woodyloveslinkin
aka Gloomy Mushroom
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2004
- Location
- Lithgow Australia
Okay here's some more.
IT'S A MEGA UPDATE BECAUSE I FEEL HAPPY! In other words I just sat my second last exam that went for three hours!
It was 7 pm when Sarah’s doorbell went off. Sarah was upstairs putting Halle to sleep, as she knew earlier in the day that she had to come home and look after her sisters or no one would. Sarah was in the process of reading some random book that Sarah had picked up off for the living room floor, to Halle. She yelled at Monique to get it. But Monique was too busy watching television, so Monique turned to Jade, who was sitting right next to her and ordered her little sister to go get the door. Jade didn’t want to disobey Monique in any way, because she knew she would get hurt from Monique.
Jade got off the couch and walked several metres into the entrance hallway to open the door.
“Yes?” asked Jade, who was only fourteen but looked like she was at least seventeen. Ravyn stood at the other side of the door, dressed in her long black coat, with Rob next to her in his long khaki pants and a plain dark blue collared shirt. “Can I help you?”
“Is Sarah home?” asked Rob, giving Jade a small smile, as he looked at her through his glasses that he had on.
“I’ll just go get her,” answered Jade. “Do you want to come in?” Rob nodded, as he let Ravyn go first and then he followed. Jade ran upstairs to get Sarah, as Ravyn and Rob wandered into the living room, where the twins were watching crime shows.
“Are you after Sarah?” asked Dominique.
“Yeah,” answered Rob. Ravyn wasn’t in the talking mood, since Andrea had decided to put her on a, guilt trip about not letting Sarah get at least two weeks paid leave. “I saw you the other night. You’re her sisters, right?”
“Dominique,” said Monique, raising her hand.
“Monique,” said Dominique raising her hand also. They had decided to screw with people’s heads that they didn’t know.
“You’re not her new boyfriend, are you?” asked Monique.
Rob shook his head, as he couldn’t help but to laugh at the thought of ever going out with that hybrid emo intern.
“He’s my boyfriend,” answered Ravyn, somewhat defensively. “Who’s Sarah’s boyfriend?”
“I think his name’s Chester,” answered Dominique. “Or so, that’s the new rumour around the household has it.”
“So you’re the kind of person that believes anything that people tell them?” asked Ravyn, modestly. Dominique nodded, as though there wasn’t something wrong with that. “Did you know that Canada got electricity yesterday?”
“Nice one,” laughed Monique as Dominique realised that Ravyn was just joking. Ravyn rolled her eyes. “What do you want with my sister? Is it about Alexis?”
“No it’s not,” answered Rob.
“I’m her boss,” said Ravyn, blankly.
“Err…Ravyn is it?” asked Dominique. Ravyn nodded. Dominique looked to Rob. “Then who are you?”
“I’m another friend of hers,” answered Rob, shortly, as Jade and Sarah entered the room. Sarah looked a bit shocked to see Rob standing in her living room, and even more to see her son of a bitch/hypocrite boss standing right next to Rob. “Hi.”
“Hi,” replied Sarah, shortly, still confused of why she had to have the pleasure of meeting Ravyn outside hospital times. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Is there somewhere where we can talk?” asked Ravyn.
“Yeah, out the back,” answered Sarah, as she led the way to the back porch. She waited until they were out on the back porch until she started the conversation back up again. “Aren’t you going to remind of me of one of the rules that you set down in place?” As Rob and Ravyn took a seat opposite Sarah on the back patio, Ravyn didn’t look like she wanted to be here. Sarah took the shifty eyes of Ravyn, as a means of her trying to tell her something serious. “What’s wrong? Has something happened with Ava? What has Matt done this time?”
“Do you want me to tell her?” asked Rob, looking to Ravyn, who looked a bit uncomfortable.
“I may as well tell her,” answered Ravyn, as she looked from Rob to Sarah. “Yes and no, concerning Ava and your ex.” Sarah was bit confused by the fact that Ravyn somehow knew about Ava and that she hadn’t said anything to her that consisted of ‘keep your legs closed next time’. “The good news is that Ava has woken up, or so Andrea has told me, just a couple of minutes before he convinced me that I should be the one to break it to you and that yes, I will give you a week off to deal with your personal affairs.” Ravyn would love to see Greyfoxx’s reaction to this, since all she did was bitch about not being time off to attend to her personal affairs.
“And…?” asked Sarah, slowly.
“But, there is a catch-22 to this good news,” explained Rob. “Hours after you left the hospital, in tears, Matt had to be drug tested, as part of the normal accident procedure.” Oh great and he’s tested positive, Sarah thought to herself, as she convinced herself that Rob would say that he had tested positive to either cocaine or heroin.
“And let me finish the rest of the news for you,” added Sarah, with a sarcastic smile. “Knowing the asshole that Matt is, he tested positive.”
“You sound like that’s nothing new,” said Ravyn.
“Oh, it’s not new I can tell you that now,” replied Sarah. “What did he test positive to, heroin or maybe even cocaine?”
“Cocaine,” answered Rob.
“Is he an addict, Sarah?” asked Ravyn. “If he is, why haven’t you said anything about to anyone and why are you letting him intimidate you to this extent? It was because of Matt’s slow reaction time that he got Ava hurt. He could’ve avoided Shawg running the red light.”
“The last time I checked, he was, but it’s been ages since I’ve had anything major to do with him,” answered Sarah. “So what, is he in jail or even been arrested by now?”
“How can the police catch him when he’s done a runner?” asked Ravyn. Sarah’s sarcastic smile faded. “And guess who’s with him?”
“Ava,” whispered Sarah. “But why would Matt want anything to do with her? For quite a while he believed that he didn’t have a daughter and that I was only trying to scam the money required for child support, out of him.” But before Sarah could continue her response, Jade came and stood in the doorway, as though she wanted something. Sarah shifted her attention to her little sister. “Yes, Jade, what do you want?”
“Chester’s here,” answered Jade.
“Oh ****,” whispered Sarah, as she remembered Chester and her were meant to go out. She had completely forgotten about it. “Tell him to come out here.”
“Okay,” replied Jade, as she disappeared out of sight.
“Do you want to stay for dinner?” Sarah asked, assuming that if she sucked up to her boss, Ravyn would treat her a bit better. “I mean, I’ve already fed and put Halle to bed but the rest of us haven’t had our dinner.”
“No,” answered Ravyn, shortly.
“We may as well,” answered Rob, as Ravyn shot him a look. “It’s the least we can do for the girl.”
“Alright,” sighed Ravyn, eventually. Sarah smiled, as she got to her feet and walked off inside to see what Jade had done with Chester. “Rob, I don’t want to have dinner with an intern that I’m growing to hate. That’ll just spoil the process of it all. I might end up liking the girl, and we can’t have that happening, as I would turn out to be the biggest hypocrite that the hospital has produced so far.”
“It’s not going to kill you,” negotiated Rob. “She seems pretty nice to me.”
“That’s because you don’t have to put up with her all day every day,” replied Ravyn.
“And you won’t have to from now on, because you’ve just given her time off,” reminded Rob. “Come on Ravyn, it’ll do us some good. It’ll do you some good as well, as it is a chance to socialise and you can get to know your intern better. You don’t know what might happen; you might end up liking her at the end of the night.” Ravyn rolled her eyes, disgusted by the fact that she was allowing a man like him tell her what to do. “You haven’t even given her a chance and already it’s an automatic hate towards her. Is she that bad compared to Jo’s interns?”
“No, not really, when you look at it,” answered Ravyn, not wanting to admit to the fact that Sarah did a pretty good job as an intern. “She doesn’t annoy me, she doesn’t get in the way of my work, and she doesn’t come up with ditzy comebacks and answers.”
“Then give her a chance,” urged Rob, getting up from his seat. He offered his hand out to help Ravyn up, but Ravyn didn’t take it, as she also got up from the seat.
“I can’t believe I’m actually communicating with my intern outside of training hours,” muttered Ravyn, to herself. Rob didn’t hear the exact wordings of her sentence, but he knew what it would say, as Chester and Sarah came out onto the back patio. “Oh, that’s just, great, Bennington.” Chester and Sarah stopped in front of the couple and Chester and Rob exchanged a handshake and then let go of it. Chester was dressed in black pants and a white half-buttoned up collared shirt.
“How are you tonight?” asked Rob.
“I’m okay,” answered Chester. “What about yourself?”
“The same actually,” answered Rob. “I didn’t know that you two were going out.”
“No, we’re just friends,” replied Chester, smoothly, as he noticed Ravyn’s presence in the room. Bullshit, thought Ravyn, cynically. He turned to Ravyn. “How about you, how are you tonight? Still uptight and angry at Delson’s little stunt?”
“I wouldn’t consider what he did a stunt, I would classify that as stupidity in the rawest form,” answered Ravyn, sourly, as Rob turned to her and gave her a queer look. Ravyn sighed knowing that was the que to explain to Rob what had happened in the day with Brad and her. “He thought it would be fun to take all of my charts for my patients and mix them up with Jo’s. I can tell you now; Jo wasn’t too pleased about it either. I think it went along the lines of Jo wanting to slap him.”
“So, does anyone want anything in particular for dinner?” asked Sarah, not sure of what Rob and Ravyn would make of Chester’s appearance in her household.
“Pizza!” yelled Monique and Dominique at the top of their voices from inside the living room. Sarah turned around to remind them of what was asleep upstairs.
“Shhh!” hushed Sarah, impatiently. “Halle’s still asleep, and no, no pizza, you’re both getting fatter by the day.” Sarah turned around with an awkward smile on her face that was suitably forced upon her face. “Any decent suggestions from the adults in the household? I mean anything in particular that anyone fancies?”
“Oh no thanks,” Ravyn managed to find an excuse, as she looked to her watch and pretended as though she had to be somewhere. “I’ve lost track of the time, and I’ve got to be somewhere. It’s a pity that I can’t have dinner.” This was Ravyn in her pettiest state, as she was running out of excuses, as she had already used them up that day, trying to see how many meetings she could get of and which ones she couldn’t avoid the chasms of sharing a room with two idiots of the rawest and most common form, Greyfoxx and Jo. “But thanks for the offer, and I just had to tell you that about Ava and Matthew. That’s basically it.”
Rob was somewhat confused by the sudden change of attitude, as he turned back around to face Ravyn who, was looking uncomfortable and out of place as ever, as the phone in Sarah’s house started to ring and Dominique picked up.
“Yeah, I think I have to go as well,” added Rob, slowly, as he faced Sarah again. “But yet again, thank you for the offer.”
“Alright then,” replied Sarah, as Dominique turned up at Sarah’s side to hand her the phone. She was somewhat confused of why Dominique was handing her the phone. “What?”
“The phone just rang and it’s for you,” answered Dominique, as Sarah received the phone and put it to her ear.
“Hello?” asked Sarah, as Rob waved goodbye and they both left the house, after saying good bye to Chester as well.
“What was that about?” asked Rob, when both were seated in the front of his car. He hadn’t even ignited the ignition in the thing and already he was getting fired up about something.
“I never said, nor did I agree to have dinner with her,” answered Ravyn. “Don’t put me in that position again, I don’t like it. It makes me feel uncomfortable.”
“Being nice to people makes you feel uncomfortable?” asked Rob. “I must say, out of all the bizarre things for you to say and do, that’s the weirdest. I don’t even know why we’re going out in that case.”
“Excuse me,” spat Ravyn, looking offended as they faced each other. “What was that last comment about? You don’t even know why you had asked me out, was that it? I can’t believe you, nor will I ever believe you when you say that. Why did you say that?”
“Because it’s not working out, for at least for me it isn’t,” answered Rob, being honest. “You’re lovely one moment and an evil biatch the next. I mean, how many God damn mood swings can you have in one day?”
“I am trying to compromise here, and I would expect you to do the same thing,” retorted Ravyn. “I know I’m no darl, when it comes to my attitude some days, but at least I have the decency to not say that to the person that I’m trying to have a relationship with. It’s not like I’m asking you to defy your own religion, Rob, it’s certainly not like that.”
“I’m compromising here, I’m putting up with my woman’s attitude,” replied Rob, trying to keep his calm. “You do not know how much crap I’ve copped from the boys ever since finding out about this relationship, you have no idea.”
“Then if you hate my attitude so much Rob, why don’t you just get the balls to break up with me, after how many days of going out with me?” asked Ravyn, impatiently. “Look, I don’t care about this subject no more, just, drive me home.” Rob was going to say something in retaliation along the lines of her walking home, but he didn’t. He knew if he said that, it would be an overreaction to a pointless argument. He turned the key in the ignition and started to drive off, as he was telling himself that everything would be okay, it was just him overreacting.
Ravyn didn’t want to say anything for she was afraid that if she were to say something, it would be too out of line for Rob’s liking. The possible threat of having another argument was lurking around the corner somewhere, and Ravyn wasn’t sure that she really wanted to walk straight into it. So she resorted to looking out the window, the thing that Ravyn did when she wanted to avoid discussion.
Rob slammed down the accelerator driven by his emotions, as he cut a corner. Ravyn opened her mouth to say something about how badly he drove, but again, she wasn’t sure that she wanted another pointless argument with him, so she closed it. Rob slammed down the brakes, as the car approached the front yard of Ravyn’s house, jolting both of them forward, as they came to a stop.
“Why are you afraid of being nice to people?” asked Rob, breaking the silence between them, as Ravyn unbuckled her seatbelt. Rob wasn’t even wearing his, and Ravyn had secretly thought of how if he had slammed the breaks down any harder, he would’ve gone through the front window. “It’s not like there’s something wrong with being nice to people.”
“It’s my moral obligation,” answered Ravyn, harshly. “My morality is very high Rob, if you haven’t cared to notice. I’m not on this planet to be trodden over and treated like a doormat; I’m not anything like that. You don’t know me very well in that case then.”
“I’ve known you for quite a while, and trust me, I have been a victim of your parade of abhorrence on some occasions,” replied Rob, smoothly, carelessly reminding Ravyn of their past together. “I don’t know where you’re coming from when you say it’s your moral obligation. Obligation to do what exactly, Rave? I don’t know it’s just me or something, but I just cannot see it, and I don’t see it at all. I’ve never treated you like a doormat ever in my life, and really I can’t see who would treat you like a doormat. Were you this harsh and unsympathetic when you were an intern?”
“Don’t remind me of my internship, I’ve always hated looking back at my internship,” answered Ravyn, trying to hide the old wounds of her internship. “You’re just going to bring back healed wounds and that’s the last thing I want right now.”
“What happened in your intern years Rave? What happened that was so bad you’ve had to be like this for how many years has it been now?” asked Rob, knowing there was something up Ravyn’s sleeve, but knowing Ravyn, she was either to afraid to admit it, or she was just going on with some bullshit that she’s known to come up with just to get people off her back.
“Stop acting like you know me Rob, because you don’t!” snapped Ravyn, suddenly, as her eyes flared up with anger, as Ravyn faced Rob. “I have to get inside. I’ve got things to do, before we continue this pointless discussion.” Ravyn just had to separate herself from the conversation before anything else was said, that she either didn’t mean, or that was stored in her memory that she didn’t want to bring back. She gave Rob a small peck on the cheek, as she tried her mightiest to restrain her tears and got out of the car. Rob felt like something wasn’t right and he felt as though he had an obligation for someone who loved Ravyn by now. He opened his door, as Ravyn stormed to her front door, and as she scrambled for her keys in her pocket. Rob slammed the door shut, calling her to stop and talk to him. She ignored him, as she approached her front door. Rob sighed as he ran up to catch up with her. Rob finally managed to grab hold of Ravyn, around the wrists, but all Ravyn did was try to resist. “Let me go.” She could barely say it, because she was getting that emotional and upset. “Please, Rob, please just let me go, I’ll be alright.” She was futile against her attempts to free herself, because Rob’s grip was too strong on her wrists. She stopped struggling and Rob loosened his grip.
“I won’t let go, unless you tell me what’s make you so damn emotional,” ordered Rob. “Please Rave, please, I am a person that cares about you a lot and I am getting really attached to you, and I can’t bear to see you like this. You have to tell me, please, if you love me; please tell me, that is all I’m asking for, nothing more and nothing less.” Ravyn went limp, as Rob took her house keys from her and put them in his top pocket of his shirt. Ravyn was feeling as helpless as ever, as she knew she had no choice but to tell Rob what had happened. Rob embraced his upset girlfriend in his arms, as Ravyn cried heavier in his arms. Rob was worried. He had never seen not even a glimpse of Ravyn ever being like this, and being a janitor in the hospital, he got to see a lot of the staff upset. “Come on, we’ll go inside and talk about this. It’s getting cold, and I don’t want to rush you to emergency because you’ve caught hyperthermia.” Rob got the keys back out from his pocket, as he had the other arm around Ravyn. He wasn’t sure which key was the right key to her front door, but guessed that the one with the blue rubber around it was the front door key. He inserted the brass key into the handle and clicked it open to a house that was filled with darkness, as two cats came out; one was a fluffy Persian with black and with white markings on its back (in which Ravyn had called it Nemo) and one was a tan, black, and white, tortoiseshell (in which Ravyn had called it Miffy) and curled their tails around Rob’s legs. He didn’t like cats.
It was about 8 am, when Josh had walked through the front doors of the hospital with a cup of coffee in one hand and his mobile in the other. One thing that should be known about Doctor Gradon, is that him and his mobile were inseparable, even when it came to areas like a hospital, he still had it on and his favourite pastime wasn’t fishing or playing poker with the boys, it was in fact, playing Tetris on his phone. No exception to in this case, today.
