karin, really, I am.” I tell her, hoping that will lessen the blow a bit. “But I wish you good luck, in whatever you do.”
I walk down the porch, and she stands up.
“Hey Rogan?” She calls while I turn around.
“Yeah?” I shove my hands in my front pockets.
“Does this have anything to do with your ex coming back into town?” She asks, placing her hands on her hips.
I wish that I could tell her that Kindra hasn’t gotten into my mind at all, maybe I don’t even want to admit it to myself. Although I’ve held a lot of disdain for her over the years, knowing new bits of information has softened my thoughts.
12
Kindra
“This is the first step to starting new. I want to warn you that I didn’t tell your father that you were joining us for dinner. So, there may be some tension.” My mother tells me as I sit down at our table in the middle of the restaurant.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I ask, taking the napkin and placing it on my lap.
“I didn’t want him to give me an excuse to stay at the office late,” she replies. “He would find any way to get out of a dinner like this. He’s set in his ways and doesn’t like confrontation anymore.”
“He can very much leave as soon as he sees me,” I say quietly.
“He’s here.” My mom stands up as I stay seated.
I turn my head and watch as my father approaches. He smiles as he sees my mother and its heart-warming, until he gets closer and sees me. His smile transforms into a straight line and I offer him an uneasy smile with a pathetic wave.
My mom pats my shoulder and then leans into my father to kiss him on the cheek.
“Hello dear,” she greets him.
“This is a surprise; you didn’t tell me that we were going to have a dinner companion. Kindra, how nice to see you again.” He nods, then takes his seat across from me.
“I wanted to surprise you.” My mother takes her seat as the buffer in between us.
A server stands at the side of the table and asks us for our drink order. Once he leaves, an uncomfortable silence falls on the three of us.
“Well, it’s nice to see you again, dad.”
“Likewise.” He replies.
“Isn’t it nice that Kindra is back home?” My mom says looking between us.
“I wouldn’t say that I’m back home. I think that the city became a home as well. I’m back in town.”
“Until you mess things up again,” dad says under his breath as my mother swats his arm.
“That part of my life is in the past, I’m a different person now.” I say, leaning forward and keeping my tone even.
“The past always comes back to haunt us, it’s just a matter of time.” He says.
“Honey, please tone yourself down,” my mother says. “A lot of time as gone by, don’t you think people change? That people get a second chance, especially your kin?”
“Why? Where has she been for the past ten years? What’s the point, a tiger cannot get rid of his stripes,”
“It’s zebra,” I say as he pierces me with a look at my correction of him.
“Both of you, let’s have an adult conversation. Can we just get to know our daughter again?”
My dad says nothing and picks up his menu.
“I’ll take that as an agree to disagree.” I mumble.
“I’ve had a long day at the office, my NP called out sick and my technician kept on making mistakes. I just want to eat, can we do that?”
“Of course.” My mother says quietly.
“I thought that you would have expanded your nursing staff, you always complained about lack of staffing,” I say.
“We lost someone to the hospital recently,” he replies, staring at his menu.
“Oh, Nurse Johns? She did mention she came from a private practice.” I say, nodding.
“You know her?” He places his menu down and finally looks at me.
“Yeah, I work at the hospital. I’m a nurse in the emergency room. Nurse Johns did a rotation with us the other night when we were dealing with traumas.”
He looks at me a little longer than before but says nothing.
“Kindra put herself through school and made it to where she is today on her own. Can you believe that?” My mother butts in.
“That’s easy to do, I basically did that myself,” my dad says not lifting his head from looking at the menu.
I ignore him and smile awkwardly at my mom.
Dinner doesn’t change my dad’s mood any, he continues with the small comments and gives me no time of day. Conversation with him was pointless, but my mom did what she could to get him involved.
At the end of the night, we all stand outside the restaurant.
“I’m glad we could be at the same table again.” My mom says, wrapping her arm through Dad's facing me.
He’s stoic, but he reaches his hand across to me.
I look at it, he wants me to shake his hand. Well, it’s better than nothing.
I place my hand in his. “Thank you for having me. It was kind of nice.”
“Take care, and I hope that you stay out of trouble. Please remember that we won’t be covering your mistakes anymore. You’re an adult and that’s not our jobs.”
“Yes, sir.” I say, because there really is nothing more to say.
I guess my father will not give me a second chance anytime soon.
I’m on my fourth drink and I’m only getting started.
I have the bartender making sure that I never have an empty glass and a clear shot to the restroom, should I need to run into there.
