“Ollie?” Dara waves her hand in front of my face. “Ignoring me doesn’t strengthen your argument, you know?”
“Eliza is not my keeper. She’s my baby sister. And you’re turning the Rose thing into something it’s not.” I snap the file closed, toss it, and move on to the next. “I thought you said we were cool?”
“We are. But webothknow this has nothing to do with us and everything to do with you adopting a stray patient. These are two entirely different situations, and as your friend?—”
“As my friend, nothing! I have plenty of those, and they’re already loud enough with the bullshit.” I sign and initial, flip pages, sign and initial some more. When I’m done, I toss the chart and turn away. “Drop it.”
She grabs my arm and jerks me to a stop, pulling me back around to face her. “Friends are allowed to worry. If you have a problem with that, then perhaps it’s not our worry that bothers you. It’s your conscience telling you this isn’t normal.”
“None of this is normal, Dara! There is absolutelynothingnormal or okay about a young woman stepping in front of a car in the middle of the night and completely losing her identity because of it. She doesn’t know who she is or why she was on the road. She has no clue who to trust. Who to turn to. She’s afraid of her own fucking shadow.”
And she’s prepared to stab a man with his own fire poker, because the things that go bump in the night terrify her.
“These are not normal times, and what happened to her is not normal circumstances. But she’s here, she’s vulnerable, and she’s found a friend in me. I have work to do before my shift is over; leave me be so I can get it done.” I drag my arm from her grip and step around, the crackle and static of her radio pulsing somewhere in the back of my brain. Then I cut across the ward and head toward the nurse’s desk.
“How is she?” Janine sets her purse and phone down, unzipping her long black jacket and peeling it off to reveal turquoise scrubs beneath. “I didn’t call while you were off, because I didn’t want to interfere while she was settling in. But…?”
I lean on the raised counter section and brush my hand over my face. Finally, someone who cares more about Rose than she does about lecturing me on my life choices. “Her progress is not linear. Sometimes her processing memory kicks in and helps her do something that gives us a hint of who she is. Other times, she sits on my couch and stares at the wall. Sometimes she’s scared of her own shadow, and other times, she laughs and teases. Sasses,” I add on an exhale. “When she’s sassing, I can completely forget she’s existing in her own version of hell right now. She’s afraid of the dark at nighttime, but sits in the dark in the early hours of the morning.”
“And her dreams?”
I lower my hand and breathe a long, noisy exhale. “Every single night. But her dreams have turned to nightmares.”
Curious, she studies me from beneath furrowed brows, clipping her ID badge to her shirt. “Nightmares about what?”
“Me.” I drop my head and allow it to dangle between my shoulders, stretching my neck and spine. “And this other guy. She says—she thinks—he was her friend. She says he’s protective of her, and that she feels good when she’s with him.”
“A former lover?”
“I asked the same thing.” I shrug. “She thinks not. But this nice guy in her dreams has started killing me.”
She startles, sucking in a noisy breath. “What?”
“That’s what she said. He keeps coming for me, which is what turns her dreams into nightmares. And now I’ve told my friends about it, they think it’s time to move her the hell along.”
“But you disagree? You don’t want her to leave?”
“Yeah, I disagree. No, I don’t want her to leave. She deserves a place that is calm and safe to recover, plus I enjoy having her there. She’s a good person, Janine. She’s a sweet woman who just needs a fuckin’ friend in this world.” I release a heady sigh and bring my eyes up to hers. “I’d be lying if I said the dude in her dreams stabbing me to death doesn’t give me the heebie-jeebies sometimes. But Eliza and the guys won’t shut up about it long enough to let me think.” I stop and frown. Scowl. Groan. “I just want her to be okay. To be happy. To be safe.”
She grabs my arm and gives it a gentle squeeze. “Dara hasn’t spent time with her. Eliza and Tommy and the rest of those guys down at the gym,” she shakes her head, “they haven’t spent time with her either.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying, people judge what they don’t know, and they reject the things that scare them. Youhadto know that telling them about Rose’s nightmares wouldn’t help them feel more comfortable with all this. Butyou and me?” She rubs my arm. “We know her better than they do. We know she won’t ever intentionally put you in harm’s way. And if harm follows her, she’ll step in front of it to protect you.”
“But—”
“Even scared. Even trembling. Even in the dark. That woman is terrified of every damn thing, but she’s not a coward, and she’s declared you her person. She was sick to her stomach with anxiety the other day, but she would’ve walked out the door and gone to The Wallflower with her head held high. For you. Because she wanted to protect your heart and didn’t want you to worry about her.”
So we’re both putting on a face, scared of upsetting the other.
Awesome.
“If she’s running from something, she has good reason to stay gone. If that something finds her, you'd better be ready with some kind of Hail Mary that doesn’t end up with either of you back in the ER. Because she’s gonna step in front of you. And you’re gonna step in front of her.” She pauses for a beat, her stare shimmering with sincerity. “I don’t think her nightmares are a threat to you, Ollie. I think they’re a warning. Her subconscious is protecting you from whatever is coming.”
“So I should increase the security in my house and sleep with a gun, just in case?”
She breathes out a soft laugh, shaking her head from side to side. “Nah. Just keep your eyes open. If someone from her old life sees the interview and comes for her, he’ll have to go through Billy and Ramone first. That’s controlled. It’s safe. Other than that, I see progress in what you’re doing.” She releases my arm and straightens her back, smiling all the way up into her eyes. “Her subconscious is right there, tapping at her mind and begging to be set free.Weknow the stats on TBIs and memory loss, and we knowher. These dreams are progress, even if the message isn’t ideal.”
