Page 13 of I Still Love You

In the office, along the wall that hugs the hallway, are shelves lined with a variety of medical books and two computers. On the opposite side is a row of four windows that overlook the inside of the department, including patient rooms and the nurse’s station, and I glance out at it. “Is everyone gone?” I ask, referring to the group of girls who were hired with me after finishing our clinical period. While they continued to work hard under Mildred’s careful eye, I claimed the first traveling nurse gig I could find.

She motions for me to sit on a chair next to the desk and continues shuffling through papers. “Not everyone, no.”

I pile my belongings on my lap. “Who’s left?”

“Monica and Sierra. And boy, they are exceptional nurses.” She licks a finger, then flips through another handful of papers. “Went on vacation last week, and you’d think I’d come back to everything neat and organized.” She huffs out a breath and pulls a paper forward. “Here it is.” She hands it to me. “Your schedule and contract. I know you’re not new to this, so give it a read. You can’t start your first shift until you do.”

When she smiles, I’m sent back a solid four years and notice her cigarette-stained teeth before glancing away. As much as I admire Mildred, her habit is the only hang-up I struggle to understand. We treat people of all walks of life through these department doors. We treat mangled limbs, diagnose terminal illnesses, and tend to patients with strokes and cardiac failure. Yet she continues to feed a habit that could one day put her here.

The second I think people don’t change—because look at Mildred—I think about Luke and realize it’s just not true. People can change. Luke did. He went from loving to hating me.

I reach across the desk, snatch a pen, and scribble my signature on the last page, confirming I’ve read over it. It includes the same information that Aubrey sent me about the position, and I want to get moving as soon as I can. I’ll crawl out of my skin if I spend another moment in my head, even if I have come to terms with being here.

Mildred’s eyebrows lift, pulling up the skin of her eyelids, her bright eyeshadow more prominent from the reaction. It makes me grin because while there are people—ahem, Luke—who make my skin itch at the mere thought of them, Mildred doesn’t.

“You were always so eager,” she compliments, plucking my contract from my hand. “It’s one of the things I always liked about you. You had the most drive in your entire class, you know that? And if you tell anyone,” she points a finger at me, “that I said it, I’ll deny it until I’m blue in the face.”

I laugh at her confession, shaking my head and rising to my feet. “I’d never do that. If I did, I wouldn’t be your favorite anymore, would I?”

She snaps her fingers. “Exactly, now come on. I’ll show you to the nurse’s lounge and where to get your badge. Oh, and Layla?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s good to have you back.”

I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve been using bottled iced coffees as a crutch all these years to get through my shifts. The amount of sugar in them is disgusting, but I’m a full-on addict now. And I need one. Not just to give me an energy boost but to quell the onslaught of emotions. I created solid friendships with people when I took a position at Regional years ago. Sierra and Monica being two of them—who I also cut out when I left, but I might also have a frenemy lurking the halls, something I forgot until one of my patients needed an x-ray. One mention of radiology and Andrew Yost, the kind of guy who finds you attractive then turns on you when you reject him, snapped to the front of my mind.

I dodged him an hour ago when a patient arrived with a swollen foot after having dropped a frozen steak from the freezer when she was preparing dinner. It fell, hitting her at just the right spot to break three metatarsals. I was one of the few who declined Andrew’s advances. And I’m trying to do the same thing now. Not because I’m worried about him coming on to me again. It’s the icy indifference I’m not interested in. And he always did have the most uncomfortable stares.

Jesus, I feel like Little Red Riding Hood, nervous about being gobbled up by the mean, bad wolf. Except, in my story, there’re two of them.

This is out of the norm for me. When I start a new contract, I put my all into it, and I don’t falter and flinch whenever someone rounds a corner. Nor do I shield my face to keep myself unknown. I despise the fact that I’m walking on eggshells because of them.

The commotion from the cafeteria overflows into the hallway as I approach, making me glance down at my watch and realize the buffet line has just opened. No different than it was years ago. Everyone on break in the hospital comes running the second the cafeteria serves a hot meal.

In a matter of seconds, I’m at the coolers filled with soda, water, and my favorite caramel latte iced coffee. I grab two, one for now and one for tomorrow, so I don’t need to come back. I wait in line, pay, and dart out of the cafeteria so fast all people catch of me is the wind I kick up.

I exhale my relief once I’m in the clear. Five seconds into my silent celebration of not bumping into—

“Never thought I would see Layla Robinson back in her old stomping grounds.” There’s a condescending sort of amusement in Andrew’s tone.

Turning in his direction, I smile tightly. An annoyance I thought died when I left comes back in full force, and my greeting comes out clipped. “Andrew. Still taking up space, I see.”

It’s a low blow, but he deserves it with the way he runs around on women and puts them down when they don’t give him what he wants—something I know from a friend who dated him before I left to travel. I don’t know how he keeps his job when he uses the hospital as his dating pool. How his poor reputation hasn’t washed him downstream yet is beyond me.

He angles his head to the side, and my upper lip wrinkles at the buzz cut he’s sporting, his dark, archless eyebrows, and pasty skin. “Still as lovely as I remember.”

Fake smiling in place of words, I take a step back, wondering if I created this. The universe must have pulled this moment straight from my subconscious and made it a reality. I keep my stoic expression in place when he advances on me and peers down. Rolling the corner of my lip into my mouth, I square my shoulders and cling to my coffee bottles. His gaze unapologetically wanders where it shouldn’t, down my frame and languidly along my chest.

“Can’t say I’m surprised you still don’t have a ring on your finger,” he insults with an intrigued glimmer in his eye. "With a mouth like that, who would want to wake up next to you?”

Ouch.

His iciness hits me hard. This is what I was afraid of, what I didn’t want to deal with. “And you and I are still never going to happen,” I promise, shutting him down before he gets any ideas. Times have changed, but my stomach still revolts in his presence.

He crosses his arms and smirks, but I don’t miss the defeated shine in his eyes when he says, “Just because I asked you out one time doesn’t mean I would touch you now.” He peruses my body, moving from my face to my feet and back up. “Nah.”

I straighten. “Perfect. Now, if you don’t mind, I have patients.”

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