Becoming Ella: An Opposites Attract Romance Read online

  "Fuck," I gasp.

  I shake my hand and dry it off on my scrubs, but it feels like my skin is on fire.

  "Oh, shit, you alright?" Will asks, coming up behind me.

  I whirl around to face him. He's wearing the same dark blue baseball cap as yesterday, but instead of a gray shirt, he's wearing a black one today. I hate how much I have been paying attention to him that I realize right off the bat. I also hate how, despite having just spilled hot coffee all over my hand, I feel all giddy at the sight of him, especially at how his tight shorts hug his lower body.

  "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," he says.

  "It's okay. You didn't. I just tripped," I lie.

  I don't know why I do. It's not like tripping saves any more face than admitting that he startled me.

  "Here, let me see it."

  I try to object, but he snatches my hand anyway. He takes my hand in his and turns it over so he can inspect it. My hand is only a little bit bigger than his palm. For some reason, it makes me think of when my mom and I used to press our hands together when I was a child. I briefly wonder how my hand would look pressed against Will Keely's.

  At that thought, the butterflies in my stomach come fully alive. With all of the jittering in my stomach, I worry that I'm going to vomit up all of the coffee I just drank. Considering how my track record for embarrassing things has been with Will, I'm surprised when I don't.

  "It doesn't look too bad," he murmurs, "but put some ice on it when you get to work, for me, okay?"

  "Okay," I say, unable to form anything else coherent.

  "I was hoping I would see you this morning," he says. He squeezes my hand gently.

  I can feel my cheeks heat. I hope Will just thinks it's from the humidity and my coffee injury. Even though I'm in pain, I'm glad that I put effort into braiding my hair and doing a bit of makeup.

  "Really?" I ask. I sound stupid in contrast to his high (annoying) levels of social ease. I also hate how desperate it makes me sound. But, really?!

  "Really," he says, letting go of my hand. He moves so that he is next to me instead of in front of me. "I wanted to walk you to work. Today is your last day of three, right?"

  "Right," I say, falling into step beside him.

  I don't know what this is. A pretty loud part of my brain tells me that I should tell Will that I can walk myself, that I like to walk by myself. But the emotional part of my brain, the stupid part, the part that wins, tells me that I want him to walk with me. And I do. So he does.

  "What have you got planned for the weekend?" he asks.

  "I um, I ugh," I stutter like I've completely forgotten how to talk. "I just have some stuff that I have to get done for school."

  "Hmm," he says. He definitely doesn't believe me.

  I don't even believe me. Which I guess is good because it's a lie. I have done so much schoolwork ahead of time that I don't need to do anything else for my program until mid-July, a month away.

  But he wouldn't be asking me what I had planned unless he wanted to do something with him, right? Which I certainly couldn't. What would we even do together? We have nothing in common. We barely know each other. My mother would think I was going crazy if I hung out with him. I would think I was going crazy if I hung out with him.

  A part of me wants him to call me out on my lie, but he doesn't.

  "Where'd you go running today?" I ask, changing the topic.

  He smirks. "Down by those railroad tracks. Someone said they were very interesting."

  I laugh with him, my cheeks heating again. Of course, he would do that. And, of course, he would bring that up.

  "They were quite interesting too," he carries on. "All those fallen trees and litter, just riveting."

  I laugh again, and he looks down at me, laughing too. For a second, our eye contact lingers. I feel something that I haven't felt since high school. I've never been the type to do much with boys. Of course, I've had crushes, but they were always admire-from-afar and never people that I actually pursued things with. The majority of my crushes never even knew that I existed.

  I suppose that all of the butterflies in my stomach mean that I have something like a crush on Will Keely, but that just can't happen.

  I look away from his eyes and grin, back to the pavement.

  Will and I originate from the same world, but the world he lives in now is one I could never be a part of. And because of that, we would never work. So I need to save myself the pain and energy and shut that shit down.

  "I like your laugh," he says when I don't say anything else. "I remember hearing you laugh one time in AP Psych, and I don't think I've ever remembered a laugh like I've remembered yours."

  I really don't know what to say to that, so I just smile again, and a comfortable silence falls between us. I wish that I were more like Violet. She would have had a perfectly witty, flirty quip to throw right back, and it would have gone beautifully. Me, I have never in my life come up with a flirty, witty quip, and I don't want to make a fool out of myself this early in the morning.

  We've already cleared two blocks, and the last remaining block isn't very long.

  "I think that I should be able to take it from here," I say.

  Will shakes his head. "What kind of gentleman would I be if I didn't escort my lady to the front door? Anything could happen on these wild streets."

  I can't help but laugh, his goofy expression getting to me. Also, it has something to do with the fact that he called me his lady. Who even says that that isn't eighty years old? Even though I'm sure he meant it as a joke, it still makes me feel some type of way.

  I've got to remind myself, though, that Will is just the carefree soul he always seemed to be in high school, nothing more. He won Class Clown for his year, after all.

  "How many beds are on your unit?" he asks as we cross the intersection.

  "Fifty," I sigh.