He was so keen on beating the highest score set down by his nephew, a couple of weeks ago, that he had just walked straight the first person he had to see to, Chester.
Chester and Brad were only trying to figure out what would happen if Mike from pharmaceuticals and Jo were to ever go out and how long it would take for Mike to break up with Jo. Brad of course reminded Chester that Jo was married. Chester just told him to shut his trap.
Josh was so keen on getting the highest score in Tetris Version 2.0 (can’t forget that it was also in 3D) that he had bumped into Mel, carrying a heap of papers stacked up so high that it had blotted out her vision and she relied on people having the courtesy to look where they were going. The papers went everywhere and that was only when Josh had realised what he had just done.
”Oh, fiddlesticks,” said Josh, as he had just sent papers flying everywhere, and the main point for his disappointment, he had accidentally just exited the game that he knew he would eventually win. Josh put his phone away in his pocket, placed his coffee on the ground, and started to help Mel, who by now was already on her hands and her knees trying to pick up the papers. “I’m sorry Phoenix, I didn’t see you there.”
“That’s all right,” smiled Mel, like a schoolgirl but without the red cheeks. “I’ve just proved myself more of a klutz, nothing too detrimental to my self-esteem.” Mel’s smile faded as she rolled her eyes.
Josh stopped for a second to have a look at the time on his watch and then at the clock on the wall, as he realised that his watch had stopped working. He was late, only by three or so hours.
“Crap,” muttered Josh, as he felt like banging his head against the nearest wall, as he picked up his coffee from the ground and got to his feet.
“You can say that again,” added Mel. “Why the sudden change from your normal swearing to replacing your words with lame sayings?”
“Trying to cut my swearing down, it apparently upsets my wife when I swear too much,” replied Josh.
“I would be upset if I was married to you,” retorted Mel, quietly, as she continued to gather more papers. Josh heard and shot Mel a nasty look.
“What would you know about commitment Phoenix?” asked Josh, snappishly.
“A lot actually,” answered Mel, stopping what she was doing and faced one of her bosses. The other bosses were Grant and the government, none of which Mel liked either of. “Shawg and I have been together for quite a while now. So don’t tell me that I can’t commit to a relationship when you don’t know anything about me.”
“Who are you, Ravyn?” asked Josh. “Because you’re sounding exactly like her and that’s the last person I really need to have a stupid argument with today.” Josh wasn’t going to have an argument with a nurse like Mel and proceeded to go to his desk, on the paediatrics level. He stopped in front of the elevator, and pushed the up button, as Brad and Chester stood next to Josh. “Good morning Delson and Bennington.”
“Good morning Gradon,” they replied, looking as though they just did something wrong.
Josh knew he had to see Chester about something, but he couldn’t remember what it was. Josh ignored such thoughts as he sipped his coffee that had turned lukewarm.
Sarah arrived next Brad, as Chester was the closest to Josh, and stood there, but she didn’t say anything. Brad saw Sarah, Sarah smiled, as she took a sip out of her latte in one hand, Brad looked back to Chester and whistled. Chester just slapped him in the gut.
Sarah wasn’t in uniform she was actually back in the hospital to see if Ava was alright, after getting a phone call from Andrea saying that Matt had returned Ava in the early hours of the morning.
“Why aren’t you in uniform?” asked Josh, as he looked past Chester and Brad to look at Sarah. “And give me a reason of why I should care?”
“Day off,” answered Sarah. “Ah, Ravyn gave me a week off to deal with personal affairs.” Josh nodded, and looked back at the elevator.
“Then why are you back in this hospital?” asked Brad. “That’s a sad life you’re living.”
“What’s so sad about having my only child in hospital because of stupid people?” asked Sarah, angrily. Brad nodded, trying to understand of where she was coming from. Chester nearly choked on his own breath, when he heard Sarah’s response, in particular the words ‘my only child’. Chester hadn’t been told that Sarah had a kid. Chester knew she had a number of annoying little sisters but never a kid. Chester managed to catch his breath.
The elevator doors opened as all of them hurried inside. Sarah and Chester avoided being near each other for the sake of the amount of stupid comments that Brad would say. So Sarah went to the left back corner and Chester went to the right side of the elevator. Brad pressed the day surgery button for both him and Chester, while Josh pushed the paediatrics button for both him and Sarah.
“Have you seen Shinoda today?” Josh asked Chester. Chester shook his head. The elevator doors closed and they felt the lifting sensation under them. “Damn. I should just sack that laze. But I can’t. I can suspend him, the medical board sacks people.”
“What has he done this time?” asked Brad.
“He screwed three of Harris’s prescriptions up and then I had her come bitching to me about how much this hospital would be better off without Shinoda,” answered Josh. “I wish Grant will come back sooner. I’m sick of handling his affairs.”
“Has anyone noticed that woman, or whatever it is, has complained more about people to you then when Grant was here?” asked Chester, as Josh took another sip of his coffee. “I see a trend.”
“You know Harris, she hates the guts out of Grant,” added Brad as Sarah was deeply engrossed in this conversation and she took another sip of her latte. “One description was of him that I heard that came out of her mouth, was that Grant reminded her of a non-comical version of Bob Kelso, and Bob Kelso tends to annoy Ravyn a lot. She said that he reminded her of a hobo that knows how to read and write. I swear that woman has more balls in her than Grant does at times.”
“No argument from me,” replied Josh, as the elevator doors opened at a level just below day theatre. Jo entered the scene, as she took a spot in between Brad and Sarah. “Good morning. What floor?”
“Paediatrics,” answered Jo, as she realised that it already had been pushed. She saw Sarah and was kinda surprised to see Sarah there. “Good morning, I didn’t know you had to come in. Isn’t it your day off? I heard something off Andrea about Ravyn finally budging and giving you a week off to deal with Ava’s accident.”
“I’m coming to see her,” replied Sarah, shortly, as the elevator doors closed and they were lifted up.
“I would love to see Greyfoxx’s reaction,” Chester told Brad. Brad smirked. “I swear that woman is just, weird. It’s like she thinks she knows me.”
“Meaghen’s not that bad,” said Josh, overhearing the conversation between Chester and Brad. “And she’s pretty smart when it comes to anything that has the word radio in it. She even spares Rob the duty of calling someone to fix the machines that the interns have stuffed up. She fixes the machines herself.”
“Yeah, by kicking them,” replied Jo, smoothly. “It doesn’t take that much of intelligence to understand the simple philosophy of violence is useful when it comes to fixing machines.”
The elevator came to a halt and the doors opened to day surgery, and Chester and Brad walked out. But before Chester walked out, he and Sarah caught each other’s attention and Sarah smiled. Chester replied with a small smile and disappeared before Brad had a chance to bag the living daylights out of him for a number of things, including the new ICU intern. But no one came in though. Jo had seen the exchange of smiles between Chester and Sarah, as she smiled and whispered some things in her ear.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” whispered Jo, as the doors closed and they were lifted up.
“What about?” whispered back Sarah.
“About Chester,” answered Jo, still maintaining a level of whisper.
“There’s nothing going on,” replied Sarah, on a whisper.
“Bullshit,” said Jo, as she went back to adjusting her volume of voice back to normal. “Don’t kid me, I know the signs.”
“What are you ladies bullshitting about?” asked Josh, overhearing Jo’s previous sentence.
“Don’t you have a swearing limit on you?” asked Jo. “I heard about how Ellen put a swearing limit on you. How much do you have in the swear jar so far Gradon?”
“Shut up,” muttered Josh, not wanting to continue this conversation now. Jo’s attention went back to being on Sarah.
“You know where I am, if you ever want to admit to it,” said Jo, as the elevator stopped and all three people remaining in it exited the small space. Jo and Sarah went one way, towards the paediatrics desk, while Josh went the opposite way to his desk where he wanted to bang his head on the desk several times, because everything was just going wrong today. Sarah and Jo walked side by side, and Sarah was afraid that Jo was going to exaggerate on the situation. “So how long have you been seeing each other? I mean, that was a bit quick for you two to be seeing each other.”
“We’ve known each other for quite a while,” replied Sarah. “And we are not going out. How much do I need to stress that point?”
“Don’t worry, you’re just in denial, we all go through it,” smiled Jo, as though it was something positive.
“Why are you up here?” asked Sarah.
“Got to round up my nurses, they’re spreading around the hospital like cows in a paddock,” answered Jo. “I don’t know what is in the air lately, but my nurses are acting weird, especially towards me.”
“Is Ravyn not keeping up her role as the omen of the anti-nurses?” asked Sarah, remembering something another intern had said to her once.
“Nah, that’s not even possible for her to slack off in that area of her profession,” answered Jo, shaking her head, as Sarah saw Andrea outside of Ava’s ward talking to someone she hadn’t recognised before. Jo saw them too. “I’ll leave you to it.” Jo and Sarah parted their ways, as moments later Jo ran into one of her interns squandering around in the corridor talking to Jonathon. “Excuse me, but this is not a forum where you can sit around and do nothing but gossip.” Jo stood next to the new intern, as the new intern stopped talking to Jonathon, who looked like he was comfortable chatting Jo’s intern up. “Meg, get back to work, and that’s an order.”
“But I’ve filed all the files in the archives and I was with Mel with her rounds,” answered Meg. “There’s nothing else you can do without being criticised by the head of ICU.”
“This is a hospital, it’s always busy around the clock, and that’s the most pathetic excuse I’ve heard so far,” retorted Jo. “And as far as I know, Doctor Harris isn’t around because if I knew she was around, trust me, I would know.” Jo looked to Jonathon. “And you should know better.”
“What?” asked Jonathon, innocently. “I was only talking to her like a normal person.”
“Don’t you have to deal with affairs related with Bennington and Delson?” asked Jo, as Jonathon sighed, waved goodbye to Meg and walked away. Jo turned to Meg, who was still standing around doing nothing. “Miss White, please, you could do so much better than Jonathon.”
“I’ve never suggested anything about it or the nature,” replied Meg.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t fail you on your final med exams,” said Jo, blankly, as she was also getting sick of her nurses’ attitudes. “In fact, don’t give me one, I’ve already found one. Now, get back to work. Find something useful other than chatting up surgeons that fail in society.” Jo was quick to shut her mouth after that comment, after she realised that was a comment that Ravyn had came out with before. “Go to the locker rooms and bum around there. Just do it out of my sight.” Meg nodded and she disappeared out of sight, as Jo realised that no, she hadn’t seen Ravyn around. That was unusual for someone who liked to keep up to scratch with her shift starting times. Jo just shook it off and convinced herself that Ravyn must be around, but she was looking in the wrong places for her. Jo went down the corridor some more to where a bunch of other nurses were gathered around. She popped her in the circle and smiled. “Now, I am not slightly entertained by anything that has just been said. Now get back to work before Doctor Gradon gets the right to suspend you all.” Jo was being particularly Ravyn-like today, and she knew she had to stop it before she actually completed the three stages of becoming Ravyn; it was just the last stage got Jo a bit worried, the height stage. Jo walked off some more to do the same thing to another bunch of nurses who looked as though they were ready to start a cult of their own. Jo knew she was going to be worn down by the end of the day if she did this all day. The hospital was very large in distances and it didn’t particularly sit well with Jo.
It was lunchtime for most of the doctors and interns; it was starting time for Ravyn. Ravyn had slept in completely and had already missed her daily rounds for the patients that were conscious in the ICU ward. She rushed through the front doors and ran straight to the elevator, as she rushed to tie her hair back with the elastic around her wrist. She pushed the up button, but it was taking forever to get back down to the ground floor. She had slept in due to a couple of reasons, she didn’t get up until 11 am, she couldn’t have been bothered from getting up from bed, because Rob was right next to her fast asleep, and by the time she had gotten dressed, found her keys, separated her car keys from her house keys for Rob to lock up when he left, wrote Rob a note and gave him a peck on the cheek and left, it was already quarter to twelve.
Come on you stupid piece of junk, thought Ravyn, pressing the button repeatedly, once she had done her hair in a loose ponytail. Just when Ravyn thought her day couldn’t get any worse day, someone she didn’t particularly like right now stood next to her and looked at the numbers being highlighted on the wall.
“Screw you Shinoda,” snapped Ravyn. Mike’s attention was now on Ravyn’s outbursts. “You screwed up three of my prescriptions and you’re still working here. How is this even plausible?”
Mike showed her what he had his hands. It was three white paper bags with the Sacred Heart emblem printed on the front of them.
“Do you know what they are?” asked Mike. “It’s your damn prescriptions for the patients you wanted them for. I’ve been trying to find you all damn day and this is what I get? What is wrong with you? I at least start my shifts on time.”
“And how long ago did I want those prescriptions?” asked Ravyn, impatiently. “How many days ago did I ask for them? Was it along something along the lines of about, four days ago?”
“The drugs aren’t that common and they are expensive to get in,” argued Mike. “If you want to switch jobs Harris, I would be glad to any day.”
“You wouldn’t know what the difference between septicaemia and the bubonic plague was, let alone what day it would be,” retorted Ravyn. “So don’t ‘Harris’ me, Shinoda. And plus, if you can’t handle three prescription drugs, what are the chances that people will trust you to make important decisions? It’s called responsibility, learn how to spell it first then you should know what it is.”
“Then what do you want done with these?” asked Mike.
“Give them to White,” answered Ravyn, bluntly.
“Which White?” asked Mike. “There are two Whites in the same area. Meg is doing nursing and Jack, well, he’s just there for some God damn unknown reason.”
“It’s Jack the one that looks like a chick, and he’s the one that you should give them to, because he handles the doses, not me, I tell people what to take and how much, I don’t give it to them,” answered Ravyn, as the elevator doors opened and both her and Mike went inside. Ravyn pushed the cafeteria button and Mike went to the back corner. The doors closed without any further discussion, taking place, or so Ravyn had hoped. Ravyn sighed as the doors closed and they were both lifted upwards.
“How’s Rob?” asked Mike.
“Why do you care?” asked Ravyn.
“Just, trying to make conversation, that’s all,” answered Mike. “There’s nothing illegal about that.”
“Yeah, but the last time I checked murder is,” replied Ravyn.
“I didn’t mention anything like murder,” said Mike. “Why would I want to mention murder for?”
“Because that’s what you’re going to drive somebody to do soon,” answered Ravyn. “I most congratulate who ends up being the one that murders you. Because you’ve got to be careful of who you make conversation with, it might be the last attempt you make.”
Mike was confused. Ravyn’s response was a mixture of a threat, harassment and, the truth. Mike shook his head, trying to get it out of his head, because he knew that would just drive him up the wall all day, just thinking about it.
The elevator doors opened, as Mike released that he didn’t want to go to the cafeteria but he wanted to go to the ICU. Ravyn walked out, and Mike pressed the button for the ICU ward. Ravyn was hungry, she had totally skipped breakfast to make it to the hospital before someone noticed the absence of bitchy comments and smart remarks about people’s personal lives (she had considered herself to be multi-talented because of this ability).
Talk about good timing (another thing she had to kudo herself on), her entrance to the cafeteria was the precise time that Andrea entered the cafeteria through the opposite entrance.
“Good afternoon,” greeted Andrea, as they both met each other in front of the Subway outlet. “I was starting to miss your snide remarks about the interns.”
“I feel loved,” replied Ravyn, with a small smile. “I slept in, that’s my excuse. I’m sure you’ll love that one.”
“I am going to believe you because you are not an intern,” assured Andrea. “If you were an intern, you wouldn’t have a hope in hell at convincing me that you were telling the truth.” Andrea looked at the Subway sign on her side, and then looked back at Ravyn. “Attempting to eat something healthy today?”
“No,” answered Ravyn, also turning her gaze on the highlighted menu behind them. “This isn’t healthy. It’s generic false advertising, because it’s all processed food. In many other cases, I would say that I would prefer to starve myself until I ate some real food, but since I didn’t have time for breakfast, and as much as that sounds hypocritical of me, I am going to assign this fast food outlet as the outlet that is going to provide me with my nutrition until I decide that I am better off with stuff that I know where it has been.”
“Do you want to grab the table or should I?” asked Andrea.
“I have the less energy here, I should automatically have the right,” answered Ravyn, as she walked off, leaving Andrea to order. She passed many gossipping interns that looked at her as though she was some kind of retarded alien and some that were gossipping, but didn’t have the guts to look up at her. She found a table by the window, for two people only, so people could not invite themselves to sit with her. Too late. “Why must you be here?”
“Why not?” asked Josh, as he sat down in what was meant to be Andrea’s seat. “Why were you late?”
Ravyn smiled at the fact that she just thought up the best comeback.
“I couldn’t have been screwed going to my job, so I went and screwed my boyfriend instead,” answered Ravyn, sarcastically.
“Please tell me that was sarcasm,” pleaded Josh, who was really disturbed by that comeback. “You don’t know how badly you’ve scarred me now.”
“Yes, Gradon, it was sarcasm, plus, it was a parody,” replied Ravyn, as she was aiming to confuse her boss with literary techniques and literary jargon. “It’s almost like Brave New World by Huxley, which is set in After Ford years, 632 to be exact, where promiscuity is encouraged by the government and soma is the new anti-depressant drug, in which Lenina dies of it because she overdoses on it. You could almost put me in there if you want to give me rhetoric or some stupid **** like that.”
“That’s a clever tactic Harris, try to confuse me with Aldous Huxley’s works,” retorted Josh. “I know Brave New World as well. It was the shittiest book that I had to study for English back in my high school days.”
