Page 15 of The Coworker
Shane doesn’t lift his eyes. “Hi.”
I square my shoulders. This was what I had been dreading when I took this job in the first place. And now here I am, and I just have to deal with it. I’ll get his injury taken care of like a professional, and I’ll send him on his way.
“How are you?” I say.
At my question, he whips his head up and stares at me. “Well, Brooke, I’m spending my life in prison for something I didn’t do, so how the hell do you think I am? I’m not great.”
I return his seething gaze. “I meant yourhead.”
“Oh.” He lifts a shackled hand to touch the bandage on his forehead. “That’s not great either.”
I slip my hands into a pair of blue latex gloves. I cross the small room to take a look at his forehead. This is the closest I’ve been to him in a long time—except in my nightmares. A decade ago, the thought of being this close to him would have made my skin crawl. But I can handle it now. I’m stronger than I used to be. This monster won’t get the better of me.
The last time I was near Shane like this, he was wearing an aftershave that smelled like sandalwood. If I close my eyes, I can still almost imagine that deep, woody but floral aroma. I can’t stand the smell of it anymore. I once went on a date with a guy who was wearing a sandalwood cologne, and I wouldn’t go out with him ever again. I dodged his phone calls rather than explaining why.
I peel back the tape from the wound on his forehead, not bothering to be as gentle as I normally would be. It looks pretty bad. Despite the bandage, it’s still bleeding significantly. It definitely needs stitches. He also has what looks like the start of a black eye forming on the same side.
“How did this happen?” I ask.
“I ran into the fence.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Really?”
He stares at me, challenging me to question him further. “That’s right.”
“Because it looks like somebody did this to you.”
“If somebodyhaddone this to me,” he says, “and I ratted them out to you, the next time, whatever they did to me would be worse. So, you know, good thing this just happened from walking into the fence.”
I notice now that he has other scars on his face. He’s got a scar splitting his other eyebrow, and one running along the curve of his jaw, almost concealed by the stubble on his chin. There’s also a long white scar just on the base of his throat.
For some reason, I think of Josh. About the other kids bullying him at school and giving him a black eye like Shane has right now. Shane, who also grew up without a father. And I feel the tiniest twinge of…
Well, not sympathy. I would never feel sympathy for a monster like this. Somebody capable of doing what he did.
“Shane,” I say, “if someone is beating up on you…”
“Stop it, Brooke.” His voice is firm. “Whatever you think you’re trying to do, just stop. Just stitch me up and let me go back to my cell, okay?”
“Fine.”
He’s right. I can’t do anything to help him, even if I wanted to, and Idon’t. My job is to get him stitched up and back to his cell, like he said. And that is all I’m going to do.
I can handle it.
I leave Shane alone in the room while I go to grab some suture material. Everything I need is in the supply room except for the lidocaine to numb him up. Since that’s a medication, I’ll need Dorothy to dispense it. So I return to her office, where she again takes her sweet time telling me to come in.
“Done already?” she asks me.
I press my lips together. “I need to stitch up a forehead laceration. I need some lidocaine.”
“We’re all out.”
I blink at her. “Excuse me?”
She shrugs. “We carry a small amount of anesthetic, but at the moment, we’re out of stock.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
