I roll my eyes.
Me
No thanks. I’m not dating anyone from home, anyway.
Mom
She’s really pretty
Me
I’m sure she is. Still not interested.
Mom
And she’s from a nice family. Well mannered
Me
You sound like you’re talkingabout farm animals
Mom
stop that! I told her you’d be happy to hear from her.
I lift my eyes toward the ceiling. Jesus. The cords in my neck tighten.
I do remember Rachel from high school. She was a nice girl, and pretty, like my mom says, but I’m serious about avoiding anyone from home. Anyone who knew me then would know what an ass I’d been at that time. Besides that, I’m never moving back there. Blacksburg is the sort of place you leave behind in a cloud of dust on your way out.
Mom
She got a good job right out of school, her mama said. Making lots of money right out of the gate
Thatisimpressive, I guess, but I can’t entertain the notion.
I don’t respond to my mom’s text. Instead, I finish my sandwich and my beer, brush my teeth, and crawl under my covers, where I think about how to handle confusing and hateful nurses until I fall asleep.
3
KENDALL
I stop at the entrance to the break room when I see Dr. Fields and Grant yukking it up at one of the tables. The doctors usually don’t have much time for lunch, but today they have a little downtime.
Dr. Fields waves at me. My gut tightens as I retrieve my salad from the fridge.
“Kendall! Come join us. We’ve got thirty whole minutes for once,” he says.
“I don’t want to interrupt anything.” My eyes dart around the space, searching for an escape route. The other clinic nurse is still with Dr. Planck, so I don’t have much of a buffer.
“Of course not.” Dr. Fields clears a little space for me at their small table. “Come on over.”
I eye the seat with what I’m sure is the same expression as someone watching a scuttling cockroach. “Yeah,” I say after a few moments. “That’s fine.”
Grant aims a small, polite smile at me, his teeth gleaming white as porcelain. The expression looks odd on him. In the past, he sneered.
The chair’s metal legs scrape against the silence as I pull itout. Grant’s still smiling at me, but his mouth is wide, like a scary clown. The tension in his jaw makes it look more like a grimace. Does he smile involuntarily? I remember him being kind of serious, even as a high schooler, which made his bullying all the more distressing—it felt like he meant it, like he wasn’t joking.
“I like that coconut water.” Grant nods to my drink. “Much healthier than soda, anyway.”