“Oh, in that case then, you would understand when I say that if this world ever become like Huxley’s, I would be in the Alpha class, I would be one of the smart classes of people to be alive,” insulted Ravyn, as she couldn’t remember what the lowest class of humanity was in Brave New World, she thought it was Gamma, but that’s when she remembered what class Gradon would be in, Epsilon, the lowest. She had just basically said that she was in the top caste class. Josh looked lost. “A new caste system and form of servitude has been developed where individuals are predestined for a particular role in life and therefore genetically engineered on an assembly line and each caste category is based on the Greek alphabet. Remember Gradon, you have your damn political jargon and I have both my medical and literary jargon. Don’t bullshit me Josh; I don’t like people, especially those younger to me, wasting my time. I don’t mind if my own mother does it, she’s been doing it all my life, and plus, she’s older than I am. Don’t even try to attempt a literary battle with me Gradon.”
“Okay then, looks like you know, your stuff, and I won’t even attempt in that case,” replied Josh, backing off a bit. “So, how’s life?”
“Why do I even want to start a discussion about something that you play no major role in?” asked Ravyn, blankly. “You’ve just been defeated in Brave New World. Don’t make a further ass of yourself.”
“Hello Josh,” greeted Andrea with two Subway bags in her possession. She laid one in front Ravyn, as Ravyn was still persisting to give her boss the evil eye. “How are you today?”
“Fine, thanks for asking, by the way,” answered Josh, as he got up from Andrea’s seat. “I’ll see you two ladies later.” Andrea took her seat.
“Bite me,” muttered Ravyn, under breath, as Josh walked off.
Josh was seated at the other end of the cafeteria next to Jonathon and Brad. No one knew where Chester was. Sarah walked past with Meg and Tarja trailing behind her. They were busy talking about what was happening around the hospital. Sarah had stayed because Ava was asleep and that, she wanted to catch up with friends. It was only her first day off and already she felt isolated, socially. They put their trays out on the bench for collection and wandered off outside to catch a breath of fresh air. When they arrived downstairs at the main admin desk, they saw Mike and Meaghen in a heated discussion about something. They only caught wisps of what was said, something about how Mike had betrayed Meaghen, but they weren’t ready to stay and stir it any further.
They walked through the automatic doors, to see Jo talking rapidly in, Greek (that’s what the girls assumed) on her mobile phone. Meg giggled at the fact that Jo actually had friends, but of course, Meg didn’t say anything. Meg wasn’t fond of Jo, and vice versa. Jo stopped talking for a second, to hear a reply back; she saw the trio of them, smiled, and waved. They waved back, even though Meg wouldn’t naturally do that, if she was alone. They came to a pair of seats, shaded under a tree and sat on them. Tarja decided not to though, but instead, she laid down on the ground in front of them, just where a soft patch of grass was.
“Do you know what’s happening with Matt?” asked Meg. “Andrea wasn’t too happy with him being in the hospital.”
“How did you find out about Matt?” asked Sarah, as she remembered she hadn’t really spoken to Tarja or Meg about Matt, but more Jo and Mel.
“It’s all over the hospital,” answered Meg. “There are so many different versions of it.”
“Like?” asked Sarah, wanting an example.
“Like, apparently, Matt was the one responsible by ramming the car into a tree because he was too drunk and lost control,” answered Tarja, from the ground. “That’s the most pathetic rumour someone could make up.”
“Only pathetic people make up pathetic rumours,” commented Meg. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Bennington who made it up.”
“It wasn’t him,” replied Sarah, in defence. “He wouldn’t do that, it’s not like him to make up rumours about me. If anything else, he doesn’t believe rumours, he has to know if the version he’s heard is true from the source. It was probably Delson.”
“So can we have the real story from you?” asked Tarja. Tarja found it hard to find the right words sometimes, as she was Finnish and was used to speaking the same language as everybody else in the country. That’s why she wasn’t a social bird in the hospital; she was more like Jo’s doormat. “If that is, alright with you.”
“I can tell you now, that version that you heard, it’s nowhere near the truth,” explained Sarah. “When Matt and I were young, we did some serious **** together. I used to run away from my place to be with him that would only last a couple of days until the cops came and found me at his place on the other side of the state. He used to be a hardcore drug user, and then eventually I melted into drug using. It was when I was about nineteen, or just after I turned nineteen, I’m not sure anymore, that I found out that I was pregnant. By then, we’d been together for two years and I thought he would’ve allowed me to go through with it. But because I was scared for Ava’s health, I had to give up the drugs, in which I was a total wreck on the side of the street for some months because of that. He said he would rather be with what’s left of the cocaine that we had, we even stole it as well, then to be with me because of the child, and that I wouldn’t give it up. He said it was the child or the drugs, and that I wouldn’t and I couldn’t choose both. I went into massive rehab sessions after my mum found me on the side of the street. And Matt is now still on it.”
“So he wasn’t drunk, he was high?” asked Meg. Sarah nodded. “I had no idea.”
“No one does really,” answered Sarah. “The scary thing is that I’ve had relapses, and every now and then, at the least expected moments, I have them, just randomly. I’ve even ended up in hospital because I’ve blacked out and banged my head or something, because when I got into the drugs, we did it together, and he was always a heavy drug user, and he dragged me into it. So, I’ve been told that he could’ve avoided being hit by Mel’s boyfriend that ran the red light and smashed into the back of Matt’s car. God knows how the hell he’s going to pay the insurance on that thing.”
“Well, the good thing about this situation is that you’ve learnt from your past, you’ve moved on and you’re trying to get your life back together,” said Meg, wisely. “I don’t know about Matt, but that’s his problem if he wants to die from an overdose. You’ve got your act together and that’s the thing that matters.”
“I was so scared for Ava’s health for those long nine months,” explained Sarah. “I still am in a way.”
“Any mother would be,” replied Tarja. “Especially for one who was in your position at the time and considering how young you were as well.”
Chester was nearby and saw Tarja, Sarah and Meg talking on the seats, well, Tarja was laying just near where Sarah and Meg were talking. He started to walk over to see if there was an open invitation open.
“Good afternoon,” greeted Chester, as the girls stopped talking about whatever they were talking about. Chester didn’t care nor did he heed any attention, as he came to a standstill, as he put his hands in his pockets. “How are you today?” He looked to Sarah.
“I’m okay I guess,” she answered, giving him a small smile. “What about you?”
“Just had to run around and do some things so I wouldn’t get in trouble for not doing my paramedic duties yesterday,” answered Chester. “Josh is actually quite smarter than what originally meets the eye. Curse him. But I tell you what; Delson’s going to cop it as well, if Josh finds out about yesterday. Because it was Delson’s idea, because apparently he didn’t want to be harassed or stalked by the new nursing interns, or something like that. I got lost in the words when Delson was explaining it to me.”
“Excuse me, I do not stalk Delson,” defended Meg. Tarja didn’t say anything, because she had been a qualified nurse for a while and the fact that she wasn’t an intern applied as well. Also, the fact that Tarja and Brad were good friends as well, applied to her decision not to say anything.
“Who said I was talking about you?” asked Chester, not sure of whom Meg was, as his attention shifted from Sarah to Meg. “And who are you to start with?”
“I’m Meg, a nursing intern, thank you very much,” pouted Meg. “And don’t bother introducing yourself, I know you as Bennington, Delson’s retarded friend.”
“Oh, okay,” replied Chester, as he had just realised that he shouldn’t have just insulted the new nursing interns. But his excuse was that he didn’t know and he was going to stick with it. His attention shifted to Sarah. “So what are you up to?”
“Just talking, nothing exciting,” answered Sarah, blankly. “Why? What have you been up to?”
“Delson’s planning to cut the supply of electricity off on a number of houses out the front of his place, and he wants me to keep watch, well, that’s what I’m doing tonight, I don’t know about you,” answered Chester, smiling. “Now that’s what you call fun.”
“Why though?” asked Tarja, as she lifted herself up from the ground, as she deliberately showed off her new black hair that had been stained with dark red streaks throughout it. “It sounds stupid.”
“No, it’s only because his neighbours have been stealing cable TV from him and he wants to get back at them,” explained Chester.
“I’m with Tarja, it sounds stupid,” sided Meg. “It sounds immature and childish.”
“I’m not saying anything,” said Sarah. “Don’t get me involved.”
“Thank you for the dinner last night,” thanked Chester, knowing there was something he had to thank Sarah for. “I didn’t know that your sisters could have such, how should I put it? Such talent, in the expert field of embarrassing themselves.”
“It’s Dominique and Monique we’re talking about, no surprise really, well to me it isn’t,” replied Sarah, as Sarah looked to her watch on her left wrist to see what time it was because she had to go and see her sister’s principle at three because Sarah had gotten a call earlier saying that both of them are in trouble and that Sarah made a pathetic excuse up not to be there right then when she got the call. She looked back up at Chester, who now was putting all of his weight on his left foot. Chester wanted to say some things to Sarah, but because Tarja and Meg were around. Sarah picked this want up just in his body language. “Is there something you want to ask or tell me?”
“Yeah, a couple of things, but I don’t know if this is the right time or the right place,” answered Chester, looking a bit uncomfortable being around two of Sarah’s friends. He looked to Meg. “Can we have some privacy please?”
“Sure thing,” answered Meg, as she got to her feet, and as Tarja got to her feet as well. “I should be getting back just in case Jo wants to declare biological war on me for not doing half the stuff that I’ve been asked to do.”
“I’ve got to go to a meeting with the medical board in like twenty minutes,” explained Tarja. “And it takes me about ten minutes to get to their stupid building. So I think I should just lounge around for ten or so minutes around the building.”
Tarja and Meg walked off, but Meg found the time to turn away still in the process of walking, to give Sarah a wink of her eye. Sarah ignored Meg, as both girls walked off.
“Yes?” asked Sarah, as Chester sat next to her. He leant forward and looked at the ground. Sarah was quick to notice his mood change. “You look like you’ve been distraught over something. Care to explain?”
“You have a child,” spluttered Chester. “You have a child, already.”
“So what’s the big deal there?” asked Sarah. “Because, I don’t see what’s the big issue is.”
“You’re in your early twenties, and already you have a child that is how old exactly?” asked Chester, still trying to get over that major day-changing factor.
“Ava, she’s almost three, she’s three in a couple of months,” answered Sarah. “I know I didn’t exactly tell you about her, but I kept her away from you for a good reason.”
“You didn’t exactly tell me?” spat Chester, looking to Sarah. “You didn’t tell me to start with. And what’s the so-called good reason that you kept the big secret away from me?”
“I didn’t want to give you the wrong impression about me,” answered Sarah, sincerely. “I’ve tried to have various relationships after Matt, and as soon as they find out about Ava, God, it’s like I’ve just committed a mortal sin.”
“Matt, as in the father of Ava?” asked Chester. Sarah nodded. “Ex-husband?” Sarah shook her head. “Ex-boyfriend then?” Sarah nodded. “God Sarah, you weren’t even married when you had her.”
“Don’t you lecture me over something you have barely any knowledge about,” retorted Sarah, angrily, as what Chester had just said was exactly the same thing that her mother had said when she found out that Sarah was pregnant. “I was young, I was naïve and I was stupid, and my youth was just taken away from just like that. Don’t you think for one minute that I did not learn my lesson, Chester, because I did and no matter how many people have given me a hard time about her, I still love Ava to death and no one can take that away from me. You don’t know what Matt has put me through, so don’t try to lecture me about naivety and stupidness.”
“I’m not making you choose,” objected Chester, as he just interpreted her speech about her only child the wrong way.
“But you were sounding like it, and the last thing I need to do is to be pulled between my child and the man I’m trying to make a relationship with,” replied Sarah. “You have no idea of what I’ve been put through with Matt, and the latest stunt, God, I don’t know anymore. I try to trust the man, but every time that I associate my trust with him, I just get stabbed in the back. In fact, I hope he spends the rest of his sad and miserable life in jail after the latest spectacular act he’s pulled.”
“Is Ava the one in paediatrics under Andrea’s care right now, the one with in the car accident with her father?” asked Chester, remembering something Brad had said to him about Andrea taking care of a car accident victim and that some man had returned her to the hospital in the early of the morning. Sarah nodded. “Oh God, I didn’t know that was your daughter. I didn’t think for one second that she could be related to you, because I thought you would’ve had more decency than to date a guy that took his daughter away from being treated.” Chester sat back up. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” Chester put his arms around Sarah.
“I’ll be okay,” replied Sarah. “I always end up being okay.” Chester gave Sarah a small peck on the cheek.
“So, doing anything tonight?” asked Chester.
“Yelling at my sisters if that counts as anything,” answered Sarah. “I got a call from their principle, saying that Dominique has been caught with weed in her locker and Monique refuses to obey teacher directions. So I’m going to have good fun thinking about what their suspension punishment will be and what my mother would do if she had bothered to be here.”
“How weird was it when Ravyn and Rob dropped around last night?” asked Chester. “I was so surprised that she had actually had that many thoughtful thoughts, to drop around and see if you were okay.”
“Actually, she was there to break some news to me about Matt, but it’s all settled down now,” answered Sarah. “Funny, she didn’t look very comfortable. Rob apparently pushed her to tell me. I don’t know what’s wrong with that woman, it’s like, she’s afraid of being nice to people, as though it’s some sort of crime to be nice to people. I don’t know anymore and I’ve stopped trying to figure her out, it’s too much of an effort, one that I am not willing to continue. But the only thing that came out of that meeting, that was positive, is that she had least cared enough to give me a week off.”
“No, she didn’t think of that, Andrea did,” explained Chester. “If it’s anything along the lines of treating people nicely, coming from Ravyn, it’s either Andrea nagging at her, or in this case, her own man nagging at her. I must have to question, which person in that relationship does the most nagging at the other person. Knowing that woman and her work, she would’ve only given you about ten minutes off your shift, without the useful interference of Andrea.”
“Oh,” replied Sarah, sarcastically. “I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.”
“Well, I have to go now,” announced Chester, as he and Sarah gave each other a small peck on the lips. “I hope everything with Matt and Ava goes well. I’ll be thinking of you.”
“Thanks,” replied Sarah, as they repeated the same actions as before. Chester let go of her and walked into the hospital, with his hands in his front pockets, as Sarah remained where she was.
Chester walked through the automatic doors as he stopped to think about what he had forgotten to do other than avoid Josh for the entire day. He frowned as he thought about how long and tiring his shift is. He shook it off, as he continued to walk to where he knew Mike would be slagging off completely. Moments later, he stopped in the entrance of the pharmacy, as Mike noticed Chester giving him a queer smirk, with hands still in his front pockets, Mike got up from his stool from behind the counter.
“What are you smirking about Bennington?” asked Mike, as he started to walk over to Chester, who still was smirking in the entrance to his store.
“Gradon has the shits with you so bad, Shinoda,” answered Chester.
“At least I’m not shagging the new ICU intern,” retorted Mike, as he came to a standstill in front of Chester.
“If I wanted to play childish games, I would’ve gone to Ravyn for them, not you Shinoda,” replied Chester smoothly. “I at least would think she has more brain capacity than you right now.”
“I’m not jealous,” pouted Mike. “What’s your main purpose for being here Bennington? I am kinda failing to see your main point.”
“I don’t know, was walking past and I decided that I should visit my old friend Shinoda, who Gradon wants to hunt down and stab,” answered Chester. “You’re totally ****ed man. I swear to God, you so are.”
“Friends?” coughed Mike. “Come on Bennington, I think the lie detector just went off its scale from total bullshit to ****, you’re just a walking son of a bitch. Now leave Bennington, you’re only digging yourself a deeper grave.”
“Is that some sort of threat, Shinoda?” asked Chester. Mike turned around and started to direct his focus on more serious issues like where he had stashed all of his reports and order forms. “Come on, Shinoda, you’re no fun.”
“Fun?” spat Mike, as he turned around and faced Chester again. “Your idea of fun is totally ****ed to the highest point of stupidity. I would be so concerned for Sarah, if she ever found out about your past and your remaining idea of the term, fun.”
“You need to get a proper life,” commented Chester. “You use to be so fun back in the day Shinoda, but now, you’re so preppy and pristine. You’re such a mama’s boy.”
“Do you know what you remind me of, Bennington?” asked Mike. “A teenage boy thriving on hormones, and my advice is, that you need to grow up.”
“And do you know what you remind me of, Shinoda?” asked Chester. “Nothing like the Mike I knew back in college. You used to be such a cool person.”
Chester turned around and left the conversation as Mike went back to looking for the missing order forms and all of his reports that had somehow disappeared. Chester walked past a couple of new interns that obviously belonged to Jo’s department because of how hard they were giggling and the kind of retarded pitch they were giggling at. Chester ignored them, despite the fact that they were pointing at him and obviously talking about him. He just wished he could run into someone that he liked before he got approached and asked out by a stupid nursing intern. Just by luck, he saw Rob standing in front of the notice board that Chester had failed to look at for a number of weeks now.
“Hey,” greeted Rob, as he took note of Chester’s presence next to him. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you and Delson supposed to be back on paramedic duty?”
“What?” asked Chester, a bit confused. Rob pointed at the timetable for paramedical duties and underlined the names ‘Brad Delson’ and ‘Chester Bennington’ with his finger.
“Go figure,” answered Rob, blankly.
“No, wait, that’s the old roster,” explained Chester. “I was on yesterday.”
“What new roster?” asked Rob. “I didn’t hear of such a thing.” He turned to Chester. “Stop pulling the wool over my eyes Bennington. There’s no such thing. Or else this wouldn’t still be up.” Rob looked at one piece of red coloured paper and ripped it right off the notice board. “Holy ****.”
