CHERISH (39 page)

He takes a long stride, and he’s next to me. I can smell the outside on him as though he just walked through the woods. He’s fresh, clean and still creating a wall in-between me and the door.

It is hard to look at his face, but it’s not just the scars. It’s more. I try to force myself to meet his gaze because I know how it feels when someone looks, then suddenly you’re invisible. People don’t want to stare, but instead of being polite, they turn you into something less than human. You can feel their discomfort, and I hate that I’ve just done the same to him.

The wall of man in front of me isn’t overly friendly, but he also is not off-putting. The air still feels like it is charged around us, but something about his manner eases me a bit.

“Are you coming in? Or, did you just come to stand there and stare at her?” His father wheels forward a few feet, then he nods towards me. “My son, back from some secret mission. You keep going back. I guess that says something. You’d rather be anywhere but here. How many tours have you done now?”

“Four.” He loses the smile.

I’m thankful for the break. It forces his son to glance away from me, and I feel myself shift and breathe. His eyes are quickly back, regarding me up and down, then back to his father. I can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking.

I’m used to men staring.

Regarding me.

But, usually not here. Here, I’m just that spooky white-haired girl who doesn’t talk. Here, men do not usually look at me like Mr. Fitzgerald’s son is looking at me now.

“Sorry.” His head jerks back and to the side, quickly. I take note that he’s twitched his neck like that twice already. “I didn’t mean to stare. Honestly, I—” He smiles and the left side of his lip curls up, and there is a clutch in my throat.

“It’s okay.” I move to the side, trying to get him to lean in the other direction. I only need a few more inches between him and the hospital bed and I can squeeze out the door.

He’s massive. The gray t-shirt he’s wearing with the block letters “SEAL” across the front looks like it’s been ironed.

Under his gaze, I feel some odd comfort. I still want to be anywhere else, but he’s not looking at me like I’m an anomaly. He’s soft and hard, and for some reason, I want to ask his name.

“Thank you for helping my father.” He flashes that crooked smile. Sensing my impatience he finally takes one step toward the bed, giving me just enough room to slide by.

The softness in his voice is startling. He is a monster in his size, and his presence feels like a Secret Service Agent on high alert, but there are still soft edges about him like we know each other. It makes me both drawn to him and ready to shoot out the door like a bolt of lightening.

My heart is reminding me of just how uncomfortable I am right now, and besides the thumping sound in my ears, Mr. Fitzgerald is raising the roof from behind me.

“You come halfway around the world to see me, and you aren’t three feet into my room still. Do you want to talk to her or to me? Promise, you want to get out of here?” Mr. Fitzgerald doesn’t bother me, he’s right I do want to get out of here. “Girl barely knows how to scratch two words together.”

“Dad, come on.” His son’s voice is scolding.

I nod and give him one more glance. His hair is black like his father’s but shining and cropped with precision around his ears. The last thing I notice as I cower toward the door is the rippled, pulled texture of his skin above his left ear and the silver length of the scar that runs from his forehead all the way down until it crosses his lips.

The shiver that starts in my neck travels down all the way to my toes.

His eyes narrow as I slip by. I can’t help but brush the sleeve of his jacket, and I try not to forget to breathe.

What is wrong with me? I see men like him all the time. Not
here,
but at my other job. Jarheads, military for sure. But, he’s different, very different, and I don’t know if I like him or not.

In the hallway, I finally let out a breath that apparently I’ve been holding the entire time I stood there. What the heck was that? I don’t like feeling like that feeling at all. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror of the open lavatory door in the hall and see my toppled bun hanging next to my ear.

Besides the unruly hair, I see what other people see. How shocking I am. How surreal and otherworldly. I’m sure he was just having the normal reaction. I mean, how many times in your life do you get to see a living ghost?

One of the reasons I like this job is I feel normal around these people. I feel as close to fitting in as I ever have. Everyone here has something wrong. Some ailment, something about them that is broken either inside or outside. It’s only when the outside world comes in, like now,
like him
, that I remember who I really am.

That
girl.

From
that
family.

With
those
eyes.

The radio on my hip crackles again, and I jump like a shot went off.

“Promise, you there?” It’s Bruce, the head nurse.

I walk a few steps down the hall and think about how a complete stranger could make me feel strangely comforted and connected in a matter of a couple minutes.

“Yes, here,” I whisper back into the radio.

“Come see me. I’ve got snacks.”

I smile and roll my eyes. Bruce hired me two years ago. Then, a month after I started working, he also gave me a place to live.

