Instinctively, I dropped it all and tried to jump away, but I slipped on the mess and not only wasted a whole pot of white, but I also had scalding hot candle wax on my arm and thighs.
“Ouchie, ouchie, ouchie!” I immediately started crawling away from the spill and into the kitchen. I wiped my arm on my dress as I moved, but the wax on my thighs was still burning me. Badly.
I knew it was gonna hurt, but I braced myself against the fridge and pulled off the cooling wax. But I’d waited too long and a thin layer of skin came off with it in a goopy mess on the floor. By then, I couldn’t hold back the tears of both pain and frustration.
Those were the moments when I hated doing everything by myself.
After a good cleansing cry, I considered calling one of my friends to help me deal with these burns, but I didn’t want to bother anybody. Even though any one of them would have been willing to get out of bed, pick me up, and take me to the hospital, it would be a huge disruption to their night and not fair to them at all.
For a quick second, I thought about calling for an ambulance, but that was ridiculous. My legs hurt but I could still walk and get myself into a car. I just didn’t want to try to drive by myself, so I pulled up my rideshare app and ordered an Uber.
I had three minutes to shuffle into my bedroom for my purse, step into a pair of fluffy slippers—which were not at all appropriate for going out, but I didn’t care because I was sad and they made me happy—and scooted my rump out to the street to wait for my driver.
Joanne was scheduled to pick me up one minute after I got outside. I was glad it was a woman driver because I realized after I got outside that I wasn’t exactly dressed to be out in public with a strange man. My short little dress suddenly felt even shorter, and without my leggings on, the ruffles that wrapped around my panties were pretty easy to see every time I bent over. Good thing my legs hurt too much for me to bend, and I was stiff-walking like a mummy. No one would get a glimpse of my panties tonight.
When a silver Camry pulled up in front of me, I opened the back door and poked my head inside. “Joanne?”
She looked over her shoulder. “Yeah, are you Cassie?”
“Yes. Thanks for coming so quickly.” I held my breath as I slid onto the backseat, keeping my arms and legs as stiff as possible.
Joanne turned further in her seat. “Are you doing okay?”
“Yeah, I burned myself. Just need some medicine from the doctor, and I’ll be fine.”
She looked over her shoulder and inspected my wounds. “They look pretty bad. Blisters like that take weeks to heal.”
My lower lip started to quiver, so I sucked it between my teeth and bit down on it as I nodded. “Yeah.”
She pulled away from the curb. “Well, enough of my jabber. Let’s get you to the emergency room so you can get that taken care of.”
I stared out the window and looked up as high as my eyeballs would go to try to keep any more tears from falling. It was just a few burns. Candlemakers get burned. It’s just part of the job description. That thought actually made me smile.
I was a candlemaker.
I’d finished my first paid candle and even though it cost me ten times more to make it than I was selling it for, it was valuable education on how to be more efficient next time.
I took a deep breath and summoned my big girl courage. I could do this. A few little burns weren’t gonna slow me down.
Although, I guess they sorta did.
Joanne offered to walk me inside, but her app kept dinging so I knew she had other customers waiting, so I sent her on her way. Then I wobbled my way inside those big double doors to the emergency room.
There were only a few people sitting in the waiting area, so I walked straight to the counter and explained my situation. The nice lady helped me fill out the paperwork and then told me to wait until someone came to get me for my exam.
It was almost eleven, and I was getting tired, but I had to be tough. I had to take care of myself and my injuries.
Otherwise, I had no hope of makingCassie’s Candlesa success.
Chapter 2
Dayton
“Yeah, I’ll take it.” I disconnected the call with the chief of staff and turned back around. I was literally just walking out of the hospital when I got paged because Martinez called in sick with the flu, and they needed me to cover for him. After just finishing a twelve-hour day shift, which I rarely took, taking the night shift seemed like a cakewalk. If I were lucky, I could sleep through it and get paid triple time for doing so.
Besides, working wound care was actually one of my favorite areas to cover. During the day, we got a lot of kids with scraped knees or cuts that needed stitches and a lollipop. But at night, that’s when things got interesting.
That's why I liked working the night shift.
