Justine
For most of the world, it was a day to unwind and mentally prepare for the week ahead.
For me, it was the last shift of the week. Sundays did not mark the beginning of the week so much as they did the end. Though I had made it as a doctor, I hadn’t quite gotten the right to have weekends off. “Perks” of being a younger doctor, I suppose. In any case, though, now that this time had arrived, it was time for me to relax.
And what better way, I figured, that by spending time with my best friends, Tara and Elizabeth Rogers and Katie Lane—a girl that could pry out any juice of gossip from even the driest person imaginable. Me.
Whenever we came to these girls’ nights out, the story was always the same. Tara and Elizabeth would have something about either work or their relationships with Brock and Steele, respectively. Katie would share multiple stories about the store, to the point that we would—half-seriously—suggest she get a reality TV show for it. And I would just sit there, nod silently, and say that there wasn’t anything going on.
Generally, it worked. Katie would tell me I needed to lead a more interesting life, I’d say the medical system needed to let me have a more interesting life, and then she’d move on to something else, maybe something about the sex she and Connor were having. She wasn’t very shy, to say the least.
But after this week, well, who the hell knew what would be happening?
As I walked into Tara’s apartment—not far at all, in fact, from the bombing that still seemed to grab the headlines of the news—I noticed an unusual mood permeating the air. Quiet unease.
Even Katie did not seem to be talking much. Tara and Elizabeth were sitting on the couch, fuller-than-usual glasses of wine in their slightly shaking hands. They looked straight ahead, not so much at something specific as at a general, vague future that didn’t look very happy or promising.
“What’s going on?” I said with a bit of nervousness. If I was the one asking questions and trying to poke and prod, that was a bad sign.
“I was just asking the Rogers girls here if their men were concerned about what happened,” Katie said.
She tried to say it in her usual “lead-on” tone, the kind of tone a news anchor might take leading into a commercial. But even Katie Lane was sounding nervous.About what happened? About the attack?
“Brock is a bit of a mess right now,” Tara said.
I didn’t like Brock and I’d never understood what Tara saw in him, but that didn’t mean I felt nothing for her right now. It was no fun caring for a boyfriend under stress.
“He’s not really there with me when we hang out. I try and get him to forget about things, but he seems incapable of doing that right now. And so I’m just sort of throwing my hands up, like I want to be there for him, but if I can’t, I just have to give him distance.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, but Tara displayed no reaction—or what reaction she did show mirrored how she described Brock, distant and not really present.
“Steele went to fucking California with Zack,” Elizabeth said.
Wait, what?
I didn’t say anything, and I really hoped I didn’t show anything. Fortunately, the Rogers girls seemed—justifiably so—wrapped up in their own troubles enough that they didn’t say anything to me.
“Left super early this morning, like so early he was halfway across Arizona by the time I woke up.”
“Wow. What for?”
“He said to get reinforcements. Think the original Black Reapers are out in California, just north of Los Angeles, if I remember right.”
They must be seriously concerned about what’s going on if they’re going to California.
And Zack…
I was feeling concerned for Zack. Apparently, all it took was agreeing to one meetup, and the next thing I knew, I was a hot mess worrying about him.
OK, that was an exaggeration. But I was tired from work, and my agreement to hang out with Zack had confused me some.It’s the Black Reapers that are concerned. Zack is concerned, but you can separate Zack the man from Zack the Black Reaper.
But can he do the same?
“And Connor is just seething angry at the Bandits right now,” Katie said. “Let me tell you, he was visiting the store the other day…”
Somehow, this story of Connor visiting her gas station store morphed into a dramatic tale of a customer refusing to believe a sale had ended and threatening to call the cops on her—all of which happened after Connor had apparently left. Katie could tell a story like few others, but in some respects, they defied realism to the point that we sometimes questioned if said stories ever happened at all.
“And what about you, Justine?” Katie said suddenly, jolting at least me out of the fact that I had zoned out as she told yet another story. “Any cute patients run across your wing? Have you got any funny stories?”
