Three Gray Dots

by K. L Randis

  She nodded, so I continued.

  “Dylan and I broke up a while back. Then we got back together, only to break up again a year ago. He wants to be there for Boston but I told him it wasn’t a good idea, I don’t particularly want him there because we’re always a mess. Then there’s Jackson, just waving in the wind waiting for me to let my guard down, so I feel like I’m losing him too. Meg is busy with her own life and she pretends to not be falling apart for Phoenix’s sake and I’m swamped with work too. I’m just feel like I’m losing a grasp on it all, even you.”

  Mom wiped the tears trickling down my right cheek. “You can’t lose something that won’t let go. I’ll sit here with you.” She squeezed my hand.

  “I haven’t seen you in so long, I miss you,” I confessed. I was referring to the long conversations we would have in her kitchen or on the phone when I was crying in my dorm room over the stress of graduating.

  “Hmmm,” she said, agreeing. “I’m here, even if it’s just to remind you of who you are from time to time.”

  “Who am I?” I asked

  She smiled. “I know who you are, my heart says so.”

  ***

  I was a hypocrite driving home, squinting at blurred signs and cars through a windshield of tears. Even though I had told Meg countless times to pull over when she was upset over whatever current breakup or life mishap that was spiraling out of control, I didn’t realize how cathartic it could be to physically transport yourself away from the thing that was hurting your heart the most.

  The box from Jackson skidded across my kitchen counter, car keys following, as I beelined for the bathroom to take a scalding shower.

  The only thing that flowed harder than tears from love lost was a shower, it was designed to hide heartache.

  Sitting on the floor of the shower I traced beads of water with my eyes, my back against the wall and knees clutched to my chest. Each droplet articulately navigated down, collecting in size as it passed others nearby until it was so swollen it crazily ping-ponged down the length of the surface to the shower floor. I watched them for what seemed like hours, slowing my breath and contributing sporadic droplets from my face to the parade of water flowing down the drain.

  It washed away, all of it. So I took a breath and nodded as I grabbed a towel and wrapped my shoulders, satisfied that the heaviness of the afternoon was gone.

  Chapter Eight

  I pushed the mute button on my phone for the hundredth time. I was on the phone with Dylan and he was insisting on showing up to support me at the Boston Marathon. I was having a hard time finding the words to tell him I didn’t want him to be there without sounding like a complete jerk.

  “It’s not a good idea,” I repeated. “Plus, I know you’re busy that weekend, you already told me that. You have other things to worry about.”

  “I’m not busy, Pip, I can make the time if I want to. Why are you pushing back so hard on this? Any other time I would have told you I wanted to be there you’d have jumped at the chance, now you suddenly don’t care?”

  “It’s not that I don’t care,” I said. “I just want to be able to focus on the race and it’ll be harder to do that with you there.”

  “I mess up your thinking like that?” he teased into the phone.

  Dylan and I were like fire and gasoline. We had dated for so long during and after college that we fought more like brother and sister than we did ex-lovers. We had a hairy and twisted past, making decisions about our relationship based on obligation and impulse. He pushed and I pulled, I jumped and he sank. We were on a rollercoaster that led us through opposite universes from the start but every once in a while our tracks would overlap and we’d come crashing into each other like the world was ours for the taking. It was toxic but beautiful; we needed each other but thrived when we were apart at the same time.

  “You know what I mean, Dylan.”

  “Say you want me there.”

  “I don’t.”

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with your running buddy, does it?” he asked, lowering his tone to a judgmental level.

  “What does that have to do with anything?” I asked, getting defensive. “I’m allowed to say I don’t want you there, Dylan.”

  “Just say you do anyway. I won’t go if you really don’t want me to but at least say you do so I can sleep tonight with a smile on my face.”

  I sighed, my phone suddenly vibrating. I pulled it away from my ear long enough to see it was a text from my co-worker Lisa. I minimized the call, keeping Dylan in suspense as I checked the message:

  Thought you should know. Jackson was just admitted again. It’s bad. Get here as soon as you can.

