Someone Special

by Teresa Roman

  “No! That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Then what are you saying?”

  “Let’s just be real here, Dawn. If he was a smart guy, he’d be a lawyer or a doctor, not a cop,” Eric said. “I know you only started dating him because of the way things turned out between us, which believe me, I feel bad about. But it turns out I made a big mistake getting back with Natalie, so I guess the joke’s on me.”

  I couldn’t believe he was going there again after I’d already told him that it was too late for us. Did he really think I’d still be pining over him after the way he’d dumped me? “Actually, I think it was one of the best things you’ve ever done,” I said, fuming. I had so much I wanted to say, but the hospital was not the place to say it, so without another word, I walked past Eric and out of the supply room, letting the door slam shut behind me.

  Thankfully, I was due to take my break, so after I finished setting up the laceration tray for Eric’s patient, I escaped into the break room, where I found Tracey drinking a cup of coffee.

  “You will not believe what Eric just said to me,” I said.

  “What?”

  I repeated the conversation I’d just had with him, and when I was done, Tracey tilted her head to the side and gave me one of those funny looks of hers. “Don’t tell me you don’t see it.”

  “See what?”

  “That Eric is finally realizing he ditched you for the wrong woman. He wants another chance.”

  “I know that. What I don’t get is why he thinks I’d ever be that stupid again.”

  “He’s a rich, good-looking doctor who’s probably not used to getting turned down.”

  “He knows I’m dating Jude.”

  “Well, let’s face it, a cop is never going to make the kind of money a doctor does,” Tracey said. “I’m betting that Eric’s kind of hoping you decide he’s a better option than Jude.”

  I couldn’t deny that a part of me was flattered at the idea that Eric had realized he’d made a big mistake when he dumped me for his ex-girlfriend. But even though he was handsome and successful, there were more important things. “Seriously, Tracey? You know me better than that. Back when I had my stupid crush on Eric, it wasn’t because of what he did for a living. And I’m sorry, I can’t just get over what Eric did to me. Once an asshole, always an asshole. You’re the one who taught me that.”

  Tracey got up, wrapped her arm over my shoulder and smiled. “Good. That’s what I was hoping you were going to say.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “So you were just messing with me?”

  She nodded. “Eric wishes he was half the man Jude is.”

  Although I had no inclination whatsoever of restarting a relationship with Eric, I couldn’t keep myself from wondering what my life would be like now if Eric and his ex hadn’t gotten back together last Christmas. We both worked in the medical profession, but other than that we really didn’t have a lot in common. Would the two of us have worked out, or would I have gotten tired of Eric? I’d never know, and truthfully, I didn’t care, because I was happier now than I’d been in a long time, and I wasn’t about to let Eric or anything else come between me and Jude.

  Chapter 22

  I thought I’d wind up staying angry with Eric forever, but the next morning I came into work to find a cup of coffee and a card from him waiting for me in the break room.

  Sorry for being such an idiot yesterday.

  I miss our friendship and could kick myself for messing it up.

  Sincerely, Eric

  I sighed deeply. Jude or not, I also missed being friends with Eric. Before that stupid Christmas party, working with him had been fun. In hindsight, I realized he wasn’t the perfect

  man I’d made him out to be in my head. He could be short-tempered at times and condescending, too, but he could also be funny, encouraging, and yes, despite everything, a friend.

  I didn’t say much to him that day, preferring to let things blow over naturally with time, and without a lot of discussion.

  Gradually the frost between us began to thaw. It made work a more pleasant place to be, except for those instances when Jude was around. Jude and Eric just plain did not like each other. When the two of them were in the same general vicinity, I could feel tension in the air. I didn’t say anything about it, though, hoping that eventually it would go away, that Eric would believe I had truly moved on and had no interest in him, and Jude would trust me enough not to be jealous and know that I was his and only his.

  But little fights started cropping up between Jude and me. I hadn’t done much hanging out with the ER crew since Jude and I started dating, but Tracey and some of my other nurse friends kept insisting that we all go out for another girls’ night after work. It wasn’t until Tracey pressed the issue and told me that I’d regret neglecting my friends that I finally agreed. “No slipping back into bad habits,” she’d said, reminding me of Nick without actually mentioning his name. Realizing she was right, I finally agreed. When I let Jude know, he wasn’t happy.

  “I’m not saying I don’t want you hanging out with your friends, but does it have to be on a Friday night?”

  “What’s so special about Fridays?”

  “Fridays are date nights.”

  “Yeah, for people who work regular hours, but we don’t,” I reminded him.

  “Why do you all of a sudden want to go out with your girlfriends instead of me?”

  “It’s not all of a sudden. They’ve been asking for a while, and I’ve been telling them no,” I said. “Look, I don’t want to be one of those women who forgets about her friends just because she has a boyfriend.”

  “Will that asshole doctor be there?”

  “What asshole doctor?”

  “You know who I mean. Dr. Kennedy.”

  “It’s a girls’ night out,” I said. “So no, he won’t be there.”

  “How long will you be gone?”

  I gave him an exasperated look. “We talked about this before. You promised me you wouldn’t be like this.”