“What’s holy **** now?” asked Chester, a bit confused, as Rob started to mutter the words that he was reading. Chester leaned over to read the piece of paper that Rob was watching. “Oh that’s holy **** now.”
“Gradon won’t be too happy,” muttered Rob. “I would love to see the expression on my woman’s face when she reads this.” Rob laughed. “She’s sure to sign it.”
“So would I,” added Chester. Rob stopped reading the piece of paper and shot Chester a look. “What? I mean, my woman’s face, not yours. God forbid that would be me committing the ultimate mortal sin of all time.”
“You don’t even have a woman,” accused Rob. “So you can’t even say that.”
“Ah, yes I do,” defended Chester.
“Imaginary girlfriends do not count Bennington,” retorted Rob.
“Each day you date that woman of yours, the more you’re going to become more like her,” muttered Chester to himself, but Rob heard it. “Just quit while you’re ahead.”
“I at least have a woman, that’s the only thing that’s separating you from me right now,” replied Rob, smoothly. “You have yet to show evidence to me that your woman isn’t a figment of your horniness.”
“Is that a challenge Bourdon?” asked Chester. “Do you really want to lose money to me over this?”
“I never said that I was going to waste my money on you,” answered Rob, crossing his arms, with the piece of coloured paper still in his hands. “I said I wanted to see evidence. And until I see any evidence, I will think of you being the lonely little boy I’ve grown to know as Bennington.”
“Fine,” replied Chester, as Rob started to walk away because he had better things to do. “You’ll find out sooner or later.” Rob stopped and turned around to face Chester.
“And until I don’t, I will not believe it,” stated Rob, as he turned around to give the piece of paper to Ravyn, as he made his way through a crowd of new interns belonging to paediatrics, and not the nursing for once in a while. “Excuse me, coming through.” He managed to convince the interns to make room for him as he caught the soon-to-be-closed elevator. He walked in to realise that he would be sharing a ride with Mel and Jonathon. “Hi.” The elevator doors closed and Rob pushed the ICU button, but it was already pushed alongside with the day surgery button, as Rob remembered that Ravyn got the ultimate pleasure of sharing the same floor space with the nurses and Mel was obviously heading up there.
“Hi,” greeted Jonathon and Mel simultaneously in a chorus. Only Mel sounded as though she actually meant her niceness. The elevator went up.
“How are you today Rob?” asked Mel.
“I’m fine thank you,” answered Rob, as Rob leant against the wooden rails of the elevator. “How about yourselves?”
“I’m okay, I guess,” answered Mel, slowly.
“I don’t want to talk about it, really,” answered Jonathon, looking angry over something.
“Why? What happened?” asked Rob.
“It’s none of your business, Rob, it really isn’t,” answered Jonathon, looking away from Rob.
“He’s just not a happy chap,” explained Mel. “Some **** went down between him and your woman a couple of minutes back, and just say, that Jonathon isn’t too happy about some of the things she said about him to his face.” Mel looked from Rob to Jonathon. “Do you want me to tell him?” Jonathon shook his head. “Oh, okay then.” Mel looked back to Rob. “But at the same time, I don’t think Ravyn’s too happy about a lot of things. She looked as though, as though she just wanted to break down, emotionally over something. Jo tried getting it out of Andrea, who tried getting it out of Ravyn, but she wouldn’t budge.”
“I just wish Grant was back, so he could control her attitude, he was always good at that, when he was around,” commented Jonathon. He looked back at Rob, who was going to open his mouth and retort Jonathon’s little comment but he didn’t. “I honestly don’t see what you see in that woman of yours Rob, I really don’t.”
“You get to see another side of her, that I don’t like either, but you don’t know her that well, as I do,” explained Rob. “You haven’t seen the side of Ravyn that I’ve gotten the privilege to see. And I think Andrea, her being her good friend; she’s seen Ravyn’s good side.”
“Good side?” spat Jonathon.
“Jonathon, don’t get yourself worked up,” advised Mel, softly but Jonathon just ignored her. “It’s really not worth it. You’re going to achieve nothing if you get yourself worked up over it.”
“Good side?” repeated Jonathon. “You have to be kidding yourself Bourdon.”
“Go take Mel’s advice Jonathon, it’s not worth getting yourself worked up over,” advised Rob. “I don’t see why you’re suddenly complaining. It’s not like this a new thing to you. Stop causing a scene Jonathon.”
“No, don’t tell me what to do,” retorted Jonathon. “I’m going to lodge a serious complaint against Ravyn with the medical board.”
“Good luck of trying to get that to be taken seriously,” replied Rob. “To start with, she’s been working longer at this hospital more years than before you were, and she’s had more experience with her profession that you have had. You know it yourself Jonathon; the medical board will look at her medical history with the hospital before they can even think about interviewing her for her behaviour.”
“Trust me, the medical board will be taking this seriously if Grant becomes involved,” warned Jonathon. “And he’s bound to do something about her attitude.”
“Despite the fact, Grant has been trying to control Ravyn’s attitude for a couple of years now, and Ravyn listens to no one about her attitude, not even for what Grant has to say about it,” argued Mel, suddenly wanting to become involved in the heated argument. “Ravyn will point out the major point that Grant is a walking hypocrite when it comes to him and his profession, as Grant is only working a minority of the time that he’s supposed to. And the only reason why Ravyn doesn’t take him seriously because Grant’s area of profession is in business and not in medicine, that’s why she takes Gradon a bit more seriously than Grant. So if you’re aiming at getting Ravyn sacked, the most likely scenario is that Grant will lose his job, as a consequence of Ravyn defending herself.”
“I thought you were on my side, Phoenix,” said Jonathon, shifting his attention to Mel.
“I’m not on anybody’s side,” replied Mel. “It’s a clear fact that if you’re intending to get Ravyn sacked, most likely, Grant will be the one that’ll lose his position. And once Grant is out of the office, his job will be up for grabs. Just guess who’ll be going for his place as the head of the hospital and all of its functions?”
“Oh I wonder,” Jonathon sarcastically said, as the elevator came to a halt and the doors opened on the day surgery ward. “It’s only been the same people going for Grant’s job when the medical board has decided to suspend him over various stunts.” Jonathon rolled as eyes, as he walked out into the hallway that led to the day surgery department. The elevator doors closed behind them, leaving Rob and Mel in the elevator.
“Yeah, he’s not having a good day today,” said Mel, as the elevator went up.
‘Oh well, it’s not my problem, it’s his,” replied Rob. “I don’t see why he has to make a big deal of it. I mean, Ravyn’s always been like this, and he’s acting like its some new mood swing of hers.”
“Hey, have you seen Greyfoxx around lately?” asked Mel, changing the subject completely.
“No, I haven’t, which is kinda unusual,” answered Rob, as he thought back to when the last time that he saw in the hospital. “She usually likes to make her presence known in the hospital.”
“Do you reckon that Meaghen’s basically ignored Grant’s decision to not give her personal leave?” asked Mel. “Because it’s kinda looking like she just, has disappeared from the face of the planet.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know her that well to actually understand of how she works,” answered Rob. “I’ve never really associated myself with Meaghen, I don’t know why though.”
“What do you have in your hands?” asked Mel, noticing the piece of red coloured paper in Rob’s grip. “Is it the new notice thingy for the nurses?”
“Ah, if it were to be for the nurses, why would I have it?” asked Rob, wisely. “And I think Jo has more energy then that, to just dump this on the notice board downstairs.”
“Oh okay, because Jo said something in the meeting for the nurses, this morning, about looking out for a new notice for us all,” explained Mel. “In which, I think Jo is another person not to cross today. I think she’s having some troubles with her marriage to her Grant.”
“You just love gossipping, don’t you?” Rob couldn’t help but to ask. Mel nodded. “Is it meant to be a thing you have to learn as a nursing intern to be a proper nurse?”
“No, it’s just a woman thing,” answered Mel.
“No it’s not, Ravyn doesn’t gossip and go on about people behind their backs,” defended Rob. “Well, the second part was a lie, I admit to that.”
“Yeah, but that’s Ravyn for you,” replied Mel, smoothly. “I don’t know what’s wrong with your woman Rob.”
“There’s nothing wrong with her, she’s just very opinionated and independent,” explained Rob. “Which, I admit to, is very frustrating for me.” The elevator calm to a halt and the elevator doors opened on the ICU/nurses floor, as both people walked out and the elevator doors closed behind them. Mel walked beside Rob as they walked together. “I guess that’s just Ravyn for you. I mean, she’s such a sweet person when you get to know her, but she would rather show her other side that I don’t really appreciate that much.”
“Oh well then,” sighed Mel, reluctantly. “There are some people that are a mystery to others, and then we have Rav, well, she’s no exception.”
“She would kill you if she found out that you just called her that,” Rob pointed out, as they approached the nurse’s front desk. Rob stopped and looked around to see if Ravyn was in sight, but she wasn’t, as Mel went behind the front desk and into the backroom. Jo was coming out of the backroom, looking unimpressed and unpleased as ever. “Hey Jo.” Jo reacted to her name being called out by stopping and looking at Rob with an odd look.
“Yes?” asked Jo. “Are you looking for your woman?”
“Yes, I was actually,” answered Rob. “You’re starting to read my mind.”
“No, it’s just obvious now,” replied Jo. “If you happen to up here, it’s because of her. It’s a well known fact that you two are seeing each other, around the hospital now. I don’t think she can see you right now, because she’s busy typing up some reports for the Minister of Health, or so that’s what she’s saying.”
“So, she’s in her office then?” asked Rob, making sense of what Jo had just said to him. Jo nodded. “That’s all you needed to tell me.”
“And that she doesn’t want to be interrupted, unless you’re willing to have your head ripped off,” explained Jo, remembering how Jonathon was telling her about how he got his head ripped off his shoulders for asking Ravyn a simple question.
“I should be fine,” replied Rob, as he smiled and walked down the hallway, where at the other end of it he knew as Ravyn’s office, because he had cleaned it so many times. He didn’t know how the hell she could keep it so clean at times; compared to the number of unfiled papers he’s used to seeing on Josh’s desk. He walked past a couple of nursing interns, he had known them to be second year interns, because a majority of first year interns didn’t know his name, only by the ‘hot guy’ that was the janitor. That disturbed Rob mostly. The interns greeted him with a smile and wave. “Good afternoon.” He didn’t even know their names, but he greeted them anyway. They giggled and continued to walk the opposite way down the hallway. He felt a bit relieved that they weren’t heading in the same direction of him. Of course, a group of young interns being around near Ravyn’s office was a recipe for disaster and a recipe for someone to lose their internship, so they tended not to hang around in the hallways too long because of that major factor. It would be like putting Stalin and Lincoln in a room together. He slid into a room which had its door originally closed, opened it, and shut it as he saw Ravyn at her desk, looking at a number of manila folders. She was looking up at him as though Rob had pulled a rabbit out of a hat for his trick of the year performance.
“What are you doing here?” asked Ravyn. “Don’t you have other business to attend to? Like making up a reasonable excuse for being six hours late for your shift, would be a good starting point.”
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” answered Rob, taking a seat in front of her desk and putting the piece of paper in front of her. “I thought you might like that, babe.”
“Don’t ‘babe’ me,” retorted Ravyn, as her attention was diverted to the piece of paper lying on her desk. “What’s this?” Ravyn slid it around, looked at the piece of paper, and gave Rob a quirky look. “Who made this up?”
“Bites me,” answered Rob. It was a petition for Grant to leave. Ravyn felt a bit relieved that she wasn’t the only person that expressed her opinion about having Grant as the head of the hospital. “I didn’t know if you were willing to sign it, so I brought it here. Why? What’s wrong with me calling you babe, babe?”
“I don’t appreciate little fluffy pet nicknames, it is bad enough I let you get away with ‘Rave’,” answered Ravyn, as she opened the top draw to find a pen. She found one and signed her name, which she was the fourth person to sign it. “Now, I’ve just got to narrow my reasons down for my hate for Grant down to one. Damn, there are so many, but I must choose one that doesn’t involve swearing in it. Despite the fact, I might not be the only one when this is complete, but I’m going to avoid a harassment case being filed against me.”
“Yeah, that’s a good start, you should start by explaining to me about what you did to Jonathon,” said Rob.
“I don’t have to answer to you,” retorted Ravyn, as she was trying to think about what reason she should put down for her hate of Grant. “Especially on that incident since you weren’t there.”
“From what I hear, I’m kinda glad that I wasn’t,” commented Rob. “You’re not going to put down what we spoke about last night are you?”
“Hell no,” answered Ravyn, shooting Rob a look. “Why would I want that reason be put on display for everyone else to read? There are already enough circus freaks around in this working environment without Jo’s department of illegally blondes being around.”
“I was only making sure, there’s nothing wrong with just making sure,” answered Rob, innocently. “So what is going to be the reason? Have you decided yet?”
“I’m just going to stick to Grant being a walking hypocrite,” answered Ravyn, as she put her head back down to look at what she was writing about Grant.
“What are you doing, or more so, what were you doing before I came in?” asked Rob, as he got to his feet and off his chair. He started to walk behind Ravyn’s desk, to look at the computer.
“Stuff,” answered Ravyn, shortly.
“This isn’t just stuff,” noticed Rob, as he noticed of what it actually was. It wasn’t reports for the Minister for Health, but it was actually a resignation letter. “You’re resigning?!”
“Not yet, but it’s going to come in useful one day,” answered Ravyn, as she looked back up and looked back down again. Rob got reach of the keyboard in front of Ravyn and pressed alt, control, and delete, twice, after noticing that it hadn’t been saved and that because Rob couldn’t get to the mouse. Ravyn looked up to see her computer shutting down. “Hey! I was in the middle of that!” Ravyn got to her feet and looked Rob directly in the eyes. Rob had just made her annoyed and angry. “Why the hell did you just do that for?”
“I don’t want you resigning over what I learnt last night,” answered Rob, calmly. “It’s Grant’s problem, not yours.”
“But it becomes my problem when the Board of Medicine doesn’t believe me,” retorted Ravyn, angrily.
“You refuse to go to the Board of Medicine of what Grant did to you,” remembered Rob from last night’s conversation. “So I don’t see why what the big deal is here.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” asked Ravyn.
“Because you’re not living up to your end of the deal, Rave, so it’s only fair for me, to how did, you put it last night? Ah yes, to ‘control’ you,” answered Rob.
“What end of the deal?” asked Ravyn. “I never agreed to anything.”
“Compromising,” answered Rob, remembering the conversation that they had in the car. “I’ve compromised, I’ve put up with your attitude, and like hell I’ve put up with the complaints about you from other members of the staff.” He put his hands on her shoulders, but Ravyn tried throwing his hands of her shoulders, but Rob just put them back on and made his grip a bit firmer so Ravyn couldn’t throw him off as just as easily. “I love you very much, but you’re driving me up the wall with your attitude. If we ever want to make this work out, you have to live up to your end of the deal and that can be achieved through compromising. I am not asking you to give up anything important, but just loosen your attitude a bit more, that’s all I am asking. Because I don’t want to have you uptight all the time, because that makes me annoyed at you and I don’t want to be annoyed at you.”
“Okay, you can now get out of my office, if I annoy you that much with my attitude,” replied Ravyn, trying to keep her cool. “You’ve just proven to be a waste of my time, Rob.”
“Do you want to start making up your mind of what I am to you?” asked Rob, as Ravyn threw his arms off her shoulders. She turned around and sat back down, but Rob wasn’t going to give up so easily. “One minute I’m the love of your life and the other, I’m just a waste of your time. Well, I don’t know about you, but hell, I’m convinced that this relationship has already failed before it had chance to begin.”
“So you’re suggesting that we should break up because you don’t like my attitude, is that it Rob?” asked Ravyn, as she got back to standing on her feet and looking at Rob directly in the eyes. “That’s the most pathetic thing I’ve heard as a reason to use, than the reasons Jo uses to have constant communication with me. Well, hell, if that be the case, I could say many things about you, but I don’t.”
“I’m saying, it is your attitude that is ruining this relationship already, before it had a chance to begin,” clarified Rob. “Look, I’ll just get out of your sight before you decide to tell me that I should just go and die in a hole. And yes, you were right, I am just a waste of your time, and you’re just a waste of mine, really. I have better things to do than to have an argument with an insolent teenager.” Rob started to walk out of Ravyn’s office, secretly hoping that she would just fall down on her knees and start begging to be forgiven. Ravyn wasn’t the predictable.
“If you’re afraid of dating an insolent teenager, where did you go wrong with Vanessa?” asked Ravyn, quite bitchily, as she remembered some rumours about him and a woman named Vanessa a couple of months back. Ravyn despised Vanessa for all that she was, even putting aside that she had once went out with Ravyn’s crush at one stage of her life. Rob stopped in his tracks, turned around, and shot Ravyn a very nasty look. “Oh wait, she was an insolent whore even before you twos went out. Oh, so it’s okay to date an insolent whore but not at any point, an insolent teenager. Wow, I never knew the difference until now. At least now I know what we both have in common Rob, we love dating insolent people, for not what they really are, but because they are insolent.”
“There are many differences that separate you from Vanessa, any day,” retorted Rob. “And I know which was way easier to get along with.”
“Would one of the differences include, that, I’m an insolent teenager while, Vanessa, she’s a whore any way that you looked at her?” asked Ravyn, as she congratulated herself for such a good comeback. “Call me a self-righteous bitch any day, but least I don’t sleep with people just because I want a cheap **** out of them. I don’t know if you knew what Vanessa did while she was not in your arms, Rob, but I can tell you now, that’s what she did and where is she now? Oh yeah, she’s an executive of a massive, multibillion company, because she slept her way to the top.”
