Page 138 of Bodybuilders for the BBW

Garrett

These kinds of patients were always the worst.

Not the drunk ones. Not the ones caught in the throes of addiction, the disease forcing them to do shitty, deceitful things in an attempt to assuage the pain of withdrawal. Not even the hypochondriacs or demanding ones beat these. No, it was the quiet patients with haunted eyes that killed me every time.

Mrs Curtis said very little when I entered her bay, but the way she jumped, then shrank back against the bed, told me everything I needed to know. If that wasn’t enough, the bruises all over her body screamed it at me. Her husband, a big prick that stood too close, staring down at her with hard eyes, his hands forming fists and then relaxing, only to clench again, he made clear what he’d done, even if he was unaware of it.

Do a mandatory report of domestic violence, I thought, creating myself a checklist. Anything rather than see Katie there on bed, her beautiful brown eyes looking at me with the same kind of hurt as Mrs Curtis. Take some observations and?—

“Can we get out of here?” Mr Curtis, I presumed, huffed, his big boy act ruined by the furtive way he looked past me and out to the ward. “She’s fine.”

“That’s what the doctors will determine,” I said in my best arsehole whisperer voice. “Now, Mrs Curtis?—”

“Talk to me, mate.” Australians used the word mate to refer to their best friends or worst enemies. “You got anything you want to say?” The challenge was evident in his tone, the way his chin lifted. “You say it to me.”

“Right.” I was tired, too bloody tired, but of course, I still had work to do. That exhaustion, the hopelessness I felt all the way home, threatened to break me right now, but I wouldn’t due to the likes of Mr Curtis. Men that beat up women, abused them? There had to be a special kind of hell for them if there was any justice in the world. “Well, I need to do some observations.” I held up the blood pressure monitor and clipboard. “Take your blood pressure, temperature?—”

“You’re wasting these people’s time, you know that, right?” The fact the man dared to use such a scathing tone in front of a complete stranger had my hackles raising. Abusers could escalate and it felt like this man’s control was fraying by the second. “The emergency department is packed with people that really need help and you had to come in here?—”

It felt like his hand moved like a glacier, too slow, too ponderously, but with a power that had its own inertia. Too tired to default to my usual professional manner, my hand shot out, stopping him from grabbing her arm by taking control of his. My thumb pressed down into the sensitive muscles just above the ulnar, grinding into the bones until the man was forced to snatch his hand back as if stung.

“What the fuck…?” The curtain around the bay was whisked back and a doctor walked in, taking in the entire scene with a slight frown. “We’re going.” He went to wrench his wife from the bed. “Not staying around here letting some pussy nurse manhandle me.”

“What…?” the doctor frowned, then stepped out and looked down the hallway. “Security!”

“Security? Security?” Mr Curtis shouted. “What the fuck do we need security for? To take this prick away from grabbing me? I want him charged!”

Half an hour later,I was standing in Cora’s office, before her desk, waiting for her to turn up and discipline me like a naughty schoolboy. Sure enough, her door was wrenched open and she marched in, a pinched expression on her face. My union rep was with her, but the look on the woman’s face didn’t fill me with hope.

“Any reason why you would assault a patient?” Looked like we were getting right down to brass tacks. Cora sat down in her chair, but didn’t indicate I was to do the same. Her head came to rest on her hands as she stared me down. “I understand the situation was a difficult one.”

“Curtis has been charged with domestic violence,” the union rep said almost apologetically. “He’d breached an Aggravated Violence Order.”

“But that doesn’t mean my staff need to act like judge, jury and executioner.” Cora scowled at me before looking down at her computer. “You have a clean record with no previous incidents.”

Yes, I fucking did. Every day I did my job, pushed myself to be my best, not that it made a difference.

“But this…” A sharp shake of Cora’s head let me know how this was going to go. “I’ll need to put you on administrative leave while we investigate the situation.”

Why did that feel like a death sentence and a relief all at the same time?

That gave me pause.

You shouldn’t feel that way about a job, right? To be looking frantically for a way out, like a rat trapped in a maze, all while trying to do your best to navigate its twists and turns as fast as you can.

“Paid leave,” the union rep said firmly. “Curtis obviously bashed his wife.”

“Allegedly.” Cora said that far too primly, setting the pens and paperwork on her desk in perfect right angles to each other. “The matter is for the police to deal with, but Garrett’s actions, they could affect the case, let alone re-traumatising the poor victim.”

The two of them talked about how things would go, haggling like two women at market. I just watched them talk and talk, not really hearing the words. It was a meaningless, discordant tune, one that was joined by a far off orchestra. The sound of voices beyond the door, one blaring over the PA system. The beep of heart rate monitors, the wail of sirens, they washed over me. It was a massive sea of noise and I was drowning in it.

That was when I took a step backwards.

That’s what you did when a tidal wave was rushing forward for you. You got the hell out of its path, didn’t just stand there and let it swallow you whole. Cora broke off and frowned as she watched me move closer to the door.

“Garrett…” The union rep’s voice was gentle. It was the same tone we used when patients were panicking, designed to help their nervous system reset. “It’s OK.”

But it wasn’t. I felt it now, everything I’d been trying so damn hard to keep down. This was wrong. I didn’t need to be polite and professional around dicks like Curtis. I’d worked hard to make sure my body was strong. What was the point of that if it wasn’t to drag fucks like him around the back of the hospital and beat the shit out of him until he never dared raise his hand against a woman again? Of course, that was when my phone buzzed. I pulled it out and then looked blankly at the screen.

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