  Jude’s expression softened. Reaching around me, he pulled me closer and kissed the top of my head. “I know, I know. But I’m still going to miss you.”

  “We’ll see each other the day after.”

  “You’re right,” he said with a forced smile. “Go. I want you to have fun. You deserve it.”

  I tried not to feel guilty a few days later when, as planned, my girlfriends and I headed out after work to a small bar where we could order drinks and appetizers. Jude’s clinginess became one of the main topics of discussion.

  “You’ve got to nip that shit in the bud,” Liz said. “If you don’t, he’s only going to get worse, not better.”

  “That’s right,” Hannah added. “There’s nothing worse than a jealous, insecure boyfriend.”

  “He’s mostly only jealous when he sees me and Eric talking.”

  “You didn’t tell Jude that you used to have a crush on him, did you?” Maria asked.

  “No! Of course not.”

  “Guys are like bloodhounds,” Tracey said. “They can sniff out when another guy is interested in their girl.”

  “Eric is not interested in me.”

  Hannah let out an exaggerated cough. I frowned at her.

  “What? I didn’t say anything.”

  “Then why the cough?”

  “Let’s just put it this way,” Maria said, jumping in to answer the question for Hannah. “Eric treats you a lot different than he does the rest of us nurses.”

  “But there’s nothing going on between me and Eric, so there’s no reason for Jude to be jealous.”

  “You know that, and I know that, but clearly your boyfriend doesn’t,” Liz said before downing another shot of tequila.

  “Oh come on, you guys. Don’t you think you’re being a bit overdramatic?” Tracey said. She was the only person who knew what had gone down between Nick and me so she knew how sensitive I was about this issue.

  “Not to change the subject or
anything,” I said, suddenly feeling uncomfortable with where our conversation was headed. I glanced at Tracey. “but Jude told me you and Officer Gunn have gone out on a couple of dates. How come you didn’t tell me?”

  Tracey’s face turned red. “I guess I just didn’t want to jinx things,” she said. “You were right about Frank. He’s a nice guy.”

  “And gorgeous,” Liz chimed in.

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  As the night wore on, I kept thinking about what my friends had said about Jude’s possessiveness. They were at least partly right, which meant I needed to have a talk with Jude before things got worse. The only problem was I had no idea how to bring it up without sparking a fight. But that fear was how things between Nick and I had gotten out of hand. I never complained when he told me what to do and I never fought back when he disrespected me because I hated arguing.

  The next day, when Jude peppered me with questions about our girls’ night, I should’ve told him to stop—that he didn’t need to ask me if some guy had tried to buy me a drink or slip me his number—because I was his. It was the perfect opportunity to bring up a problem that seemed to be getting bigger and bigger by the day, but instead, I chose to ignore it, convincing myself that it would go away on its own.

  Chapter 23

  As July rolled around, the days got longer and hotter and the ER busier as tourists swelled LA’s already massive population. Both Jude and I were working more shifts than usual, including the crazy July 4th weekend, to cover for co-workers who were taking summer vacations with their families.

  July 4th was always a crazy day in the ER, and every year I regretted agreeing to work on it, but I was terrible at saying no to my supervisor, and the extra holiday pay was hard to turn down. The morning started out slow and quiet, but as the day wore on, more and more patients crowded into the waiting room. We quickly ran out of beds and then had to put patients on gurneys in the hallway.

  Just after I came back from my lunch break, the triage nurse wheeled back a man whose hand was covered in gauze. He rocked back and forth in a wheelchair, groaning, his face twisted into a pained expression. It didn’t take more than a second for me to figure out what was wrong with him. Blood soaked the gauze. This happened every year—fireworks injuries.

  A more stable patient had to be moved into the hallway to make room for the man with the hand injury. I helped the triage nurse, Troy, get him on the gurney. The glance he gave me before giving me report told me that the patient’s hand was not in good condition.

  “A firework exploded in his hand,” he said. “No other injuries. He’s got a penicillin allergy and a history of hypertension and diabetes.”

  After Troy left, I helped my patient into a gown and then got an IV started. Eric walked into the room and started talking to him as he unwrapped the gauze from his hand. It looked awful. I wasn’t even sure how much of his hand could be saved.

  “Can you get him six of morphine and four of Zofran?” Eric said to me.

  “Sure.” I headed straight to the medication room, anxious to do whatever I could to help manage the patient’s pain. I knew he had to be miserable. I returned to find that my patient had fallen into full-on panic mode at the sight of his hand, which was currently being irrigated with saline by one of the ER techs. With the blood being washed away, it was easier to get an idea of how extensive the damage was.

  “Am I going to lose my hand?” he asked with a look of horror in his eyes as I administered his medication.

  I didn’t want to lie to him and tell him everything would be fine when I wasn’t sure it would be, so instead I said, “The doctors here will do everything they can to fix your hand.”

  An X-ray tech showed up a moment later with his giant portable machine. He glanced at the patient’s hand and widened his eyes. His expression quickly returned to normal, knowing that his reaction would only feed the patient’s fear.