  I almost forgot what I was walking to. Will made the walk much more enjoyable than it usually is.

  Will makes a retching sound in his throat and shakes his head, "That's fucking nasty!"

  I laugh again, startled in the very best way possible by his curse, though it comes out sounding closer to a guffaw against my best efforts. He gets it, though. His mom must have been honest about what working in healthcare is like.

  "Nasty is right. Sometimes it's not so bad if we're fully staffed, but more often than not, we're understaffed."

  We're walking up the sidewalk that leads to the main entrance. We've got at best three more minutes of walking together left.

  Being so close causes the familiar anxiety that usually comes before a shift to settle into the pit of my stomach. Before the unit expanded, it was just thirty beds; it wasn't so bad going into work. Now that we've expanded, it's more nerve-wracking to go in. I never know what I'm walking into when I start my shift, which causes my anxiety to go haywire.

  "Well," Will says as we get to the front entrance, "I hope that you are adequately staffed and that your patients don't put you through the wringer today."

  I look up at him. He moves so his tall frame blocks the sun, so I don't have to squint. I really wish that I didn't have to work today. Not just so that I could go back home and crawl back in bed but also so that I could walk a little while longer with Will.

  Even though I know I shouldn't, I liked it.

  A lot.

  "I hope so too. Hopefully, I can actually eat today."

  "If you can't find the time, run off the unit and pretend that you've got diarrhea or something, and then that should give you a while to scarf something down."

  I choke on my spit for the second time in front of Will Keely, which causes me to make a hideous chortle. Will's eyes widen before he starts laughing too. Probably not with me this time. More likely at me and how awkward I am.

  "Hopefully, that won't be necessary," I wheeze.

  "A good option, though, if you need it," Will shrugs.

  "I'll see you later?" I say. Again it comes out
sounding like a question.

  I need to stop doing that. Perhaps I should start using some of Malorie's affirmations.

  I am a badass. I am a monkey maker. I am powerful. I am fearless.

  "Duh," Will answers, backing up.

  I'm sure this is just part of his nature of making everybody feel like they're somebody, but I can't deny the way his response makes me feel inside.

  Giddy. Cheerful. Happy. Excited.

  A part of me fervently wants to believe it's just because of me, but the logical part of my brain knows that it's just Will's nature.

  I wave back and turn to enter the building. Other people in scrubs rush to get around me.

  "Oh, hey, Eileen," Will says right before I get through the door.

  "Yea?" I turn, and a respiratory therapist grumbles something under his breath as he sidesteps me.

  "I like your hair in braids."

  I blush and thank him before heading into the hospital.

  6

  Surprisingly enough, today is an even worse day than yesterday.

  It hasn't been as busy, but the times I've been called into patients' rooms have been more disastrous.

  I have been cussed out twice today and had to call security after a patient decided to throw their breakfast tray at me for trying to get vitals. The tray hit the side of my arm, which is just now starting to bruise — a large, ugly purple splotch -- and I just found soggy Cheerios in my shoes, three hours later.

  I know that I'm not the only one on the floor going through this type of treatment, probably something in the water -- but I'm upset nonetheless.

  I let out a heavy breath in the bathroom. I hit my sock hard over the edge of the garbage can. Bits of crushed, mushy Cheerios fly up at me, which makes me even madder. Damn this day, and damn Cheerios. The plainest of all cereals. It could at least get one thing right and be easy to clean up, but no.

  No matter how many times I hit the sock, I'm sure I'm still going to find squishy bits of the cereal later when I get home. By that point, they'll probably be glued between my toes.

  I've been in here for too long. Though I need the break, that's just the kind of guilt you feel when you work in healthcare.

  I love all of the people on my unit, and I hate the idea that someone might need me. I know I need to keep going, but I just need a couple of minutes. I haven't had a hard day like this in a while.

  I wonder for the millionth time if nursing is really right for me. I don't know how the nurses who have been here for nearly forty years still come into work and deal with crap like this. I wonder how they aren't burnt out, in a million pieces, or permanently in a back brace.

  I wonder if it's worth it. Am I really cut out for this? Do I really want to be cut out for this?

  Nursing was not my first choice after graduating high school. Then again, I didn't really have a first choice.

  For the first time in my life, I had realized that I had absolutely no idea what to do next after I graduated. I had applied to colleges my senior year, and I had gotten a lot of acceptance letters back. But each letter only made the sinking pit in my stomach bigger.

  I should have been doing something. It should have been easy for me to move on. I did well in high school — top ten, dozens of AP classes taken, and exams passed. All of my teachers had liked me and said that I was destined to go on and do amazing things. On paper, I had a lot to be proud of.

  Except, no one tells you what it's really like to graduate high school. Or maybe they do, and there's just something wrong with me.

  After high school, I didn’t know what to do next. There were no concrete steps for the first time in my life. Even though I had all of those achievements on paper, it felt like none of them mattered anymore.

  Sure, some of them would have taken some money off college tuition or canceled out a couple of classes I would have had to take, but other than that, it all just seemed so meaningless.

  A couple hours after I went home from graduation, I had one of the worst panic attacks in my life. I was curled up on my bedroom floor, cap and gown still on.

