Page 87 of Fostering Chemistry
Finally, his eyes met mine. “Mia, you don’t look fine. Let me take you to the health center.”
“Iamfine. And if I need to go, I’ll go on my own.”
“Okay. Let me see you stand up, then.”
“I told you, I don’t need to go there.”
“All right. But I want to see you stand up, anyway. Cody said you were dizzy.”
“Cody should mind his own business.” Except it seemed like he normally excelled at that. I didn’t quite know what had gotten him to change his patterns.
“He was worried about you. I’ve known him for almost a year and a half, and I’ve never seen him worried about anyone before. So now I’m worried, too, and I’m not leaving until you stand up.”
Good god, he just wouldn’t give it a rest. I kicked off the covers, ignoring the throb of pain in my leg. Then I slid to the edge of the bed and pushed myself to my feet.
And then rapidly sat back down again, holding my head to keep it from spinning.
“I’m taking you to the health center,” Diego said.
The chairsin the waiting room were hard plastic and seemed designed to torture an enemy rather than to soothe the sick. I’d never been here before, and I’d never been to any doctor’s office with a man at my side.
But he just refused to leave.
At least he wasn’t insisting that we talk about things. That would’ve made the situation a whole lot w?—
“Mia, we need to talk.”
I groaned, putting my head in my hands. I wanted to shake my head, but that would’ve made the headache worse.
“Or you can just listen, but there are some things I need to?—”
“I yelled at my boss today,” I interrupted, feeling rather desperate to stop whatever he was going to say.
Diego paused, and I could feel his eyes on me. “At the coffee shop?”
“Yes. I wasn’t feeling well, and I snapped at her, and she got all upset.”
“Are you going to get fired?”
“I don’t think so.” With my head still in my hands, I told him about Zoe’s worries about her lack of an internship. “I kind of forgot that other people have rough roads to travel—not just former foster kids.”
He was silent for a moment. “Everyone’s dealing with something.”
“I have to be honest that I didn’t like her much before this. But now I feel sorry for her. She’s good at what she does, and she deserves a chance.”
“Maybe she should make her own chance.”
“What do you mean?” I finally turned to look at him, but that was a mistake. This stupid headache just wasn’t going away, and any movement made it worse.
He leaned back in the poorly designed chair. “When I first moved into Baylor House, there wasn’t a residential advisor. We all just fended for ourselves, and most of us had never lived on our own before, and it wasn’t pretty. A lot of meals consisted of grilled cheese and potato chips. And no one ever replaced the toilet paper when it was out, and that was just the tip of the iceberg. So I wrote a letter to Richard Baylor and said that we needed some guidance. A little help to get us on the right track.”
“What did he say?” I was intrigued in spite of myself.
“He agreed, and his staff hired an upperclassman to be the RA, and she was even less organized than we were. And she was too busy with her senior year to care much about it. So I wrote back to Richard and told him he needed to hire me. I outlined the ways I’d helped younger foster siblings growing up and told him I was the right man for the job. And he agreed.”
Oddly enough, I could see him doing that. “So… you basically created the job and then asked for it.”
“Not basically, exactly. Maybe your boss could try that, too.”