  My heart dropped. “Dylan I need to go.”

  “Why can’t you just answer me?”

  “It’s a work emergency, need to go. Sorry.” I hung up and grabbed my car keys off of the counter, frantically searching for my sneakers.

  ***

  “What’s wrong?” I said, breathless from running up four flights of stairs. “What happened?”

  “It’s bad,” Lisa said, shaking her head as I approached her.

  “I’ll say it’s bad,” Moe chimed in, rounding the corner. “Who dressed you today Pip, or is wearing two different shoes the thing to do nowadays?”

  I glanced at my feet, dismissing the two different shoes I had thrown on in my rush to leave the house. “Seriously Lisa, what happened?”

  “You know I can’t tell you,” she said, biting her lip. “You’re not on his contact list and you’re not family. It was risky to even tell you he was admitted in the first place but I didn’t know what to do. He was calling out for you in his sleep, thank goodness boss lady wasn’t in the room, there’s not many Pippas floating around this city so I’m sure she would have put two and two together, especially after looking at his past charts and who had signed some of them.”

  “Two and two makes four,” Moe said, grinning.

  “Shut up, Moe.” I said, directing my anger at him.

  His smile faded and I put my hand up in frustration. “I’m sorry. It’s not you, it’s…”

  “No I get it, it’s okay,” he replied. “Let me know if you need anything, I need to do my rounds.” Moe grabbed a nearby clipboard, maneuvering his way around a crash cart.

  “What do you mean when he wakes up again? Did they have to put him under? What is he on?”

  “I can’t…”

  “Lisa I know you can’t but it’s me, not just any other co-worker. That’s why you know about Jackson in the first place and I know it’s why you called me.”

  She nodded, looking uneasy as she glanced down the hall.

  “Okay let’s role play,” I said. “Pretend you’re looking for advice on your next course of action and need to roll things off of me to decide. Co-worker to co-worker.”

  She bit her bottom lip and looked down the hallway once more to make sure no one else was in earshot. “Promise not to out me?”

  “Never in a million years,” I said, making an X over my heart.

  “He came in displaying signs of severe psychosis, really irritable and upset. They couldn’t even get his last name before be became hostile with an attending and we had to sedate him.”

  “How long ago?”

  Lisa sighed and looked away.

  “Tell me!”

  “Okay! Last night.”

  “Last night?! He was admitted last night and you just NOW…” I trailed off, trying to keep my voice lowered to prevent people from looking in our direction. “Never mind. Did he wake up? What did he say?”

  “For a little while yes, but he was displaying severe hyperarousal symptoms so we had to put him back under, for his safety and ours.”

  My phone vibrated in my pocket before I could ask any more questions.

  “I have to run,” Lisa said, grabbing a chart nearby. “Promise me you won’t go in there, Pip. I can’t lose my job, I just wanted you to know he was here and he was safe. He’ll only be here an
other twenty-four hours at most, so I’ll stay on it and make sure no other nurses who know you well have a chance to get near him.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said, drumming my fingertips together in front of me while I compiled a list in my head. “Make his room as dark as you can, he doesn’t respond well to light when he’s having an episode. Turn the air up, even though it’ll feel too cold for you there’s something about the temperature change that helps bring him down. Oh, and don’t let them put rice on his tray for any meals, got it? The last time he was hospitalized he had tried wrapping a cord around his neck after they served him rice that night.” I swallowed, grateful that I had walked into his room that day before it escalated. He barely had time to react when I issued a distress call and went against all hospital policies by attempting to contain him on my own. I was able to remove the cord from his neck and wrap my arms tightly around his torso. Had he not been medicated I would have sustained devastating injuries, I was sure of it. He could have swung me around like a ragdoll. Instead he let me hold onto him, rocking him back and forth, whispering in his ear, ‘Do the hard thing. Do the hard thing and stay with me, Jackson.’

