Page 41 of Kept in the Dark
Do I want him to?
“Well, actually, I’m new to the area. I’m a travel nurse, so I move around a lot. I started at St. Luke’s earlier in the week, and I just moved into my new place. I don’t really have any local friends yet.” My stomach twists as I speak. Should I even be saying this? Should I be revealing just how alone I really am?
“And your family?”
“Obviously a lot of them were at the wedding, but that was mostly extended family that I only see for the big three—weddings, reunions and funerals. My immediate family situation is… a little complicated.”
“Complicated how?”
“We’re just not very close.”
“You said your father was dead. Did something happen?” His voice lowers, and his hand stills. A deep line forms between his brows.
My stomach flips. I know it’s probably not how he means it, but he almost sounds like he’s ready to go to battle on my behalf. It’s so damn endearing.
I shrug and grab the black pawn I took and run my fingertips over the smooth edges because I don’t think I can look at him when I talk about this. It isn’t light and breezy, but in Dimitri’s defense, he didn’t know he was picking at old scabs.
I know I could skip the question, but I won’t, just to prove that it’s not that big of a deal.
“It wasn’t some big single trauma or anything, more like a lifetime of small, additive cuts.”
Normally, I gloss over this shit. It’s third-date conversation material at best, and most guys let it go there—either because they don’t really care, or they sense I don’t want to talk about it so they let me off the hook. Not Dimitri.
“This does not answer my question. If you want good answers from me, you should give them as well.”
“You love turning my words against me!” I exclaim, a little frustrated with the experience.
He’s not deterred. “Explain.”
I sigh. If he wants it, he can have the sob story. “My dad was a doctor, and my mom fell in love with the idea of him, and then immediately out of love with the reality of his ego and narcissism. They divorced when I was little. My dad was around—in the picture for weekends and holidays—but then he died of liver disease when I was 13. After the divorce, Mom dated around for a while, met another guy, started another family, and prioritized her new life. Meanwhile, I put myself through school and moved away. We’re not close.”
“It is not right to discard one family for another,” he says, shaking his head.
Secretly, deep down in my heart of hearts, my inner child agrees. But I’m not allowed to agree; I don’t let myself. “I don’t hold it against her; I know she deserves to be happy, too.” I’ve said it so many times—mostly to myself and my therapist—that it’s true for me now. So why does it feel more like a lie when I say it this time? “I’m not bitter or anything; we’re just… not close. Like I said.”
He cocks his head, brow furrowed as he evaluates my story. “You see this situation with remarkable clarity.”
“Yeah, well,” I blow out a breath, “I’ve had some therapy about it.”
I move my bishop out into the middle of the board, and he squints at it, then at me, like he can’t believe I did that—I only realize why when he takes it with his own. I didn’t see that countermove at all, and it makes me want to drop my face into my hands. I maneuvered myself right into another question when all I want to do is shut up for a little while.
“Why did you choose to be a nurse instead of a doctor?” he asks.
I scoff, immediately put off and maybe still a bit raw from the last one. I feel flayed, on display for him to poke at all my half-healed emotional wounds.
“Pick a ruder question, why don’t you?”
“Why is it rude?”
“It implies that everyone should want to be a doctor, like they’re more important. Nurses are just as crucial.”
He holds up his hands in surrender, my white bishop still tucked against his palm. “I meant no disrespect. I asked only because you mentioned your father was a doctor. This is something that people do exactly as their parents do. At least, in my country.”
If I had detected even a hint of attitude, I wouldn’t have believed him, but he sounds sincere. “Oh. Okay, yeah, people follow in their parents’ footsteps here, too. Sorry, I guess you found a sore spot. I get that question all the time, but people always mean it like, ‘why would you take the job cleaning out bedpans instead of cutting open bodies’ and it’s really demeaning. It’s not better to be a doctor just because you don’t have to do some of the grunt work.”
“Cleaning up messes is an important part of a job,” he agrees with a nod. “A person is not made better by removing the responsibility; it sometimes makes them more thoughtless of the consequences.”
I eye him, frowning slightly because I know he’s not talking about the healthcare industry, but it feels like he is. I’ve watched doctors prescribe medications that keep patients up all night or give them diarrhea, whenan alternative existed that wouldn’t. But doctors like that don’t think about it because they don’t have to deal with the day-to-day patient care and the side effects that only impact those of us who do.