  After the X-rays were in, Eric decided we had no choice but to have the patient transferred to another hospital. We had a hand specialist on call, but Eric said that he’d claimed he couldn’t handle that complex of a case. While we waited for transport to arrive, Eric re-bandaged the patient’s hand, and I hung an antibiotic drip and gave him medicine for anxiety through his IV.

  By the time transport arrived, so had the patient’s family, who were beside themselves with worry. Eric and I did our best to reassure them without promising anything we had no business promising. After the patient and his family were on their way to the hospital he’d been transferred to, I walked over to the nurses’ station and rested my elbows on the counter.

  “They really need to ban firecrackers,” I said to Hannah, who was sitting down in front of a computer. “I’m sick of seeing people with their hands blown off every 4th of July.”

  She frowned. “People would still find a way to get them.”

  Eric walked over to us, stopping beside me to give me an encouraging pat on my back. “You did a good job calming that guy down,” he said.

  I shook my head. “He’s going to lose that hand, isn’t he?”

  “I’m not a hand surgeon, but I’m guessing yeah.”

  “I feel so bad for him.”

  “You look tense,” he said. “You have to learn how to let stuff like this go. We do our best here, but we can’t fix everything.”

  “His wife said he works in construction. How’s he going to do that with one hand?”

  Eric moved behind me and started rubbing my shoulders. I should’ve told him to stop, but it felt good as his hands eased the knots of tension out of my back. My co-workers and I gave each other back rubs all the time. As a matter of fact, Tracey was an expert at them. It really was no big deal.

  “Does that feel good?” Eric asked.

  “Yes, it does.” My eyes fluttered shut for a second. I relaxed and tuned out the noise around me. Which meant that I didn’t hear when the ambulance doors slid open. “That’s good, thank you,” I said after another minute, glad for the brief moment of relief.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jude and his partner walking toward the nurses’ station a man in handcuffs between them. Jude’s eyes flashed with pure anger. I realized then that he’d probably witnessed the quick shoulder rub Eric had given me, which meant I’d hear about it later. Jude did not return the quick wave I gave him, confirming my suspicion that he was indeed angry with me. I scurried off, worried that on his way out he’d say something about Eric to me, and I didn’t want to argue with him in front of my co-workers.

  “Take him down to the psych room,” I heard Hannah telling Jude and Frank as I ducked into one of my patients’ cubicles.

  I waited until I was sure Jude left before returning to the nurses’ station.

  “What’s wrong with your boyfriend?” Eric asked. “You guys fighting?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “He seemed mad.”

  I resented the hopeful tone in Eric’s voice and wondered if he had somehow set up the whole thing. Maybe he knew the police were on their way with a patient and had offered the massage hoping Jude would catch him with his hands on my shoulders. “He’s a cop. He supposed to look serious,” I said, knowing that wasn’t it at all, and that the two of us were headed for an argument later that day.

  Between the craziness of the day and worrying about what Jude was going to say to me later, by the time I clocked out, I was completely drained.

  We didn’t have plans to meet later since we both had to work the next day, but I fully expected a call from Jude after I got off so that he could give me a piece of his mind.

  Instead, he stood waiting for me by the door to my apartment.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Is me being here a problem?” he said, his voice terse. “Did you have plans with someone else?”

  “Someone else like who?” I asked, bracing myself for the heated discussion we were about to have.

  I unlocked the door
to my apartment, and Jude followed me inside.

  “Like Dr. Kennedy,” he said, closing the door behind him.

  “How many times do I have to tell you that Dr. Kennedy is just a co-worker?”

  “Co-workers don’t have their hands all over each other,” Jude replied, his voice raised.

  “Are you kidding me? We did not have our hands all over each other. He gave me like a one-minute shoulder rub because I was stressed out after a difficult patient, that’s all.”

  “Bullshit. That guy likes you, and we both know it. Which means he has no business putting his hands on you.”

  My face flushed. “Would you stop treating me like I’m your property?”

  “You’re my girlfriend.”

  “Being your girlfriend doesn’t mean you own me.”

  “So what are you saying, that you can do whatever you want and let any guy touch you and flirt with you and I’m supposed to be okay with that?”

  “Oh my God.” I flopped down onto the couch. “That’s not at all what I’m saying. I just want you to stop being so jealous and over-protective all the time. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself. And you’re supposed to trust me and know that I would never cheat on you.”

  “How am I supposed to just know that? People cheat all the time.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m going to,” I said, my temper flaring at Jude’s suggestion.

  “And why wouldn’t you? It’s not like you’re in love with me or anything.”

  He was trying to bait me into saying the words, but now was not the right time for that, not when we were both so angry. “Is that really what you think?” I glared at him. His words had pushed me over the edge and I’d lost control of my temper. “A co-worker gives me one stupid thirty-second shoulder rub, so you decide the best way to handle it is to come over here and accuse me of cheating.”

  “I didn’t accuse you.”

  Our voices had gotten so loud that I was sure my neighbors could hear, which only made me angrier. I hated arguments and making scenes.

  “You know what? I’m done. I’ve had enough of this conversation.” I got up, walked over to the door and opened it.