“Don’t call me tonight,” ordered Rob, swiftly, as he couldn’t come up with a good comeback, and he continued his walk outside, anything was better than being in Ravyn’s office right now.
Ravyn felt a bit unsure of how she just reacted. She wasn’t sure if it was the wrong thing to do, as she had just pushed Rob away even further from her, or if it was the right thing, as she was never used to be told being told of what she can and cannot do, that, was her mother’s role not Rob’s. Ravyn admitted to herself her comments about Vanessa were out of line, and, Ravyn was just unsure about a lot of things. She used to picture Rob as a person exactly like her, but now, since these past days, she didn’t know anymore. She wanted to be with him forever, but there was just something in the back of her head that told her that Rob wasn’t the guy for her. That made her sad.
IT'S A MEGA UPDATE BECAUSE I FEEL HAPPY! In other words I just sat my second last exam that went for three hours!
~
Jade got off the couch and walked several metres into the entrance hallway to open the door.
“Yes?” asked Jade, who was only fourteen but looked like she was at least seventeen. Ravyn stood at the other side of the door, dressed in her long black coat, with Rob next to her in his long khaki pants and a plain dark blue collared shirt. “Can I help you?”
“Is Sarah home?” asked Rob, giving Jade a small smile, as he looked at her through his glasses that he had on.
“I’ll just go get her,” answered Jade. “Do you want to come in?” Rob nodded, as he let Ravyn go first and then he followed. Jade ran upstairs to get Sarah, as Ravyn and Rob wandered into the living room, where the twins were watching crime shows.
“Are you after Sarah?” asked Dominique.
“Yeah,” answered Rob. Ravyn wasn’t in the talking mood, since Andrea had decided to put her on a, guilt trip about not letting Sarah get at least two weeks paid leave. “I saw you the other night. You’re her sisters, right?”
“Dominique,” said Monique, raising her hand.
“Monique,” said Dominique raising her hand also. They had decided to screw with people’s heads that they didn’t know.
“You’re not her new boyfriend, are you?” asked Monique.
Rob shook his head, as he couldn’t help but to laugh at the thought of ever going out with that hybrid emo intern.
“He’s my boyfriend,” answered Ravyn, somewhat defensively. “Who’s Sarah’s boyfriend?”
“I think his name’s Chester,” answered Dominique. “Or so, that’s the new rumour around the household has it.”
“So you’re the kind of person that believes anything that people tell them?” asked Ravyn, modestly. Dominique nodded, as though there wasn’t something wrong with that. “Did you know that Canada got electricity yesterday?”
“Nice one,” laughed Monique as Dominique realised that Ravyn was just joking. Ravyn rolled her eyes. “What do you want with my sister? Is it about Alexis?”
“No it’s not,” answered Rob.
“I’m her boss,” said Ravyn, blankly.
“Err…Ravyn is it?” asked Dominique. Ravyn nodded. Dominique looked to Rob. “Then who are you?”
“I’m another friend of hers,” answered Rob, shortly, as Jade and Sarah entered the room. Sarah looked a bit shocked to see Rob standing in her living room, and even more to see her son of a bitch/hypocrite boss standing right next to Rob. “Hi.”
“Hi,” replied Sarah, shortly, still confused of why she had to have the pleasure of meeting Ravyn outside hospital times. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Is there somewhere where we can talk?” asked Ravyn.
“Yeah, out the back,” answered Sarah, as she led the way to the back porch. She waited until they were out on the back porch until she started the conversation back up again. “Aren’t you going to remind of me of one of the rules that you set down in place?” As Rob and Ravyn took a seat opposite Sarah on the back patio, Ravyn didn’t look like she wanted to be here. Sarah took the shifty eyes of Ravyn, as a means of her trying to tell her something serious. “What’s wrong? Has something happened with Ava? What has Matt done this time?”
“Do you want me to tell her?” asked Rob, looking to Ravyn, who looked a bit uncomfortable.
“I may as well tell her,” answered Ravyn, as she looked from Rob to Sarah. “Yes and no, concerning Ava and your ex.” Sarah was bit confused by the fact that Ravyn somehow knew about Ava and that she hadn’t said anything to her that consisted of ‘keep your legs closed next time’. “The good news is that Ava has woken up, or so Andrea has told me, just a couple of minutes before he convinced me that I should be the one to break it to you and that yes, I will give you a week off to deal with your personal affairs.” Ravyn would love to see Greyfoxx’s reaction to this, since all she did was bitch about not being time off to attend to her personal affairs.
“And…?” asked Sarah, slowly.
“But, there is a catch-22 to this good news,” explained Rob. “Hours after you left the hospital, in tears, Matt had to be drug tested, as part of the normal accident procedure.” Oh great and he’s tested positive, Sarah thought to herself, as she convinced herself that Rob would say that he had tested positive to either cocaine or heroin.
“And let me finish the rest of the news for you,” added Sarah, with a sarcastic smile. “Knowing the asshole that Matt is, he tested positive.”
“You sound like that’s nothing new,” said Ravyn.
“Oh, it’s not new I can tell you that now,” replied Sarah. “What did he test positive to, heroin or maybe even cocaine?”
“Cocaine,” answered Rob.
“Is he an addict, Sarah?” asked Ravyn. “If he is, why haven’t you said anything about to anyone and why are you letting him intimidate you to this extent? It was because of Matt’s slow reaction time that he got Ava hurt. He could’ve avoided Shawg running the red light.”
“The last time I checked, he was, but it’s been ages since I’ve had anything major to do with him,” answered Sarah. “So what, is he in jail or even been arrested by now?”
“How can the police catch him when he’s done a runner?” asked Ravyn. Sarah’s sarcastic smile faded. “And guess who’s with him?”
“Ava,” whispered Sarah. “But why would Matt want anything to do with her? For quite a while he believed that he didn’t have a daughter and that I was only trying to scam the money required for child support, out of him.” But before Sarah could continue her response, Jade came and stood in the doorway, as though she wanted something. Sarah shifted her attention to her little sister. “Yes, Jade, what do you want?”
“Chester’s here,” answered Jade.
“Oh ****,” whispered Sarah, as she remembered Chester and her were meant to go out. She had completely forgotten about it. “Tell him to come out here.”
“Okay,” replied Jade, as she disappeared out of sight.
“Do you want to stay for dinner?” Sarah asked, assuming that if she sucked up to her boss, Ravyn would treat her a bit better. “I mean, I’ve already fed and put Halle to bed but the rest of us haven’t had our dinner.”
“No,” answered Ravyn, shortly.
“We may as well,” answered Rob, as Ravyn shot him a look. “It’s the least we can do for the girl.”
“Alright,” sighed Ravyn, eventually. Sarah smiled, as she got to her feet and walked off inside to see what Jade had done with Chester. “Rob, I don’t want to have dinner with an intern that I’m growing to hate. That’ll just spoil the process of it all. I might end up liking the girl, and we can’t have that happening, as I would turn out to be the biggest hypocrite that the hospital has produced so far.”
“It’s not going to kill you,” negotiated Rob. “She seems pretty nice to me.”
“That’s because you don’t have to put up with her all day every day,” replied Ravyn.
“And you won’t have to from now on, because you’ve just given her time off,” reminded Rob. “Come on Ravyn, it’ll do us some good. It’ll do you some good as well, as it is a chance to socialise and you can get to know your intern better. You don’t know what might happen; you might end up liking her at the end of the night.” Ravyn rolled her eyes, disgusted by the fact that she was allowing a man like him tell her what to do. “You haven’t even given her a chance and already it’s an automatic hate towards her. Is she that bad compared to Jo’s interns?”
“No, not really, when you look at it,” answered Ravyn, not wanting to admit to the fact that Sarah did a pretty good job as an intern. “She doesn’t annoy me, she doesn’t get in the way of my work, and she doesn’t come up with ditzy comebacks and answers.”
“Then give her a chance,” urged Rob, getting up from his seat. He offered his hand out to help Ravyn up, but Ravyn didn’t take it, as she also got up from the seat.
“I can’t believe I’m actually communicating with my intern outside of training hours,” muttered Ravyn, to herself. Rob didn’t hear the exact wordings of her sentence, but he knew what it would say, as Chester and Sarah came out onto the back patio. “Oh, that’s just, great, Bennington.” Chester and Sarah stopped in front of the couple and Chester and Rob exchanged a handshake and then let go of it. Chester was dressed in black pants and a white half-buttoned up collared shirt.
“How are you tonight?” asked Rob.
“I’m okay,” answered Chester. “What about yourself?”
“The same actually,” answered Rob. “I didn’t know that you two were going out.”
“No, we’re just friends,” replied Chester, smoothly, as he noticed Ravyn’s presence in the room. Bullshit, thought Ravyn, cynically. He turned to Ravyn. “How about you, how are you tonight? Still uptight and angry at Delson’s little stunt?”
“I wouldn’t consider what he did a stunt, I would classify that as stupidity in the rawest form,” answered Ravyn, sourly, as Rob turned to her and gave her a queer look. Ravyn sighed knowing that was the que to explain to Rob what had happened in the day with Brad and her. “He thought it would be fun to take all of my charts for my patients and mix them up with Jo’s. I can tell you now; Jo wasn’t too pleased about it either. I think it went along the lines of Jo wanting to slap him.”
“So, does anyone want anything in particular for dinner?” asked Sarah, not sure of what Rob and Ravyn would make of Chester’s appearance in her household.
“Pizza!” yelled Monique and Dominique at the top of their voices from inside the living room. Sarah turned around to remind them of what was asleep upstairs.
“Shhh!” hushed Sarah, impatiently. “Halle’s still asleep, and no, no pizza, you’re both getting fatter by the day.” Sarah turned around with an awkward smile on her face that was suitably forced upon her face. “Any decent suggestions from the adults in the household? I mean anything in particular that anyone fancies?”
“Oh no thanks,” Ravyn managed to find an excuse, as she looked to her watch and pretended as though she had to be somewhere. “I’ve lost track of the time, and I’ve got to be somewhere. It’s a pity that I can’t have dinner.” This was Ravyn in her pettiest state, as she was running out of excuses, as she had already used them up that day, trying to see how many meetings she could get of and which ones she couldn’t avoid the chasms of sharing a room with two idiots of the rawest and most common form, Greyfoxx and Jo. “But thanks for the offer, and I just had to tell you that about Ava and Matthew. That’s basically it.”
Rob was somewhat confused by the sudden change of attitude, as he turned back around to face Ravyn who, was looking uncomfortable and out of place as ever, as the phone in Sarah’s house started to ring and Dominique picked up.
“Yeah, I think I have to go as well,” added Rob, slowly, as he faced Sarah again. “But yet again, thank you for the offer.”
“Alright then,” replied Sarah, as Dominique turned up at Sarah’s side to hand her the phone. She was somewhat confused of why Dominique was handing her the phone. “What?”
“The phone just rang and it’s for you,” answered Dominique, as Sarah received the phone and put it to her ear.
“Hello?” asked Sarah, as Rob waved goodbye and they both left the house, after saying good bye to Chester as well.
“What was that about?” asked Rob, when both were seated in the front of his car. He hadn’t even ignited the ignition in the thing and already he was getting fired up about something.
“I never said, nor did I agree to have dinner with her,” answered Ravyn. “Don’t put me in that position again, I don’t like it. It makes me feel uncomfortable.”
“Being nice to people makes you feel uncomfortable?” asked Rob. “I must say, out of all the bizarre things for you to say and do, that’s the weirdest. I don’t even know why we’re going out in that case.”
“Excuse me,” spat Ravyn, looking offended as they faced each other. “What was that last comment about? You don’t even know why you had asked me out, was that it? I can’t believe you, nor will I ever believe you when you say that. Why did you say that?”
“Because it’s not working out, for at least for me it isn’t,” answered Rob, being honest. “You’re lovely one moment and an evil biatch the next. I mean, how many God damn mood swings can you have in one day?”
“I am trying to compromise here, and I would expect you to do the same thing,” retorted Ravyn. “I know I’m no darl, when it comes to my attitude some days, but at least I have the decency to not say that to the person that I’m trying to have a relationship with. It’s not like I’m asking you to defy your own religion, Rob, it’s certainly not like that.”
“I’m compromising here, I’m putting up with my woman’s attitude,” replied Rob, trying to keep his calm. “You do not know how much crap I’ve copped from the boys ever since finding out about this relationship, you have no idea.”
“Then if you hate my attitude so much Rob, why don’t you just get the balls to break up with me, after how many days of going out with me?” asked Ravyn, impatiently. “Look, I don’t care about this subject no more, just, drive me home.” Rob was going to say something in retaliation along the lines of her walking home, but he didn’t. He knew if he said that, it would be an overreaction to a pointless argument. He turned the key in the ignition and started to drive off, as he was telling himself that everything would be okay, it was just him overreacting.
Ravyn didn’t want to say anything for she was afraid that if she were to say something, it would be too out of line for Rob’s liking. The possible threat of having another argument was lurking around the corner somewhere, and Ravyn wasn’t sure that she really wanted to walk straight into it. So she resorted to looking out the window, the thing that Ravyn did when she wanted to avoid discussion.
Rob slammed down the accelerator driven by his emotions, as he cut a corner. Ravyn opened her mouth to say something about how badly he drove, but again, she wasn’t sure that she wanted another pointless argument with him, so she closed it. Rob slammed down the brakes, as the car approached the front yard of Ravyn’s house, jolting both of them forward, as they came to a stop.
“Why are you afraid of being nice to people?” asked Rob, breaking the silence between them, as Ravyn unbuckled her seatbelt. Rob wasn’t even wearing his, and Ravyn had secretly thought of how if he had slammed the breaks down any harder, he would’ve gone through the front window. “It’s not like there’s something wrong with being nice to people.”
“It’s my moral obligation,” answered Ravyn, harshly. “My morality is very high Rob, if you haven’t cared to notice. I’m not on this planet to be trodden over and treated like a doormat; I’m not anything like that. You don’t know me very well in that case then.”
“I’ve known you for quite a while, and trust me, I have been a victim of your parade of abhorrence on some occasions,” replied Rob, smoothly, carelessly reminding Ravyn of their past together. “I don’t know where you’re coming from when you say it’s your moral obligation. Obligation to do what exactly, Rave? I don’t know it’s just me or something, but I just cannot see it, and I don’t see it at all. I’ve never treated you like a doormat ever in my life, and really I can’t see who would treat you like a doormat. Were you this harsh and unsympathetic when you were an intern?”
“Don’t remind me of my internship, I’ve always hated looking back at my internship,” answered Ravyn, trying to hide the old wounds of her internship. “You’re just going to bring back healed wounds and that’s the last thing I want right now.”
“What happened in your intern years Rave? What happened that was so bad you’ve had to be like this for how many years has it been now?” asked Rob, knowing there was something up Ravyn’s sleeve, but knowing Ravyn, she was either to afraid to admit it, or she was just going on with some bullshit that she’s known to come up with just to get people off her back.
“Stop acting like you know me Rob, because you don’t!” snapped Ravyn, suddenly, as her eyes flared up with anger, as Ravyn faced Rob. “I have to get inside. I’ve got things to do, before we continue this pointless discussion.” Ravyn just had to separate herself from the conversation before anything else was said, that she either didn’t mean, or that was stored in her memory that she didn’t want to bring back. She gave Rob a small peck on the cheek, as she tried her mightiest to restrain her tears and got out of the car. Rob felt like something wasn’t right and he felt as though he had an obligation for someone who loved Ravyn by now. He opened his door, as Ravyn stormed to her front door, and as she scrambled for her keys in her pocket. Rob slammed the door shut, calling her to stop and talk to him. She ignored him, as she approached her front door. Rob sighed as he ran up to catch up with her. Rob finally managed to grab hold of Ravyn, around the wrists, but all Ravyn did was try to resist. “Let me go.” She could barely say it, because she was getting that emotional and upset. “Please, Rob, please just let me go, I’ll be alright.” She was futile against her attempts to free herself, because Rob’s grip was too strong on her wrists. She stopped struggling and Rob loosened his grip.
“I won’t let go, unless you tell me what’s make you so damn emotional,” ordered Rob. “Please Rave, please, I am a person that cares about you a lot and I am getting really attached to you, and I can’t bear to see you like this. You have to tell me, please, if you love me; please tell me, that is all I’m asking for, nothing more and nothing less.” Ravyn went limp, as Rob took her house keys from her and put them in his top pocket of his shirt. Ravyn was feeling as helpless as ever, as she knew she had no choice but to tell Rob what had happened. Rob embraced his upset girlfriend in his arms, as Ravyn cried heavier in his arms. Rob was worried. He had never seen not even a glimpse of Ravyn ever being like this, and being a janitor in the hospital, he got to see a lot of the staff upset. “Come on, we’ll go inside and talk about this. It’s getting cold, and I don’t want to rush you to emergency because you’ve caught hyperthermia.” Rob got the keys back out from his pocket, as he had the other arm around Ravyn. He wasn’t sure which key was the right key to her front door, but guessed that the one with the blue rubber around it was the front door key. He inserted the brass key into the handle and clicked it open to a house that was filled with darkness, as two cats came out; one was a fluffy Persian with black and with white markings on its back (in which Ravyn had called it Nemo) and one was a tan, black, and white, tortoiseshell (in which Ravyn had called it Miffy) and curled their tails around Rob’s legs. He didn’t like cats.
~
He was so keen on beating the highest score set down by his nephew, a couple of weeks ago, that he had just walked straight the first person he had to see to, Chester.
