Page 8 of Winter Break Up

I smack his arm as I pass because our parents might ask us to work, but they also pay for our lives in return. Neither Charlie nor I have had to take out a single school loan, which is a lot more than I can say for most of my friends and classmates.

“Putting up the lights and decorations is one of our favorite things to do, jerk. You always do this. You complain for the first five minutes and then end up loving it when you get to take out all the ornaments you made in art class as a kid.”

Charlie cocks his head to the side, sweat beads on his temple from his little bro-out session. “I did make a pretty kick-ass Santa in a rowboat.”

A yawn stifles my answer, and I burrow into the neckline of an old Queenwood soccer sweatshirt. I won’t admit that this is Mercer’s, even if my whole family eyes it every time I wear it while home on breaks.

“You look exhausted,” Charlie observes as we walk to the kitchen.

Mom turns as he says this from where she’s frying eggs in a pan. “Hmm, he’s right, sweetheart. You don’t look like you got any sleep.”

“You’d be correct.” I give them both an annoyed smile as I plop down into my designated chair at the kitchen table. “Is there coffee?”

“Charlie, get your sister a cup of coffee, the pot is full,” Mom instructs, and I catch the concern in her eyes once my brother turns around.

“Is anyone going to the store today? I need more deodorant.” My brother hands me a steaming cup of java before sitting next to me in his designated seat.

Everything about our childhood home always makes me feel so nostalgic and cozy. Like nothing bad could ever happen to me here because I am in the confines of the place that raised me. Right down to the way my sibling and I take our usual spots, I ache for this when I’m away.

“Are you finally admitting you stink?” I tease him.

Charlie rolls his eyes at me as he picks at the Santa-shaped placements Mom put on the table. “Says the girl who definitely didn’t brush her teeth last night.”

I blow a breath directly in his face because we’re siblings, and even if we can legally drink now, we’re still going to act like idiotic children when we’re in the same room.

“After breakfast, I need you two to help Dad bring up more of the Christmas bins. I want the first floor done by this afternoon. Oh, and Emily, Maria wanted to know if you’d signed up for the nursing boards yet?” Setting our plates of eggs and bacon down, my mom serves us like we’re still her babies in need of constant care.

I think, or well, I know, that she misses us terribly when we’re gone. Dad will call me sometimes to see if I can make a random trip home. While Mom says she likes the empty nest life and the time she and Dad get to spend together, she’s one of those mothers who truly loves being one. She gets fulfillment from raising her babies and loving on them. Even as independent as I am, I let her do it to a further extent when I’m home because I know she enjoys it.

“Not yet, I have to register sometime this semester and then they’ll happen around June.”

Mom’s best friend for years, Maria, is a nurse at the local Queenwood hospital. She’s part of the reason I wanted to get into this track; Maria would always come and tell me stories about her time in the emergency room or certain patients she’d worked with. When she suggested I become an EMT in high school to see if I wanted to pursue a career in nursing or medicine, it sounded like a great idea.

Turned out, I fucking loved it. The high of those pressure situations, the tenderness of caring for people, the absolute hustle it took to do that job day in and day out, I knew it was what I was meant to do. But it wasn’t until I was part of an emergency delivery on the side of the road that I discovered what field of nursing I wanted to go into.

The patient had been a nine-months pregnant woman who hit a deer on a dark back road about three miles from her home. I was a senior in high school working one of my weekly assigned shifts and was put on the call with two of the more experienced EMTs. When we got to the scene, she was in labor and trying desperately not to have the baby on the side of the road. Only one of my colleagues had never been present for a birth, and we were sorely at a disadvantage in the situation.

But it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. The creation of life, the struggle and resiliency of that mother. The way we had to support her while she battled through … at that moment, I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

In my last few semesters, my clinical work has been more of a priority than classroom work. One of those rotations was labor and delivery, and it cemented my passion to work with pregnant, laboring, and postpartum mothers.

Now, I need to graduate and take my NCLEX, the certification boards, to be a legally working RN.

“You can work before then, though? I forget what you told me.” She sips her tea with a huge grin on her face, and I know it’s because she’s getting to have breakfast with Charlie and me.

Nodding, I almost groan when I eat a bite of her eggs. There is just something about home cooking from your mother that soothes like nothing else can.

“Yeah, I’m trying to see if the L and D department at the hospital I just worked at is going to be taking applications for this summer or fall. I really loved the director on that floor, and the OBs they work with are all really knowledgeable and attentive. It would be a great place to work, but it’s all up in the air right now.”

Plus, thinking about entering the real world is adding to my anxiety these days, but I don’t add that. While I’m so excited about starting my career, I also can’t get this feeling of nausea to go away when I think about the future. It’s probably just the fear of the unknown that’s throwing me for a loop.

“Hun, you have to tell me how you want these mini-trees placed down the porch stairs!” Dad hollers from the front door.

He’s nothing if not focused on making my mother ridiculously happy, and going all out for Christmas makes her ecstatic. Mom goes in search of Dad, leaving my brother and me to take bites in silence.

My mind wanders back to Mercer and our encounters yesterday. Those eyes won’t stop flashing through my memory; how he always looks at me like he sees what I really want and need is unnerving. I’m not sure how I’ll get through winter break working side by side with him. We couldn’t even make it twenty-four hours into seeing each other without an almost kiss.

“Did Mercer tell you if he thought it was weird to be working together?” The question slips out before I can convince myself not to say it.

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