Page 86 of Barbed Wire Fences
I need some fresh air or something to ground me. Lainey notices and stands up to grab a glass of water before sitting back down. I take a long sip then place it on the coaster next to me. She gives me a hug then squeezes my shoulder, not offering any words, just being there for me in the quiet moments before I know I have to leave.
I try calling Rhett one last time, but it goes straight to voicemail and I’m running out of time.
“I need to go back to Virginia,” I whisper, feeling defeated. “To give myself some space from this town and see if what Rhett and I have can withstand the distance. To see if he’s all in too.”
She sighs softly and nods. “I’ll tell him you stopped by.”
Chapter 28 – Jael
Four weeks later…
“Jael, we have a patient in the ER, critical condition, gunshot wound. We need you in the ICU to coordinate the transfer and get everything set up. We’re working to stabilize him now,” comes the urgent message through my earpiece.
“I’m on my way,” I respond back.
Abandoning my half-eaten, tuna sandwich in the trash, I stand and race towards the ICU on the other side of the hospital. Upon reaching the unit, I efficiently prep a room for our victim. By the time the emergency room nurses wheel him in, he’s already in much better condition which is a relief.
“Vitals are stable. Missed all major arteries. We’ve already paged ortho,” the ER nurse informs me. I nod as I review his chart while the patient smiles up at me easily, clearly still running on adrenaline.
“You’re lucky. Let’s get you to radiology before ortho comes so we can see where the exact damage is,” I say, guiding the team as we wheel him off.
About three hours later, I finally find a moment of downtime as my new patient rests. Sitting outside the nursing station, I catch up with my friend Jasmine, recounting my last traveling assignment in Whitewood Creek and what brought me back to Virginia early and the ICU.
After talking with Lainey, I decided to leave Whitewood Creek sooner than I’d planned. I'd already been there almost four weeks, and with only a few days left on my contract. I called Rhett on the hours long drive three more times, hoping I could talk to him, but every time it went straight to voicemail.
Lainey told me that he and Lark had spent the night in Meadowbrook after a long meeting with the mayor and some surveying for their expansion project.
We hadn’t had plans to meet up that night, I was supposed to be working another 12-hour shift, so it made sense that he didn’t make any effort to check in with me. But the fear of him thinking I left without saying goodbye was strong.
With my next shift in Richmond the very next day, a four-hour drive away, I had no choice but to leave without talking to him. It sucked leaving things up in the air, so I texted him, begging him to call me when he had a chance so I could explain why I left and so I hoped, we could work out the details of being long distance.
Of course, he never replied to my messages or calls. Just like I’d done ten years ago when I ignored him and left town. I wanted to tell him that I didn’t want this to be the end, but he never gave me a chance.
It left a bitter taste in my mouth, but it didn’t change a thing when it came to how I felt about my ex. One day back in the cityand I was forced to make it clear, again and without hesitation when I ran into him in the hospital break room, that there was no going back and I didn’t come back to town for him.
Rhett had made me realize that someone who truly love me wouldn’t need a “break” to go explore other relationships. Rhett set the bar high years ago and every man since hasn’t come close.
“And so, I told him there was no future for us. Ever,” I conclude my recap of the last two months to Jasmine.
“Wow, I always knew he was a prick, but I didn’t know he’d also have the audacity. Why do Nurse Practitioners think they are so much better than us anyway?”
I laugh and shake my head before she leans in closer like she’s telling a secret.
“When I saw him three months ago, he was hooking up with Tina from OB, and I told him that I was glad you were getting your ‘socks knocked off’ in Whitewood Creek without him,” Jasmine says, popping a handful of M&Ms into her mouth with a mischievous smile.
“Wait, rewind and repeat that again? You told Christopher I was getting mysocks knocked offin North Carolina?” I ask in shock.
Jasmine nods. “Hell yeah, I did. I wasn’t even sure if it was true, but I definitely wanted him to think you were getting yours too because the guy looked so smug about what he was doing.”
Is that the only reason he showed up in Whitewood Creek?Because he realized that I had finally moved on.
Even if that was the case, I knew it didn’t matter anymore. Those feelings for Christopher had left long ago and sadly the one person I do want, Rhett Miller, doesn’t seem to reciprocate those feelings. That or his cell phone is at the bottom of the Whitewood Creek Lake.
Do you think that’s possible?
No… no, Lainey would have told me. Instead, her responses have been cryptic: ‘They’ve been really busy.’ ‘Work’s taking up a lot of his time.’ ‘I’m sorry, Jael. I don’t want to get in the middle of things, but I keep asking him to call you.’
I gave up after that because I knew it wasn’t fair to go through her to get to Rhett. If he doesn’t want to talk to me then it isn’t her job to change his mind.