I’m sitting at the bar with Geri. While we grew up together on the same street, we weren’t very close. But right now, after the night I had, she is the closest thing to a friend that I’ve had in a long time. So, I rang her doorbell after leaving my parents—hoping for someone to drink with.
She’s been listening to my entire story. From running around town with Reese Dillinger and stealing the high school rival’s mascot to stealing at the mall, and then even from smoking weed and getting drunk in the vineyards. All the way up until the day that I left town. I’m not sure if I’ve even let her talk or how long we’ve been here, but I’m clearly drunk by the time a plate of french fries is placed in front of me.
I look up at the bartender and point to the plate.
“We don’t want The Gazette to leak out all the juicy things that you’re talking about over here,” he says.
“Honey, I’ve been all over that gossip rag before. It wouldn’t be recent news. Ha! New news. That just sounds silly. Where did these come from, I didn’t order them?”
“The gentleman in the back-corner booth.” He angles his head behind me and points.
I turn in my barstool to follow his direction and my coordination is a li
ttle off as Geri moves as silent and quick as a cat to make sure I stay up in my chair. With her help, I see no one sitting in the corner booth and turn the barstool again.
Only that instead of Geri, Rogan is on the other side of me and Geri is sitting next to him. How long did it take me to turn back around? Wasn’t she just basically holding me up?
“Looks like you’ve had quite the night, Nurse Mason. I hope you’re not on call or working the early shift.”
“Dinner with my parents.” I say taking a sip of my pint glass.
“Ouch.” He takes a long pull from his bottle and shakes his head while also chuckling into the mouth of the bottle.
“What are you doing here, Doctor Quinn, shouldn’t you be working tonight?” I ask.
“Do you guys remember each other?” Geri points between the two of us. “I’m mean, you’re talking super weird and calling each other by your last names. You know that you used to date, like pretty heavily, right?” she asks looking between the two of us.
“Of course, we know who each other is. It’s not like we lost our memories,” I laugh, holding my hand up for another drink.
She looks between us, “I think I’m going to leave you in the trusty hands of Rogan here. Remember, take two aspirin and drink a glass of water before going to sleep tonight.”
“Aye, aye doctor Geri!” I salute her and end up poking my eye.
Not knowing the protocol for Rogan and I sitting at a bar, clearly drinking, together. I fist the drink placed in front of me.
13
Rogan
I watched from the back of the bar for an hour. I watched her talking to the bartender, I watched her smiling, laughing, then banging her head against the bar top. I sent her french fries and then took over the space of her old neighbor, Geri, who I’ve seen from time to time over the years.
I don’t know what we were talking about, or how we ended up at my house though.
But here we are.
In my bed. Naked. Together.
I’m pretty sure that we slept together in the biblical sense, and that it was more than once, at least that’s what the discarded condom wrappers are telling me from the floor beside the bed.
I pull myself up, my brain rattling against my skull with the movement as I can taste the mixture of saliva, sex, and cat shit in my mouth. I slowly move to the bathroom with my hand grazing the wall the entire time. I brush my teeth, piss, then return to my bed. Kindra’s bare back faces me, with a tattoo of what looks to be a large red and black shattered heart in the center of her back. Her long honey colored hair is all over my spare pillow and her mouth is wide open, drooling on it as well.
What the hell happened last night!
How did we end up here?
Why did we end up here?
She rustles and moves from her side to her back, baring her beautiful breasts. My mouth waters and I fight the urge to bend and take her nipple into my mouth. Blame it on still being drunk, and I know that would be a stupid move. It would open a can of worms that I really shouldn’t open.
Hell, I just broke up with Karin.
With her parting question being if it was because of Kindra. I’m hoping The Gazette doesn’t say anything about us being in the bar or leaving together.
She stretches and opens her eyes while yawning. Once she realizes that she’s bare-chested, she pulls the covers up, and her eyes go wide.
“Um, hi,” she says.
“Morning,” I return.
“How did we end up here?” She asks clutching to the bedsheet.
“Alcohol.” I say.
“Did we?” she looks around, avoiding my gaze.
“Yes.”
She sits up and looks around. “Nice room.”
“Thanks. Where are my clothes?” I ask myself. “Listen, last night shouldn’t have happened. We shouldn’t have… done what we did.” I stand up and walk buck naked to my closet and grab a pair of shorts.
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Her tone deflates.
“There’s just so much shit between us, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“If I didn’t monumentally fuck that up, you never know, we could still be together if I didn’t run at the first chance.”
I ignore her comment and grab one of my shirts and a pair of sweats and toss them at her.