Chester and Brad were only trying to figure out what would happen if Mike from pharmaceuticals and Jo were to ever go out and how long it would take for Mike to break up with Jo. Brad of course reminded Chester that Jo was married. Chester just told him to shut his trap.
Josh was so keen on getting the highest score in Tetris Version 2.0 (can’t forget that it was also in 3D) that he had bumped into Mel, carrying a heap of papers stacked up so high that it had blotted out her vision and she relied on people having the courtesy to look where they were going. The papers went everywhere and that was only when Josh had realised what he had just done.
”Oh, fiddlesticks,” said Josh, as he had just sent papers flying everywhere, and the main point for his disappointment, he had accidentally just exited the game that he knew he would eventually win. Josh put his phone away in his pocket, placed his coffee on the ground, and started to help Mel, who by now was already on her hands and her knees trying to pick up the papers. “I’m sorry Phoenix, I didn’t see you there.”
“That’s all right,” smiled Mel, like a schoolgirl but without the red cheeks. “I’ve just proved myself more of a klutz, nothing too detrimental to my self-esteem.” Mel’s smile faded as she rolled her eyes.
Josh stopped for a second to have a look at the time on his watch and then at the clock on the wall, as he realised that his watch had stopped working. He was late, only by three or so hours.
“Crap,” muttered Josh, as he felt like banging his head against the nearest wall, as he picked up his coffee from the ground and got to his feet.
“You can say that again,” added Mel. “Why the sudden change from your normal swearing to replacing your words with lame sayings?”
“Trying to cut my swearing down, it apparently upsets my wife when I swear too much,” replied Josh.
“I would be upset if I was married to you,” retorted Mel, quietly, as she continued to gather more papers. Josh heard and shot Mel a nasty look.
“What would you know about commitment Phoenix?” asked Josh, snappishly.
“A lot actually,” answered Mel, stopping what she was doing and faced one of her bosses. The other bosses were Grant and the government, none of which Mel liked either of. “Shawg and I have been together for quite a while now. So don’t tell me that I can’t commit to a relationship when you don’t know anything about me.”
“Who are you, Ravyn?” asked Josh. “Because you’re sounding exactly like her and that’s the last person I really need to have a stupid argument with today.” Josh wasn’t going to have an argument with a nurse like Mel and proceeded to go to his desk, on the paediatrics level. He stopped in front of the elevator, and pushed the up button, as Brad and Chester stood next to Josh. “Good morning Delson and Bennington.”
“Good morning Gradon,” they replied, looking as though they just did something wrong.
Josh knew he had to see Chester about something, but he couldn’t remember what it was. Josh ignored such thoughts as he sipped his coffee that had turned lukewarm.
Sarah arrived next Brad, as Chester was the closest to Josh, and stood there, but she didn’t say anything. Brad saw Sarah, Sarah smiled, as she took a sip out of her latte in one hand, Brad looked back to Chester and whistled. Chester just slapped him in the gut.
Sarah wasn’t in uniform she was actually back in the hospital to see if Ava was alright, after getting a phone call from Andrea saying that Matt had returned Ava in the early hours of the morning.
“Why aren’t you in uniform?” asked Josh, as he looked past Chester and Brad to look at Sarah. “And give me a reason of why I should care?”
“Day off,” answered Sarah. “Ah, Ravyn gave me a week off to deal with personal affairs.” Josh nodded, and looked back at the elevator.
“Then why are you back in this hospital?” asked Brad. “That’s a sad life you’re living.”
“What’s so sad about having my only child in hospital because of stupid people?” asked Sarah, angrily. Brad nodded, trying to understand of where she was coming from. Chester nearly choked on his own breath, when he heard Sarah’s response, in particular the words ‘my only child’. Chester hadn’t been told that Sarah had a kid. Chester knew she had a number of annoying little sisters but never a kid. Chester managed to catch his breath.
The elevator doors opened as all of them hurried inside. Sarah and Chester avoided being near each other for the sake of the amount of stupid comments that Brad would say. So Sarah went to the left back corner and Chester went to the right side of the elevator. Brad pressed the day surgery button for both him and Chester, while Josh pushed the paediatrics button for both him and Sarah.
“Have you seen Shinoda today?” Josh asked Chester. Chester shook his head. The elevator doors closed and they felt the lifting sensation under them. “Damn. I should just sack that laze. But I can’t. I can suspend him, the medical board sacks people.”
“What has he done this time?” asked Brad.
“He screwed three of Harris’s prescriptions up and then I had her come bitching to me about how much this hospital would be better off without Shinoda,” answered Josh. “I wish Grant will come back sooner. I’m sick of handling his affairs.”
“Has anyone noticed that woman, or whatever it is, has complained more about people to you then when Grant was here?” asked Chester, as Josh took another sip of his coffee. “I see a trend.”
“You know Harris, she hates the guts out of Grant,” added Brad as Sarah was deeply engrossed in this conversation and she took another sip of her latte. “One description was of him that I heard that came out of her mouth, was that Grant reminded her of a non-comical version of Bob Kelso, and Bob Kelso tends to annoy Ravyn a lot. She said that he reminded her of a hobo that knows how to read and write. I swear that woman has more balls in her than Grant does at times.”
“No argument from me,” replied Josh, as the elevator doors opened at a level just below day theatre. Jo entered the scene, as she took a spot in between Brad and Sarah. “Good morning. What floor?”
“Paediatrics,” answered Jo, as she realised that it already had been pushed. She saw Sarah and was kinda surprised to see Sarah there. “Good morning, I didn’t know you had to come in. Isn’t it your day off? I heard something off Andrea about Ravyn finally budging and giving you a week off to deal with Ava’s accident.”
“I’m coming to see her,” replied Sarah, shortly, as the elevator doors closed and they were lifted up.
“I would love to see Greyfoxx’s reaction,” Chester told Brad. Brad smirked. “I swear that woman is just, weird. It’s like she thinks she knows me.”
“Meaghen’s not that bad,” said Josh, overhearing the conversation between Chester and Brad. “And she’s pretty smart when it comes to anything that has the word radio in it. She even spares Rob the duty of calling someone to fix the machines that the interns have stuffed up. She fixes the machines herself.”
“Yeah, by kicking them,” replied Jo, smoothly. “It doesn’t take that much of intelligence to understand the simple philosophy of violence is useful when it comes to fixing machines.”
The elevator came to a halt and the doors opened to day surgery, and Chester and Brad walked out. But before Chester walked out, he and Sarah caught each other’s attention and Sarah smiled. Chester replied with a small smile and disappeared before Brad had a chance to bag the living daylights out of him for a number of things, including the new ICU intern. But no one came in though. Jo had seen the exchange of smiles between Chester and Sarah, as she smiled and whispered some things in her ear.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” whispered Jo, as the doors closed and they were lifted up.
“What about?” whispered back Sarah.
“About Chester,” answered Jo, still maintaining a level of whisper.
“There’s nothing going on,” replied Sarah, on a whisper.
“Bullshit,” said Jo, as she went back to adjusting her volume of voice back to normal. “Don’t kid me, I know the signs.”
“What are you ladies bullshitting about?” asked Josh, overhearing Jo’s previous sentence.
“Don’t you have a swearing limit on you?” asked Jo. “I heard about how Ellen put a swearing limit on you. How much do you have in the swear jar so far Gradon?”
“Shut up,” muttered Josh, not wanting to continue this conversation now. Jo’s attention went back to being on Sarah.
“You know where I am, if you ever want to admit to it,” said Jo, as the elevator stopped and all three people remaining in it exited the small space. Jo and Sarah went one way, towards the paediatrics desk, while Josh went the opposite way to his desk where he wanted to bang his head on the desk several times, because everything was just going wrong today. Sarah and Jo walked side by side, and Sarah was afraid that Jo was going to exaggerate on the situation. “So how long have you been seeing each other? I mean, that was a bit quick for you two to be seeing each other.”
“We’ve known each other for quite a while,” replied Sarah. “And we are not going out. How much do I need to stress that point?”
“Don’t worry, you’re just in denial, we all go through it,” smiled Jo, as though it was something positive.
“Why are you up here?” asked Sarah.
“Got to round up my nurses, they’re spreading around the hospital like cows in a paddock,” answered Jo. “I don’t know what is in the air lately, but my nurses are acting weird, especially towards me.”
“Is Ravyn not keeping up her role as the omen of the anti-nurses?” asked Sarah, remembering something another intern had said to her once.
“Nah, that’s not even possible for her to slack off in that area of her profession,” answered Jo, shaking her head, as Sarah saw Andrea outside of Ava’s ward talking to someone she hadn’t recognised before. Jo saw them too. “I’ll leave you to it.” Jo and Sarah parted their ways, as moments later Jo ran into one of her interns squandering around in the corridor talking to Jonathon. “Excuse me, but this is not a forum where you can sit around and do nothing but gossip.” Jo stood next to the new intern, as the new intern stopped talking to Jonathon, who looked like he was comfortable chatting Jo’s intern up. “Meg, get back to work, and that’s an order.”
“But I’ve filed all the files in the archives and I was with Mel with her rounds,” answered Meg. “There’s nothing else you can do without being criticised by the head of ICU.”
“This is a hospital, it’s always busy around the clock, and that’s the most pathetic excuse I’ve heard so far,” retorted Jo. “And as far as I know, Doctor Harris isn’t around because if I knew she was around, trust me, I would know.” Jo looked to Jonathon. “And you should know better.”
“What?” asked Jonathon, innocently. “I was only talking to her like a normal person.”
“Don’t you have to deal with affairs related with Bennington and Delson?” asked Jo, as Jonathon sighed, waved goodbye to Meg and walked away. Jo turned to Meg, who was still standing around doing nothing. “Miss White, please, you could do so much better than Jonathon.”
“I’ve never suggested anything about it or the nature,” replied Meg.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t fail you on your final med exams,” said Jo, blankly, as she was also getting sick of her nurses’ attitudes. “In fact, don’t give me one, I’ve already found one. Now, get back to work. Find something useful other than chatting up surgeons that fail in society.” Jo was quick to shut her mouth after that comment, after she realised that was a comment that Ravyn had came out with before. “Go to the locker rooms and bum around there. Just do it out of my sight.” Meg nodded and she disappeared out of sight, as Jo realised that no, she hadn’t seen Ravyn around. That was unusual for someone who liked to keep up to scratch with her shift starting times. Jo just shook it off and convinced herself that Ravyn must be around, but she was looking in the wrong places for her. Jo went down the corridor some more to where a bunch of other nurses were gathered around. She popped her in the circle and smiled. “Now, I am not slightly entertained by anything that has just been said. Now get back to work before Doctor Gradon gets the right to suspend you all.” Jo was being particularly Ravyn-like today, and she knew she had to stop it before she actually completed the three stages of becoming Ravyn; it was just the last stage got Jo a bit worried, the height stage. Jo walked off some more to do the same thing to another bunch of nurses who looked as though they were ready to start a cult of their own. Jo knew she was going to be worn down by the end of the day if she did this all day. The hospital was very large in distances and it didn’t particularly sit well with Jo.
~
Come on you stupid piece of junk, thought Ravyn, pressing the button repeatedly, once she had done her hair in a loose ponytail. Just when Ravyn thought her day couldn’t get any worse day, someone she didn’t particularly like right now stood next to her and looked at the numbers being highlighted on the wall.
“Screw you Shinoda,” snapped Ravyn. Mike’s attention was now on Ravyn’s outbursts. “You screwed up three of my prescriptions and you’re still working here. How is this even plausible?”
Mike showed her what he had his hands. It was three white paper bags with the Sacred Heart emblem printed on the front of them.
“Do you know what they are?” asked Mike. “It’s your damn prescriptions for the patients you wanted them for. I’ve been trying to find you all damn day and this is what I get? What is wrong with you? I at least start my shifts on time.”
“And how long ago did I want those prescriptions?” asked Ravyn, impatiently. “How many days ago did I ask for them? Was it along something along the lines of about, four days ago?”
“The drugs aren’t that common and they are expensive to get in,” argued Mike. “If you want to switch jobs Harris, I would be glad to any day.”
“You wouldn’t know what the difference between septicaemia and the bubonic plague was, let alone what day it would be,” retorted Ravyn. “So don’t ‘Harris’ me, Shinoda. And plus, if you can’t handle three prescription drugs, what are the chances that people will trust you to make important decisions? It’s called responsibility, learn how to spell it first then you should know what it is.”
“Then what do you want done with these?” asked Mike.
“Give them to White,” answered Ravyn, bluntly.
“Which White?” asked Mike. “There are two Whites in the same area. Meg is doing nursing and Jack, well, he’s just there for some God damn unknown reason.”
“It’s Jack the one that looks like a chick, and he’s the one that you should give them to, because he handles the doses, not me, I tell people what to take and how much, I don’t give it to them,” answered Ravyn, as the elevator doors opened and both her and Mike went inside. Ravyn pushed the cafeteria button and Mike went to the back corner. The doors closed without any further discussion, taking place, or so Ravyn had hoped. Ravyn sighed as the doors closed and they were both lifted upwards.
“How’s Rob?” asked Mike.
“Why do you care?” asked Ravyn.
“Just, trying to make conversation, that’s all,” answered Mike. “There’s nothing illegal about that.”
“Yeah, but the last time I checked murder is,” replied Ravyn.
“I didn’t mention anything like murder,” said Mike. “Why would I want to mention murder for?”
“Because that’s what you’re going to drive somebody to do soon,” answered Ravyn. “I most congratulate who ends up being the one that murders you. Because you’ve got to be careful of who you make conversation with, it might be the last attempt you make.”
Mike was confused. Ravyn’s response was a mixture of a threat, harassment and, the truth. Mike shook his head, trying to get it out of his head, because he knew that would just drive him up the wall all day, just thinking about it.
The elevator doors opened, as Mike released that he didn’t want to go to the cafeteria but he wanted to go to the ICU. Ravyn walked out, and Mike pressed the button for the ICU ward. Ravyn was hungry, she had totally skipped breakfast to make it to the hospital before someone noticed the absence of bitchy comments and smart remarks about people’s personal lives (she had considered herself to be multi-talented because of this ability).
Talk about good timing (another thing she had to kudo herself on), her entrance to the cafeteria was the precise time that Andrea entered the cafeteria through the opposite entrance.
“Good afternoon,” greeted Andrea, as they both met each other in front of the Subway outlet. “I was starting to miss your snide remarks about the interns.”
“I feel loved,” replied Ravyn, with a small smile. “I slept in, that’s my excuse. I’m sure you’ll love that one.”
“I am going to believe you because you are not an intern,” assured Andrea. “If you were an intern, you wouldn’t have a hope in hell at convincing me that you were telling the truth.” Andrea looked at the Subway sign on her side, and then looked back at Ravyn. “Attempting to eat something healthy today?”
“No,” answered Ravyn, also turning her gaze on the highlighted menu behind them. “This isn’t healthy. It’s generic false advertising, because it’s all processed food. In many other cases, I would say that I would prefer to starve myself until I ate some real food, but since I didn’t have time for breakfast, and as much as that sounds hypocritical of me, I am going to assign this fast food outlet as the outlet that is going to provide me with my nutrition until I decide that I am better off with stuff that I know where it has been.”
“Do you want to grab the table or should I?” asked Andrea.
“I have the less energy here, I should automatically have the right,” answered Ravyn, as she walked off, leaving Andrea to order. She passed many gossipping interns that looked at her as though she was some kind of retarded alien and some that were gossipping, but didn’t have the guts to look up at her. She found a table by the window, for two people only, so people could not invite themselves to sit with her. Too late. “Why must you be here?”
“Why not?” asked Josh, as he sat down in what was meant to be Andrea’s seat. “Why were you late?”
Ravyn smiled at the fact that she just thought up the best comeback.
“I couldn’t have been screwed going to my job, so I went and screwed my boyfriend instead,” answered Ravyn, sarcastically.
“Please tell me that was sarcasm,” pleaded Josh, who was really disturbed by that comeback. “You don’t know how badly you’ve scarred me now.”
“Yes, Gradon, it was sarcasm, plus, it was a parody,” replied Ravyn, as she was aiming to confuse her boss with literary techniques and literary jargon. “It’s almost like Brave New World by Huxley, which is set in After Ford years, 632 to be exact, where promiscuity is encouraged by the government and soma is the new anti-depressant drug, in which Lenina dies of it because she overdoses on it. You could almost put me in there if you want to give me rhetoric or some stupid **** like that.”
“That’s a clever tactic Harris, try to confuse me with Aldous Huxley’s works,” retorted Josh. “I know Brave New World as well. It was the shittiest book that I had to study for English back in my high school days.”
“Oh, in that case then, you would understand when I say that if this world ever become like Huxley’s, I would be in the Alpha class, I would be one of the smart classes of people to be alive,” insulted Ravyn, as she couldn’t remember what the lowest class of humanity was in Brave New World, she thought it was Gamma, but that’s when she remembered what class Gradon would be in, Epsilon, the lowest. She had just basically said that she was in the top caste class. Josh looked lost. “A new caste system and form of servitude has been developed where individuals are predestined for a particular role in life and therefore genetically engineered on an assembly line and each caste category is based on the Greek alphabet. Remember Gradon, you have your damn political jargon and I have both my medical and literary jargon. Don’t bullshit me Josh; I don’t like people, especially those younger to me, wasting my time. I don’t mind if my own mother does it, she’s been doing it all my life, and plus, she’s older than I am. Don’t even try to attempt a literary battle with me Gradon.”