  “He can’t find out I work at this hospital and I was never here,” I said sternly, gazing down the hallway, grateful that I didn’t know his room number so I didn’t run to him. “Especially if he’s already set off, I don’t want him getting worse.” I fumbled for my phone, scanning the screen. “Luckily today and tomorrow are my days off anyway, so I’ll stay far away, I promise.”

  She nodded, pressing her lips together in agreement. “I’ll let you know if anything changes…co-worker to co-worker. Got to run Pip, hang in there.”

  I nodded, exhaling as I answered the phone that had started vibrating in my hand and watching Lisa walk in the opposite direction. I was on autopilot, not bothering to look at who was calling. “Yeah?” I said.

  “Hi friend, why the robotic tone? You miss me that much that your life is falling apart without me? I knew it. Wanna drink wine tonight?”

  “Meg,” I said, not knowing what else to say. She recognized the tone in my voice almost immediately.

  “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

  “I’m at the hospital.”

  “Did you get hit by a car when you were running? I can be there in two minutes, I’m on my way.”

  “No, Meg. It’s Jackson.”

  “Jackson got hit by a car? Whoa, did he jump in front of a car for you? Did he sacrifice himself? Damn, I need a man like that.”

  While it was a much needed break in the ice, I didn’t have time to explain. “I’ll call you in a bit, okay? I’m fine. I’ll call you, promise.”

  I hung up and glanced down the hallway to see if Lisa or Moe were in sight. They weren’t, so I sauntered over to the nurse’s station to see if I could find out any more information.

  Becca was working behind the desk, hastily typing and pushing her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose every five seconds.

  “Hey Bec,” I said, vying for small talk. “Busy?

  “Mmmmm,” she said, not looking up.

  “Heard it’s crazy here today, someone came in extra hostile, what happened?”

  “Yeahhhh,” she said slowly, typing away. “Yep, he came in here last night and…” she trailed off when she looked up at me. “Hey where are your scrubs? Are you picking up an extra shift or something?”

  I blinked. “Not really, just… you know, just waiting for Lisa to get a break so we can go grab a bite.”

  Becca nodded and turned back to her monitor. “Yeah, good luck with that, we’ve been swamped all day. Ask her about how crazy last night was when you see her, it was her patient anyway.”

  The conversation was dead in the water before it started to I tapped the desk with my finger and pretended to check my phone. “Yeah, so I heard. I wonder where they put him,” I questioned out loud. “Hopefully not on any of the new nurses routes, not sure they could handle it.”

  “One-thirty-five,” she said without looking up. “He’s a wild one, a Desperate for sure,” she said, referring to our unconventional way of categorizing patients as they were admitted.

  “He is not,” I said, too quickly.

  Becca looked up, narrowing her eyes. “Wait, how do you—”

  “I mean, he doesn’t sound like a Desperate from what everyone has been saying. Maybe a Sad, who knows. I’m sure Lisa knows best since he’s her patient.”

  Becca nodded, her eyes transfixed on mine.

  “Anyway, I’m going to go see if I can track down Lisa. See ya around.” I didn’t wait for her to respond. Instead I turned to duck down the adjacent hallway, so quickly that I almost butted heads with Meg as she rounded the corner.

  “Whoa! Watch where you’re— Oh! Pip! Are you okay? What happened?”

  “What are you…wait, how did you get here so fast? Did you teleport here?”

  “You answer the phone with dead-voice and say you’re in the hospital with Jackson and expect me not to show up? What kind of friend am I?”

  “The unpredictable kind,” I said, moving her to a quiet end of the hallway. “The best kind, really. But I’m not really here with Jackson.”

  “Mmmm hmmm okay. Well, we can discuss your commitment issues later, what room is he in?”

  “One-thirty-five” I repeated, without thinking. “Oh no, but Meg we can’t—”

  “Let’s go see Mr. Invincible then,” she said, starting down the hallway, taking my hand in her grip.