  I should have felt proud. I should have felt excited. Yet all I felt was dread. And fear. And terror.

  I didn't know how I would go on and actually be an adult or what I would do in college. I had always had a dream of becoming a writer, and that was really it. But you can't go to school to become a writer. Even though my mom had spent years pounding that into me, I still never really figured out what else to do.

  My mom knew a lot of nurses. She brought me around them a lot, and I clung to the idea that maybe that could be my thing. After I became a CNA, I felt a little bit less lost. At least as a CNA and attending the community college I do, I have a checklist of everything I need to do before I can become a nurse.

  And being a CNA is methodical. I know exactly what is expected of me every shift and what times I need to get everything done. I know and like most of my coworkers, and I've been here long enough that I feel comfortable.

  It’s a good feeling helping people in the ways I do every day. I like knowing that I’m making a difference in people’s lives, and some days, that’s enough.

  But on days like this, I want nothing more than to go home, lay on my bedroom floor, and cry again. Even though more than a year has passed since graduation, I still feel just as lost.

  I bite down hard on my lip and pinch the back of my hand hard as I feel tears start to burn in the corners of my eyes. I bounce my right leg to give my body something other to do than cry.

  I cannot cry at work. I've got to get it together. I've got to be stronger.

  When I let go of the back of my hand, I see the indentations my nails left from digging in so hard. Though there are still bits of mushy Cheerios stuck on my sock, I slide my foot back in and peel myself off the toilet seat.

  I take a deep breath and look at myself in the mirror.

  I can do this. I can do another four hours. And then, after these four hours are over, I can go home and cry in the shower.

  Deal.

  I am a badass. I am a monkey maker. I am powerless. I am fearless.

  7

  When the punch shows 1923, I hurriedly swipe my badge through the punch-out scanner. I gather my things and kick my work shoes into my assigned cubby to trade them for my comfy slides. Before anyone can ask me for anything else, I race off the unit.

  As soon as I'm out of the double doors, I let go of a breath that I didn't know I was holding. Even though I am off the unit and free, I continue to book it down the stairs to the hospital's main entrance.

  Luckily, I am still wearing the clothes I came to work with. No one shit on me today.

  It's the little things.

  Unluckily, the bruise growing on my arm hurts. I cannot wait to get home, take a couple of painkillers, and make love to my heat pad.

  The best luck of all -- today is my last day of three. I will not have to come back here for another four days. That's the best thing I've realized all day.

  I smile for the first time in twelve hours when my slides touch the sidewalk outside the hospital. I speed around people walking too slow and nearly break out into a jog until I am at the lights. I just want to be on the safe side of the block. Even though I am punched out, I feel like I won't truly be done with today until I am home.

  When I am across the intersection and on the tree-lined hill, I let out another deep breath. My back aches from all of the people I turned today.

  I look down at my arm again. The bruise has now swelled up, so nearly a third of my arm is covered. The edges are a dark purple, and the middle is a splotchy yellowish color.

  It's hideous.

  "CNA Eileen!" I hear someone shout.

  My head snaps up as I instantly recognize the voice. I wish I was happier to hear Will's voice, but after the shift I've had, I want nothing other than to go home, shower, and wrap myself in heat. And maybe call and bitch to Violet.

  I don't want him to see me like this.

&nb
sp; I see him then, jogging from the right towards me, a big grin on his face. Like always.

  How often does this boy go running in a day? And why is he so obsessed with talking to me?

  If I hadn't had such a crappy day, I might have been excited to see him, but I'm not in the mood now.

  "Hey," he says again, only a foot away now.

  He is wearing a light pink long sleeve and another pair of gray cotton shorts that hit him mid-thigh. Surprisingly, there isn't the blue baseball cap. Instead, his dark hair is smoothed over nicely to the side. The contrast against his green eyes, especially in the bright sun, is more profound than I remember it being in high school.

  "Hey," I say back. My tone conveys how not in the mood I am.

  "Shitty day?" he asks, falling into step with me.

  The ease at which he just decides to start walking with me irritates me. Why can't he just leave me alone and work on his stupid van so he can actually get out of here?

  "Very."

  "Tell me about it," he says.

  I breathe out slowly, trying to control the anger that I can feel bubbling up. I know Will's just trying to be nice, but I'm in a terrible mood.

  I reach back and rip the elastic off the end of one braid. I run my hand through my messy curls.

  "Some people are just awful," is all I say, continuing to shake out my hair.

  I can feel Will watching me, but I keep my eyes ahead. I take another deep breath, trying to calm down.

  He's just trying to be nice.

  "Oh my gosh," he gasps.

  It startles me, but then I realize that he's looking at my bruise. Before I can say anything, he's in front of me and inspecting my arm. Under the sun, it looks especially unsightly. It'll probably be there for weeks.

  "Who did this to you?"

  His hard voice shocks me. And so does his face. Gone is the wide and kind smile. Instead, in its place is a severe and angry look. His eyes look furious. Despite my awful mood, I can't help but feel a reaction to his level of concern and care.