“Okay then, looks like you know, your stuff, and I won’t even attempt in that case,” replied Josh, backing off a bit. “So, how’s life?”
“Why do I even want to start a discussion about something that you play no major role in?” asked Ravyn, blankly. “You’ve just been defeated in Brave New World. Don’t make a further ass of yourself.”
“Hello Josh,” greeted Andrea with two Subway bags in her possession. She laid one in front Ravyn, as Ravyn was still persisting to give her boss the evil eye. “How are you today?”
“Fine, thanks for asking, by the way,” answered Josh, as he got up from Andrea’s seat. “I’ll see you two ladies later.” Andrea took her seat.
“Bite me,” muttered Ravyn, under breath, as Josh walked off.
Josh was seated at the other end of the cafeteria next to Jonathon and Brad. No one knew where Chester was. Sarah walked past with Meg and Tarja trailing behind her. They were busy talking about what was happening around the hospital. Sarah had stayed because Ava was asleep and that, she wanted to catch up with friends. It was only her first day off and already she felt isolated, socially. They put their trays out on the bench for collection and wandered off outside to catch a breath of fresh air. When they arrived downstairs at the main admin desk, they saw Mike and Meaghen in a heated discussion about something. They only caught wisps of what was said, something about how Mike had betrayed Meaghen, but they weren’t ready to stay and stir it any further.
They walked through the automatic doors, to see Jo talking rapidly in, Greek (that’s what the girls assumed) on her mobile phone. Meg giggled at the fact that Jo actually had friends, but of course, Meg didn’t say anything. Meg wasn’t fond of Jo, and vice versa. Jo stopped talking for a second, to hear a reply back; she saw the trio of them, smiled, and waved. They waved back, even though Meg wouldn’t naturally do that, if she was alone. They came to a pair of seats, shaded under a tree and sat on them. Tarja decided not to though, but instead, she laid down on the ground in front of them, just where a soft patch of grass was.
“Do you know what’s happening with Matt?” asked Meg. “Andrea wasn’t too happy with him being in the hospital.”
“How did you find out about Matt?” asked Sarah, as she remembered she hadn’t really spoken to Tarja or Meg about Matt, but more Jo and Mel.
“It’s all over the hospital,” answered Meg. “There are so many different versions of it.”
“Like?” asked Sarah, wanting an example.
“Like, apparently, Matt was the one responsible by ramming the car into a tree because he was too drunk and lost control,” answered Tarja, from the ground. “That’s the most pathetic rumour someone could make up.”
“Only pathetic people make up pathetic rumours,” commented Meg. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Bennington who made it up.”
“It wasn’t him,” replied Sarah, in defence. “He wouldn’t do that, it’s not like him to make up rumours about me. If anything else, he doesn’t believe rumours, he has to know if the version he’s heard is true from the source. It was probably Delson.”
“So can we have the real story from you?” asked Tarja. Tarja found it hard to find the right words sometimes, as she was Finnish and was used to speaking the same language as everybody else in the country. That’s why she wasn’t a social bird in the hospital; she was more like Jo’s doormat. “If that is, alright with you.”
“I can tell you now, that version that you heard, it’s nowhere near the truth,” explained Sarah. “When Matt and I were young, we did some serious **** together. I used to run away from my place to be with him that would only last a couple of days until the cops came and found me at his place on the other side of the state. He used to be a hardcore drug user, and then eventually I melted into drug using. It was when I was about nineteen, or just after I turned nineteen, I’m not sure anymore, that I found out that I was pregnant. By then, we’d been together for two years and I thought he would’ve allowed me to go through with it. But because I was scared for Ava’s health, I had to give up the drugs, in which I was a total wreck on the side of the street for some months because of that. He said he would rather be with what’s left of the cocaine that we had, we even stole it as well, then to be with me because of the child, and that I wouldn’t give it up. He said it was the child or the drugs, and that I wouldn’t and I couldn’t choose both. I went into massive rehab sessions after my mum found me on the side of the street. And Matt is now still on it.”
“So he wasn’t drunk, he was high?” asked Meg. Sarah nodded. “I had no idea.”
“No one does really,” answered Sarah. “The scary thing is that I’ve had relapses, and every now and then, at the least expected moments, I have them, just randomly. I’ve even ended up in hospital because I’ve blacked out and banged my head or something, because when I got into the drugs, we did it together, and he was always a heavy drug user, and he dragged me into it. So, I’ve been told that he could’ve avoided being hit by Mel’s boyfriend that ran the red light and smashed into the back of Matt’s car. God knows how the hell he’s going to pay the insurance on that thing.”
“Well, the good thing about this situation is that you’ve learnt from your past, you’ve moved on and you’re trying to get your life back together,” said Meg, wisely. “I don’t know about Matt, but that’s his problem if he wants to die from an overdose. You’ve got your act together and that’s the thing that matters.”
“I was so scared for Ava’s health for those long nine months,” explained Sarah. “I still am in a way.”
“Any mother would be,” replied Tarja. “Especially for one who was in your position at the time and considering how young you were as well.”
Chester was nearby and saw Tarja, Sarah and Meg talking on the seats, well, Tarja was laying just near where Sarah and Meg were talking. He started to walk over to see if there was an open invitation open.
“Good afternoon,” greeted Chester, as the girls stopped talking about whatever they were talking about. Chester didn’t care nor did he heed any attention, as he came to a standstill, as he put his hands in his pockets. “How are you today?” He looked to Sarah.
“I’m okay I guess,” she answered, giving him a small smile. “What about you?”
“Just had to run around and do some things so I wouldn’t get in trouble for not doing my paramedic duties yesterday,” answered Chester. “Josh is actually quite smarter than what originally meets the eye. Curse him. But I tell you what; Delson’s going to cop it as well, if Josh finds out about yesterday. Because it was Delson’s idea, because apparently he didn’t want to be harassed or stalked by the new nursing interns, or something like that. I got lost in the words when Delson was explaining it to me.”
“Excuse me, I do not stalk Delson,” defended Meg. Tarja didn’t say anything, because she had been a qualified nurse for a while and the fact that she wasn’t an intern applied as well. Also, the fact that Tarja and Brad were good friends as well, applied to her decision not to say anything.
“Who said I was talking about you?” asked Chester, not sure of whom Meg was, as his attention shifted from Sarah to Meg. “And who are you to start with?”
“I’m Meg, a nursing intern, thank you very much,” pouted Meg. “And don’t bother introducing yourself, I know you as Bennington, Delson’s retarded friend.”
“Oh, okay,” replied Chester, as he had just realised that he shouldn’t have just insulted the new nursing interns. But his excuse was that he didn’t know and he was going to stick with it. His attention shifted to Sarah. “So what are you up to?”
“Just talking, nothing exciting,” answered Sarah, blankly. “Why? What have you been up to?”
“Delson’s planning to cut the supply of electricity off on a number of houses out the front of his place, and he wants me to keep watch, well, that’s what I’m doing tonight, I don’t know about you,” answered Chester, smiling. “Now that’s what you call fun.”
“Why though?” asked Tarja, as she lifted herself up from the ground, as she deliberately showed off her new black hair that had been stained with dark red streaks throughout it. “It sounds stupid.”
“No, it’s only because his neighbours have been stealing cable TV from him and he wants to get back at them,” explained Chester.
“I’m with Tarja, it sounds stupid,” sided Meg. “It sounds immature and childish.”
“I’m not saying anything,” said Sarah. “Don’t get me involved.”
“Thank you for the dinner last night,” thanked Chester, knowing there was something he had to thank Sarah for. “I didn’t know that your sisters could have such, how should I put it? Such talent, in the expert field of embarrassing themselves.”
“It’s Dominique and Monique we’re talking about, no surprise really, well to me it isn’t,” replied Sarah, as Sarah looked to her watch on her left wrist to see what time it was because she had to go and see her sister’s principle at three because Sarah had gotten a call earlier saying that both of them are in trouble and that Sarah made a pathetic excuse up not to be there right then when she got the call. She looked back up at Chester, who now was putting all of his weight on his left foot. Chester wanted to say some things to Sarah, but because Tarja and Meg were around. Sarah picked this want up just in his body language. “Is there something you want to ask or tell me?”
“Yeah, a couple of things, but I don’t know if this is the right time or the right place,” answered Chester, looking a bit uncomfortable being around two of Sarah’s friends. He looked to Meg. “Can we have some privacy please?”
“Sure thing,” answered Meg, as she got to her feet, and as Tarja got to her feet as well. “I should be getting back just in case Jo wants to declare biological war on me for not doing half the stuff that I’ve been asked to do.”
“I’ve got to go to a meeting with the medical board in like twenty minutes,” explained Tarja. “And it takes me about ten minutes to get to their stupid building. So I think I should just lounge around for ten or so minutes around the building.”
Tarja and Meg walked off, but Meg found the time to turn away still in the process of walking, to give Sarah a wink of her eye. Sarah ignored Meg, as both girls walked off.
“Yes?” asked Sarah, as Chester sat next to her. He leant forward and looked at the ground. Sarah was quick to notice his mood change. “You look like you’ve been distraught over something. Care to explain?”
“You have a child,” spluttered Chester. “You have a child, already.”
“So what’s the big deal there?” asked Sarah. “Because, I don’t see what’s the big issue is.”
“You’re in your early twenties, and already you have a child that is how old exactly?” asked Chester, still trying to get over that major day-changing factor.
“Ava, she’s almost three, she’s three in a couple of months,” answered Sarah. “I know I didn’t exactly tell you about her, but I kept her away from you for a good reason.”
“You didn’t exactly tell me?” spat Chester, looking to Sarah. “You didn’t tell me to start with. And what’s the so-called good reason that you kept the big secret away from me?”
“I didn’t want to give you the wrong impression about me,” answered Sarah, sincerely. “I’ve tried to have various relationships after Matt, and as soon as they find out about Ava, God, it’s like I’ve just committed a mortal sin.”
“Matt, as in the father of Ava?” asked Chester. Sarah nodded. “Ex-husband?” Sarah shook her head. “Ex-boyfriend then?” Sarah nodded. “God Sarah, you weren’t even married when you had her.”
“Don’t you lecture me over something you have barely any knowledge about,” retorted Sarah, angrily, as what Chester had just said was exactly the same thing that her mother had said when she found out that Sarah was pregnant. “I was young, I was naïve and I was stupid, and my youth was just taken away from just like that. Don’t you think for one minute that I did not learn my lesson, Chester, because I did and no matter how many people have given me a hard time about her, I still love Ava to death and no one can take that away from me. You don’t know what Matt has put me through, so don’t try to lecture me about naivety and stupidness.”
“I’m not making you choose,” objected Chester, as he just interpreted her speech about her only child the wrong way.
“But you were sounding like it, and the last thing I need to do is to be pulled between my child and the man I’m trying to make a relationship with,” replied Sarah. “You have no idea of what I’ve been put through with Matt, and the latest stunt, God, I don’t know anymore. I try to trust the man, but every time that I associate my trust with him, I just get stabbed in the back. In fact, I hope he spends the rest of his sad and miserable life in jail after the latest spectacular act he’s pulled.”
“Is Ava the one in paediatrics under Andrea’s care right now, the one with in the car accident with her father?” asked Chester, remembering something Brad had said to him about Andrea taking care of a car accident victim and that some man had returned her to the hospital in the early of the morning. Sarah nodded. “Oh God, I didn’t know that was your daughter. I didn’t think for one second that she could be related to you, because I thought you would’ve had more decency than to date a guy that took his daughter away from being treated.” Chester sat back up. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” Chester put his arms around Sarah.
“I’ll be okay,” replied Sarah. “I always end up being okay.” Chester gave Sarah a small peck on the cheek.
“So, doing anything tonight?” asked Chester.
“Yelling at my sisters if that counts as anything,” answered Sarah. “I got a call from their principle, saying that Dominique has been caught with weed in her locker and Monique refuses to obey teacher directions. So I’m going to have good fun thinking about what their suspension punishment will be and what my mother would do if she had bothered to be here.”
“How weird was it when Ravyn and Rob dropped around last night?” asked Chester. “I was so surprised that she had actually had that many thoughtful thoughts, to drop around and see if you were okay.”
“Actually, she was there to break some news to me about Matt, but it’s all settled down now,” answered Sarah. “Funny, she didn’t look very comfortable. Rob apparently pushed her to tell me. I don’t know what’s wrong with that woman, it’s like, she’s afraid of being nice to people, as though it’s some sort of crime to be nice to people. I don’t know anymore and I’ve stopped trying to figure her out, it’s too much of an effort, one that I am not willing to continue. But the only thing that came out of that meeting, that was positive, is that she had least cared enough to give me a week off.”
“No, she didn’t think of that, Andrea did,” explained Chester. “If it’s anything along the lines of treating people nicely, coming from Ravyn, it’s either Andrea nagging at her, or in this case, her own man nagging at her. I must have to question, which person in that relationship does the most nagging at the other person. Knowing that woman and her work, she would’ve only given you about ten minutes off your shift, without the useful interference of Andrea.”
“Oh,” replied Sarah, sarcastically. “I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.”
“Well, I have to go now,” announced Chester, as he and Sarah gave each other a small peck on the lips. “I hope everything with Matt and Ava goes well. I’ll be thinking of you.”
“Thanks,” replied Sarah, as they repeated the same actions as before. Chester let go of her and walked into the hospital, with his hands in his front pockets, as Sarah remained where she was.
Chester walked through the automatic doors as he stopped to think about what he had forgotten to do other than avoid Josh for the entire day. He frowned as he thought about how long and tiring his shift is. He shook it off, as he continued to walk to where he knew Mike would be slagging off completely. Moments later, he stopped in the entrance of the pharmacy, as Mike noticed Chester giving him a queer smirk, with hands still in his front pockets, Mike got up from his stool from behind the counter.
“What are you smirking about Bennington?” asked Mike, as he started to walk over to Chester, who still was smirking in the entrance to his store.
“Gradon has the shits with you so bad, Shinoda,” answered Chester.
“At least I’m not shagging the new ICU intern,” retorted Mike, as he came to a standstill in front of Chester.
“If I wanted to play childish games, I would’ve gone to Ravyn for them, not you Shinoda,” replied Chester smoothly. “I at least would think she has more brain capacity than you right now.”
“I’m not jealous,” pouted Mike. “What’s your main purpose for being here Bennington? I am kinda failing to see your main point.”
“I don’t know, was walking past and I decided that I should visit my old friend Shinoda, who Gradon wants to hunt down and stab,” answered Chester. “You’re totally ****ed man. I swear to God, you so are.”
“Friends?” coughed Mike. “Come on Bennington, I think the lie detector just went off its scale from total bullshit to ****, you’re just a walking son of a bitch. Now leave Bennington, you’re only digging yourself a deeper grave.”
“Is that some sort of threat, Shinoda?” asked Chester. Mike turned around and started to direct his focus on more serious issues like where he had stashed all of his reports and order forms. “Come on, Shinoda, you’re no fun.”
“Fun?” spat Mike, as he turned around and faced Chester again. “Your idea of fun is totally ****ed to the highest point of stupidity. I would be so concerned for Sarah, if she ever found out about your past and your remaining idea of the term, fun.”
“You need to get a proper life,” commented Chester. “You use to be so fun back in the day Shinoda, but now, you’re so preppy and pristine. You’re such a mama’s boy.”
“Do you know what you remind me of, Bennington?” asked Mike. “A teenage boy thriving on hormones, and my advice is, that you need to grow up.”
“And do you know what you remind me of, Shinoda?” asked Chester. “Nothing like the Mike I knew back in college. You used to be such a cool person.”
Chester turned around and left the conversation as Mike went back to looking for the missing order forms and all of his reports that had somehow disappeared. Chester walked past a couple of new interns that obviously belonged to Jo’s department because of how hard they were giggling and the kind of retarded pitch they were giggling at. Chester ignored them, despite the fact that they were pointing at him and obviously talking about him. He just wished he could run into someone that he liked before he got approached and asked out by a stupid nursing intern. Just by luck, he saw Rob standing in front of the notice board that Chester had failed to look at for a number of weeks now.
“Hey,” greeted Rob, as he took note of Chester’s presence next to him. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you and Delson supposed to be back on paramedic duty?”
“What?” asked Chester, a bit confused. Rob pointed at the timetable for paramedical duties and underlined the names ‘Brad Delson’ and ‘Chester Bennington’ with his finger.
“Go figure,” answered Rob, blankly.
“No, wait, that’s the old roster,” explained Chester. “I was on yesterday.”
“What new roster?” asked Rob. “I didn’t hear of such a thing.” He turned to Chester. “Stop pulling the wool over my eyes Bennington. There’s no such thing. Or else this wouldn’t still be up.” Rob looked at one piece of red coloured paper and ripped it right off the notice board. “Holy ****.”
“What’s holy **** now?” asked Chester, a bit confused, as Rob started to mutter the words that he was reading. Chester leaned over to read the piece of paper that Rob was watching. “Oh that’s holy **** now.”
“Gradon won’t be too happy,” muttered Rob. “I would love to see the expression on my woman’s face when she reads this.” Rob laughed. “She’s sure to sign it.”
“So would I,” added Chester. Rob stopped reading the piece of paper and shot Chester a look. “What? I mean, my woman’s face, not yours. God forbid that would be me committing the ultimate mortal sin of all time.”
“You don’t even have a woman,” accused Rob. “So you can’t even say that.”
“Ah, yes I do,” defended Chester.
“Imaginary girlfriends do not count Bennington,” retorted Rob.
“Each day you date that woman of yours, the more you’re going to become more like her,” muttered Chester to himself, but Rob heard it. “Just quit while you’re ahead.”