  “No, Meg, you don’t understand. I can’t go in there.”

  “Yes you can. Put your big girl pants on and go hold his hand. He jumped in front of a car for you for goodness sake. Do you need him to hold a sign above his head that says he loves you for you to stop being so thick or will a postcard suffice?”

  “He didn’t get hit by a car and wait—” I spun Meg around. “He said he loves me? When?”

  Meg brought her eyebrows together and opened her mouth so the tip of her tongue was ever so slightly visible. “I’m looking at you like this because you’re either ignorant or truly that dense. Sad, really,” she said, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “I always thought you to be the smarter of us two. I’m okay with being the smart one, in case you’re wondering. Jackson doesn’t have to say anything, Pippa. I haven’t seen you much since you both started training but I get it, it’s new and more fun than spending the day at the library with me and Phoenix. So, let’s go.”

  “I really can’t go in there. Let’s go grab some lunch and we can talk about it.”

  “Nothing to talk about, you can go in there Pip. You just push the door open and say—”

  “Hi, I’m Pippa, I wasn’t supposed to be in your room but you accidentally became my patient when I had to check in on you for a co-worker and—you don’t remember this— but I watched you fall apart for days before your discharge and you were so hopped up on drugs and emotions that you don’t even remember meeting me?” I gushed.

  Meg’s mouth gaped to dangerous levels. She rarely didn’t know what to say, and I braced myself for impact. “No…” she said slowly, her eyes blank. “You most definitely don’t want to tell him that.”

  I shifted my weight, aware of the tension that surrounded us in that moment.

  She continued. “You mean to tell me that Jackson is patient two-thirty-three from a few weeks ago, but that your boss still thinks it’s an issue for you to see him? How does that violate any ethics? He just walked into your life one day out on the beach and—” the sudden gasp from her throat let me know she finally put the dots together. “Pippa! You told me he met you out on the beach that day and that it was random but he doesn’t know, does he? How have you not told him yet? Are you hiding it from him? Does he think you guys met on the beach that day for the first time? How can he really not remember you being in his room at the hospital?”

  She was speaking a mile a minute. Trembling, I nodded my head to confirm her accusations.

&nb
sp; Meg’s eyes darkened. “I can’t believe you would do that to him,” she whispered. “I can’t believe you’d witness the most vulnerable part of him and go on pretending like it doesn’t exist…for your own agenda.”

  “I didn’t have an agenda!” I shot back.

  “You never do, you medical people. There’s never any room for anything but your own opinions.”

  “Meg!”

  She turned her body away from me, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Jackson deserves better than that, just like my sister did. Cheryl told her doctors that she it was like walking over broken glass just to keep breathing everyday and they did nothing.”

  “Meg,” I said, my heart thudding against my chest. “I’m so sorry they didn’t treat Cheryl the way they should have when she came home. We’ve made so much progress since then, you know that’s why I changed specialties after she died.”

  “Good for you for switching to the mental health unit here, but Cheryl didn’t die, they killed her,” Meg said, heading toward the elevators.

  I trailed her, trying to keep up with her stride.

  “I should have known that’s why you were keeping him at an arm’s length, why you were so closed off to him and starting to shut me out,” she said. “You two spent a few weeks in your own little world, locking everyone out so you could keep your secret. Don’t you feel guilty about canceling plans with me and—”

  “Meg, don’t, it’s complicated.”

  “It’s really very simple,” she said, pinching her pointer and middle fingers against her thumb to drive home her point. He was your patient-turned-love-interest and your own pride couldn’t let you push past that to tell him the truth.”

  “That’s not fair. I couldn’t, my job—”

  “What you’re doing is not fair. He deserves to know. Are you running together for training or therapy sessions? Don’t you think he should choose whether or not to keep this thing going? It’s not okay, and you need to tell him.” She walked into the elevator, pushing the lobby button. “Tell him, or next time I see him, I will.”