“Until we find your clothes, put these on, please? I’ll be in the other room.” I say, stepping out to give her privacy. I need to not be in the same room as her. I recall moments of last night and being so near to her is making my head spin.
I’m standing in the kitchen chasing aspirin with ice water when she comes in.
I slide the bottle of pills to her and get her some water as well. I found her clothes in the living room and motion to them on the counter in front of her.
“Thanks.” She says opening the bottle first.
It’s a flashback seeing her in my clothes. When she was seven months pregnant, she would always wear my t-shirts, it was my favorite look on her. I shake my head and try to clear my thoughts.
“Look, last night was a mistake,” I begin.
“You’ve already said that,” she responds dryly.
“What? You don’t think so?” I curiously ask.
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” she whispers and then turns around with the clothes in her arms as she leaves.
The ER has been busy all night, at one point there were no empty beds, and I was wondering if there was some huge outbreak of stupid happening in town because this was a rare occurrence. But it only appeared to be a nasty form of food poisoning from one of the restaurants in town because of a bad produce delivery and then things thankfully slowed down.
Kindra and I haven’t spoken about the other night, and she’s been a little stand-offish each time we’ve come into contact tonight during our shift together.
I haven’t been able to get her off of my mind, and it’s taking every ounce of me to try to ignore that need. We opened up the gates to one another. And it’s almost like I’m back to being addicted to her.
As much as I’ve been trying to ignore her and treat her just as I would another co-worker, I remember briefly how it is to have her in my arms again, how beautiful she looked in my shirt again, and how her body felt under mine.
It felt like coming home, like a part of me has been missing and was now reconnected.
I wasn’t wasted when I approached her at the bar, but by the end of the night, I was as I recall matching her drink for drink. I only know that we got to my place by the charges in my bank account.
From across the room, I observe her as she’s sitting in a corner, clearly typing notes in a patient’s chart by the look of determination on her face. She looks focused and continues to look between her notepad and her tablet screen. She looks up and catches me watching her, smiles, then returns to her work as if it was nothing.
This isn’t the same Kindra that I knew back when we were kids. A hint of who she was still is within her, but as expected when time goes on, she has changed.
Just as I have changed, she has too, and I should consider that. We were good together once, regardless of our age and how destructive we were as a couple, even as individuals. Sure, she hid something important from me. She lost just as much as I did and had to live all these years with the pain and loss of a child. While I thought there was a child out there, she’s known this whole time, that because of the mistakes of our night out partying, there was no longer a child.
I just need to have an honest conversation with her.
Get some real answers, and maybe some closure to move forward.
14
Kindra
My knee is bouncing with nerves as I look around Nosh and feel underdressed as I sit in my seat wearing a flowy skirt and a solid-colored tank top to match. Around me are small tables and couples enjoying their night out. I stand as soon as Rogan enters and begins walking toward me.
Nervous energy fills my body the closer he gets, then
as he stands in front of me—I’ve lost all the function of putting words together and stringing sentences together.
“Hey there,” Rogan says, leaning in and giving me a side hug.
“Hey,” I return.
“Sorry I’m late, I had a phone consult that ran a little later than expected. Thanks though, for agreeing to meet tonight.”
“It’s alright, it’s given me a chance to scope out the joint, you know, look for weak points and escape routes.” I smirk.
“It’s been a minute since I’ve dined and dashed.” He returns with a devilish smile of his own that makes my stomach do flips.
“Of course, you’re an upstanding citizen now. If you got caught dashing, I’m pretty sure that would be all over The Gazette in a second.” I laugh.
“Same can be said for you. Look at us, the two biggest troublemakers in our senior class have done a complete one-eighty. It would be a pretty incredible VH-1 Where Are They Now story.”
“Oh man, I remember binging on those shows while studying. It was always on repeat, I’m pretty sure that I’ve seen every single episode that they made.”
“Speaking of which, how did you end up with nursing?” he asks.
“I wanted to do good, after everything,” I say simply. “What about you? I don’t recall being a doctor as part of your life plan.”
He takes a deep breath, looks a little nervous as he shifts in his seat and then looks me straight in the eye.
“I had a pretty hard time after the accident, and I’m not saying that to hurt you, it is what it is. Your leaving did a number on me, but that’s not all it was. I had physical therapy and a psychiatrist that I was seeing pretty regularly. I came out of it all, pretty damn grateful, and because of that I pretty much went to school twenty-four seven. I basically just finished my residency right before you came back to town.”
“Ah, so you haven’t been this super distinguished doctor this whole time that I’ve been gone?”
Heartburn: An Everyday Heroes World Novel (The Everyday Heroes World) Page 5