“I at least have a woman, that’s the only thing that’s separating you from me right now,” replied Rob, smoothly. “You have yet to show evidence to me that your woman isn’t a figment of your horniness.”
“Is that a challenge Bourdon?” asked Chester. “Do you really want to lose money to me over this?”
“I never said that I was going to waste my money on you,” answered Rob, crossing his arms, with the piece of coloured paper still in his hands. “I said I wanted to see evidence. And until I see any evidence, I will think of you being the lonely little boy I’ve grown to know as Bennington.”
“Fine,” replied Chester, as Rob started to walk away because he had better things to do. “You’ll find out sooner or later.” Rob stopped and turned around to face Chester.
“And until I don’t, I will not believe it,” stated Rob, as he turned around to give the piece of paper to Ravyn, as he made his way through a crowd of new interns belonging to paediatrics, and not the nursing for once in a while. “Excuse me, coming through.” He managed to convince the interns to make room for him as he caught the soon-to-be-closed elevator. He walked in to realise that he would be sharing a ride with Mel and Jonathon. “Hi.” The elevator doors closed and Rob pushed the ICU button, but it was already pushed alongside with the day surgery button, as Rob remembered that Ravyn got the ultimate pleasure of sharing the same floor space with the nurses and Mel was obviously heading up there.
“Hi,” greeted Jonathon and Mel simultaneously in a chorus. Only Mel sounded as though she actually meant her niceness. The elevator went up.
“How are you today Rob?” asked Mel.
“I’m fine thank you,” answered Rob, as Rob leant against the wooden rails of the elevator. “How about yourselves?”
“I’m okay, I guess,” answered Mel, slowly.
“I don’t want to talk about it, really,” answered Jonathon, looking angry over something.
“Why? What happened?” asked Rob.
“It’s none of your business, Rob, it really isn’t,” answered Jonathon, looking away from Rob.
“He’s just not a happy chap,” explained Mel. “Some **** went down between him and your woman a couple of minutes back, and just say, that Jonathon isn’t too happy about some of the things she said about him to his face.” Mel looked from Rob to Jonathon. “Do you want me to tell him?” Jonathon shook his head. “Oh, okay then.” Mel looked back to Rob. “But at the same time, I don’t think Ravyn’s too happy about a lot of things. She looked as though, as though she just wanted to break down, emotionally over something. Jo tried getting it out of Andrea, who tried getting it out of Ravyn, but she wouldn’t budge.”
“I just wish Grant was back, so he could control her attitude, he was always good at that, when he was around,” commented Jonathon. He looked back at Rob, who was going to open his mouth and retort Jonathon’s little comment but he didn’t. “I honestly don’t see what you see in that woman of yours Rob, I really don’t.”
“You get to see another side of her, that I don’t like either, but you don’t know her that well, as I do,” explained Rob. “You haven’t seen the side of Ravyn that I’ve gotten the privilege to see. And I think Andrea, her being her good friend; she’s seen Ravyn’s good side.”
“Good side?” spat Jonathon.
“Jonathon, don’t get yourself worked up,” advised Mel, softly but Jonathon just ignored her. “It’s really not worth it. You’re going to achieve nothing if you get yourself worked up over it.”
“Good side?” repeated Jonathon. “You have to be kidding yourself Bourdon.”
“Go take Mel’s advice Jonathon, it’s not worth getting yourself worked up over,” advised Rob. “I don’t see why you’re suddenly complaining. It’s not like this a new thing to you. Stop causing a scene Jonathon.”
“No, don’t tell me what to do,” retorted Jonathon. “I’m going to lodge a serious complaint against Ravyn with the medical board.”
“Good luck of trying to get that to be taken seriously,” replied Rob. “To start with, she’s been working longer at this hospital more years than before you were, and she’s had more experience with her profession that you have had. You know it yourself Jonathon; the medical board will look at her medical history with the hospital before they can even think about interviewing her for her behaviour.”
“Trust me, the medical board will be taking this seriously if Grant becomes involved,” warned Jonathon. “And he’s bound to do something about her attitude.”
“Despite the fact, Grant has been trying to control Ravyn’s attitude for a couple of years now, and Ravyn listens to no one about her attitude, not even for what Grant has to say about it,” argued Mel, suddenly wanting to become involved in the heated argument. “Ravyn will point out the major point that Grant is a walking hypocrite when it comes to him and his profession, as Grant is only working a minority of the time that he’s supposed to. And the only reason why Ravyn doesn’t take him seriously because Grant’s area of profession is in business and not in medicine, that’s why she takes Gradon a bit more seriously than Grant. So if you’re aiming at getting Ravyn sacked, the most likely scenario is that Grant will lose his job, as a consequence of Ravyn defending herself.”
“I thought you were on my side, Phoenix,” said Jonathon, shifting his attention to Mel.
“I’m not on anybody’s side,” replied Mel. “It’s a clear fact that if you’re intending to get Ravyn sacked, most likely, Grant will be the one that’ll lose his position. And once Grant is out of the office, his job will be up for grabs. Just guess who’ll be going for his place as the head of the hospital and all of its functions?”
“Oh I wonder,” Jonathon sarcastically said, as the elevator came to a halt and the doors opened on the day surgery ward. “It’s only been the same people going for Grant’s job when the medical board has decided to suspend him over various stunts.” Jonathon rolled as eyes, as he walked out into the hallway that led to the day surgery department. The elevator doors closed behind them, leaving Rob and Mel in the elevator.
“Yeah, he’s not having a good day today,” said Mel, as the elevator went up.
‘Oh well, it’s not my problem, it’s his,” replied Rob. “I don’t see why he has to make a big deal of it. I mean, Ravyn’s always been like this, and he’s acting like its some new mood swing of hers.”
“Hey, have you seen Greyfoxx around lately?” asked Mel, changing the subject completely.
“No, I haven’t, which is kinda unusual,” answered Rob, as he thought back to when the last time that he saw in the hospital. “She usually likes to make her presence known in the hospital.”
“Do you reckon that Meaghen’s basically ignored Grant’s decision to not give her personal leave?” asked Mel. “Because it’s kinda looking like she just, has disappeared from the face of the planet.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know her that well to actually understand of how she works,” answered Rob. “I’ve never really associated myself with Meaghen, I don’t know why though.”
“What do you have in your hands?” asked Mel, noticing the piece of red coloured paper in Rob’s grip. “Is it the new notice thingy for the nurses?”
“Ah, if it were to be for the nurses, why would I have it?” asked Rob, wisely. “And I think Jo has more energy then that, to just dump this on the notice board downstairs.”
“Oh okay, because Jo said something in the meeting for the nurses, this morning, about looking out for a new notice for us all,” explained Mel. “In which, I think Jo is another person not to cross today. I think she’s having some troubles with her marriage to her Grant.”
“You just love gossipping, don’t you?” Rob couldn’t help but to ask. Mel nodded. “Is it meant to be a thing you have to learn as a nursing intern to be a proper nurse?”
“No, it’s just a woman thing,” answered Mel.
“No it’s not, Ravyn doesn’t gossip and go on about people behind their backs,” defended Rob. “Well, the second part was a lie, I admit to that.”
“Yeah, but that’s Ravyn for you,” replied Mel, smoothly. “I don’t know what’s wrong with your woman Rob.”
“There’s nothing wrong with her, she’s just very opinionated and independent,” explained Rob. “Which, I admit to, is very frustrating for me.” The elevator calm to a halt and the elevator doors opened on the ICU/nurses floor, as both people walked out and the elevator doors closed behind them. Mel walked beside Rob as they walked together. “I guess that’s just Ravyn for you. I mean, she’s such a sweet person when you get to know her, but she would rather show her other side that I don’t really appreciate that much.”
“Oh well then,” sighed Mel, reluctantly. “There are some people that are a mystery to others, and then we have Rav, well, she’s no exception.”
“She would kill you if she found out that you just called her that,” Rob pointed out, as they approached the nurse’s front desk. Rob stopped and looked around to see if Ravyn was in sight, but she wasn’t, as Mel went behind the front desk and into the backroom. Jo was coming out of the backroom, looking unimpressed and unpleased as ever. “Hey Jo.” Jo reacted to her name being called out by stopping and looking at Rob with an odd look.
“Yes?” asked Jo. “Are you looking for your woman?”
“Yes, I was actually,” answered Rob. “You’re starting to read my mind.”
“No, it’s just obvious now,” replied Jo. “If you happen to up here, it’s because of her. It’s a well known fact that you two are seeing each other, around the hospital now. I don’t think she can see you right now, because she’s busy typing up some reports for the Minister of Health, or so that’s what she’s saying.”
“So, she’s in her office then?” asked Rob, making sense of what Jo had just said to him. Jo nodded. “That’s all you needed to tell me.”
“And that she doesn’t want to be interrupted, unless you’re willing to have your head ripped off,” explained Jo, remembering how Jonathon was telling her about how he got his head ripped off his shoulders for asking Ravyn a simple question.
“I should be fine,” replied Rob, as he smiled and walked down the hallway, where at the other end of it he knew as Ravyn’s office, because he had cleaned it so many times. He didn’t know how the hell she could keep it so clean at times; compared to the number of unfiled papers he’s used to seeing on Josh’s desk. He walked past a couple of nursing interns, he had known them to be second year interns, because a majority of first year interns didn’t know his name, only by the ‘hot guy’ that was the janitor. That disturbed Rob mostly. The interns greeted him with a smile and wave. “Good afternoon.” He didn’t even know their names, but he greeted them anyway. They giggled and continued to walk the opposite way down the hallway. He felt a bit relieved that they weren’t heading in the same direction of him. Of course, a group of young interns being around near Ravyn’s office was a recipe for disaster and a recipe for someone to lose their internship, so they tended not to hang around in the hallways too long because of that major factor. It would be like putting Stalin and Lincoln in a room together. He slid into a room which had its door originally closed, opened it, and shut it as he saw Ravyn at her desk, looking at a number of manila folders. She was looking up at him as though Rob had pulled a rabbit out of a hat for his trick of the year performance.
“What are you doing here?” asked Ravyn. “Don’t you have other business to attend to? Like making up a reasonable excuse for being six hours late for your shift, would be a good starting point.”
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” answered Rob, taking a seat in front of her desk and putting the piece of paper in front of her. “I thought you might like that, babe.”
“Don’t ‘babe’ me,” retorted Ravyn, as her attention was diverted to the piece of paper lying on her desk. “What’s this?” Ravyn slid it around, looked at the piece of paper, and gave Rob a quirky look. “Who made this up?”
“Bites me,” answered Rob. It was a petition for Grant to leave. Ravyn felt a bit relieved that she wasn’t the only person that expressed her opinion about having Grant as the head of the hospital. “I didn’t know if you were willing to sign it, so I brought it here. Why? What’s wrong with me calling you babe, babe?”
“I don’t appreciate little fluffy pet nicknames, it is bad enough I let you get away with ‘Rave’,” answered Ravyn, as she opened the top draw to find a pen. She found one and signed her name, which she was the fourth person to sign it. “Now, I’ve just got to narrow my reasons down for my hate for Grant down to one. Damn, there are so many, but I must choose one that doesn’t involve swearing in it. Despite the fact, I might not be the only one when this is complete, but I’m going to avoid a harassment case being filed against me.”
“Yeah, that’s a good start, you should start by explaining to me about what you did to Jonathon,” said Rob.
“I don’t have to answer to you,” retorted Ravyn, as she was trying to think about what reason she should put down for her hate of Grant. “Especially on that incident since you weren’t there.”
“From what I hear, I’m kinda glad that I wasn’t,” commented Rob. “You’re not going to put down what we spoke about last night are you?”
“Hell no,” answered Ravyn, shooting Rob a look. “Why would I want that reason be put on display for everyone else to read? There are already enough circus freaks around in this working environment without Jo’s department of illegally blondes being around.”
“I was only making sure, there’s nothing wrong with just making sure,” answered Rob, innocently. “So what is going to be the reason? Have you decided yet?”
“I’m just going to stick to Grant being a walking hypocrite,” answered Ravyn, as she put her head back down to look at what she was writing about Grant.
“What are you doing, or more so, what were you doing before I came in?” asked Rob, as he got to his feet and off his chair. He started to walk behind Ravyn’s desk, to look at the computer.
“Stuff,” answered Ravyn, shortly.
“This isn’t just stuff,” noticed Rob, as he noticed of what it actually was. It wasn’t reports for the Minister for Health, but it was actually a resignation letter. “You’re resigning?!”
“Not yet, but it’s going to come in useful one day,” answered Ravyn, as she looked back up and looked back down again. Rob got reach of the keyboard in front of Ravyn and pressed alt, control, and delete, twice, after noticing that it hadn’t been saved and that because Rob couldn’t get to the mouse. Ravyn looked up to see her computer shutting down. “Hey! I was in the middle of that!” Ravyn got to her feet and looked Rob directly in the eyes. Rob had just made her annoyed and angry. “Why the hell did you just do that for?”
“I don’t want you resigning over what I learnt last night,” answered Rob, calmly. “It’s Grant’s problem, not yours.”
“But it becomes my problem when the Board of Medicine doesn’t believe me,” retorted Ravyn, angrily.
“You refuse to go to the Board of Medicine of what Grant did to you,” remembered Rob from last night’s conversation. “So I don’t see why what the big deal is here.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” asked Ravyn.
“Because you’re not living up to your end of the deal, Rave, so it’s only fair for me, to how did, you put it last night? Ah yes, to ‘control’ you,” answered Rob.
“What end of the deal?” asked Ravyn. “I never agreed to anything.”
“Compromising,” answered Rob, remembering the conversation that they had in the car. “I’ve compromised, I’ve put up with your attitude, and like hell I’ve put up with the complaints about you from other members of the staff.” He put his hands on her shoulders, but Ravyn tried throwing his hands of her shoulders, but Rob just put them back on and made his grip a bit firmer so Ravyn couldn’t throw him off as just as easily. “I love you very much, but you’re driving me up the wall with your attitude. If we ever want to make this work out, you have to live up to your end of the deal and that can be achieved through compromising. I am not asking you to give up anything important, but just loosen your attitude a bit more, that’s all I am asking. Because I don’t want to have you uptight all the time, because that makes me annoyed at you and I don’t want to be annoyed at you.”
“Okay, you can now get out of my office, if I annoy you that much with my attitude,” replied Ravyn, trying to keep her cool. “You’ve just proven to be a waste of my time, Rob.”
“Do you want to start making up your mind of what I am to you?” asked Rob, as Ravyn threw his arms off her shoulders. She turned around and sat back down, but Rob wasn’t going to give up so easily. “One minute I’m the love of your life and the other, I’m just a waste of your time. Well, I don’t know about you, but hell, I’m convinced that this relationship has already failed before it had chance to begin.”
“So you’re suggesting that we should break up because you don’t like my attitude, is that it Rob?” asked Ravyn, as she got back to standing on her feet and looking at Rob directly in the eyes. “That’s the most pathetic thing I’ve heard as a reason to use, than the reasons Jo uses to have constant communication with me. Well, hell, if that be the case, I could say many things about you, but I don’t.”
“I’m saying, it is your attitude that is ruining this relationship already, before it had a chance to begin,” clarified Rob. “Look, I’ll just get out of your sight before you decide to tell me that I should just go and die in a hole. And yes, you were right, I am just a waste of your time, and you’re just a waste of mine, really. I have better things to do than to have an argument with an insolent teenager.” Rob started to walk out of Ravyn’s office, secretly hoping that she would just fall down on her knees and start begging to be forgiven. Ravyn wasn’t the predictable.
“If you’re afraid of dating an insolent teenager, where did you go wrong with Vanessa?” asked Ravyn, quite bitchily, as she remembered some rumours about him and a woman named Vanessa a couple of months back. Ravyn despised Vanessa for all that she was, even putting aside that she had once went out with Ravyn’s crush at one stage of her life. Rob stopped in his tracks, turned around, and shot Ravyn a very nasty look. “Oh wait, she was an insolent whore even before you twos went out. Oh, so it’s okay to date an insolent whore but not at any point, an insolent teenager. Wow, I never knew the difference until now. At least now I know what we both have in common Rob, we love dating insolent people, for not what they really are, but because they are insolent.”
“There are many differences that separate you from Vanessa, any day,” retorted Rob. “And I know which was way easier to get along with.”
“Would one of the differences include, that, I’m an insolent teenager while, Vanessa, she’s a whore any way that you looked at her?” asked Ravyn, as she congratulated herself for such a good comeback. “Call me a self-righteous bitch any day, but least I don’t sleep with people just because I want a cheap **** out of them. I don’t know if you knew what Vanessa did while she was not in your arms, Rob, but I can tell you now, that’s what she did and where is she now? Oh yeah, she’s an executive of a massive, multibillion company, because she slept her way to the top.”
“Don’t call me tonight,” ordered Rob, swiftly, as he couldn’t come up with a good comeback, and he continued his walk outside, anything was better than being in Ravyn’s office right now.
Ravyn felt a bit unsure of how she just reacted. She wasn’t sure if it was the wrong thing to do, as she had just pushed Rob away even further from her, or if it was the right thing, as she was never used to be told being told of what she can and cannot do, that, was her mother’s role not Rob’s. Ravyn admitted to herself her comments about Vanessa were out of line, and, Ravyn was just unsure about a lot of things. She used to picture Rob as a person exactly like her, but now, since these past days, she didn’t know anymore. She wanted to be with him forever, but there was just something in the back of her head that told her that Rob wasn’t the guy for her. That made her sad.
~