Against my will, he’s also become my friend.

“On my way.”

I flop down into the chair next to his desk. It’s not so much an office as a closet. In fact, it was a shower at one time. Then, they converted it so he could have some privacy.

I can’t stop wondering how Mr. Fitzgerald’s son chipped his left, front tooth. You would think I would be fascinated with the more frightening elements of his face, but no. I desperately need to know what happened to his tooth.

“Did you see that hunk ‘o burnin’ love that came in to see twenty-six?” Bruce snorts and runs his hands over his shiny, bald head, then lets out a long, enamored sigh.

“Yep.” He hands me a pretzel rod.

“What do you think? Does Mr. Fitzgerald need a visit from the head nurse?” Bruce snorts again. “Think I’m his type?”

“Dunno. Do you
think
you’re
Mr. Fitzgerald’s
type?” I smirk, and he sticks his tongue out. I know he’s not asking about our patient. He’s glaring at me with wide eyes. “We didn’t discuss his sexual orientation. Imagine that.”

“Yeah, I know how chatty you can be. Probably got his life story.” He waves another pretzel rod in my face, then taps it on my nose as I crinkle it at him.

But, if I had to make a wild-ass guess, I would be more his type than Bruce would, but I’ll give him his fantasy for now. He is a fine specimen, the cartwheeling butterflies in my stomach don’t lie.

When was the last time I had
any
reaction to a man? Gosh, I can’t even remember. It is a part of me that has been turned off and shut down for so long.

Ever since I saw what I saw and realized just how deep cruelty can go.

“He’s a SEAL, or
was,” Bruce says as his chair squeaks when he leans back.
“Or is. I don’t know for sure if he is or isn’t. From what I hear, he’s back. Done. Not sure the details, he got hurt or something, lost some of his team members. His father is quite a peach.”

I’m thinking about the scars. Those are old, so they can’t be from anything recent. If he has another injury that sent him home, it’s not visible.

“Hey, I need to come in a half-hour late tomorrow. Is that okay?”

“Sure. I’ll get Sonya to cover until you get here.” He snaps off a bite of pretzel. Since he quit smoking two weeks ago, everything he eats is a poor impression of a cigarette.

I want to ask more about Mr. Fitzgerald’s son, but I can’t believe I have any interest in knowing more about another human. Bruce is probably my only friend, and he forced it on me.

There is a soft knock on his office door. “
What
?” he answers with an annoyed shout. He never gets any peace. Two hundred and fifty-three beds and he is here almost twelve hours a day.

“See ya.” I pop the salty end of my pretzel into my mouth and raise my eyebrows at him as the door opens.

There’s always someone wanting him. A question, a complaint, some staff drama.

“Bye,” he sighs at me. “Go see if he’s still here. I’m walking down that way if he is. My celibacy is not by choice, you know. At least I can get a look . . .”

He switches gears when I open the door, and he turns professional again.

I am
not
going back down that hall right now.

My usual stoic indifference is my battle shield, and I need to get my armor back in place.

Five minutes later, I’m helping Mr. Timmons up from his chair into the bed when my radio chirps on my hip

“I mean it. Twenty-six,
now
, and report back.” Bruce’s voice quips through the static.

Uggg
, He’s going to keep after me until I go. He can be a pain in the ass, but it’s nearly impossible to say no to him.

I check my watch as I work my way back toward twenty-six. It’s fourteen minutes until shift change. My heart is already bouncing triple time. I resolve I will get close to Mr. Fitzgerald’s door, take one quick listen, see if I hear his voice and report to Bruce. I’ll be safely gone and shake off whatever this is that Mr. Testosterone has me feeling.

Listen at the door, do not go in.

Definitely do not look at his eyes.

Those eyes that should be hanging in a museum somewhere.

Those eyes that made me feel like he saw
me
.

Really saw me.

The invisible girl. The ghost.

Beckett

What. The. Fuck. Just. Happened.

It’s taking all my will power not to run out of my dad’s room and down the fucking hall after her. Everything about her is familiar. She’s just older. And more beautiful.

When the door shut, and she disappeared, it felt like someone hit me with a hammer.

Go get her.

She wouldn’t meet my eye and ran out of here like a demon was chasing her.

She’s still hiding. Trying to stay safe.

I get it. I understand. She wants nothing to do with me. I don’t blame her.

“So, you’re here.” My dad hisses. “Now get
me
the hell out!”

He looks better, but he’s not better.

“Where are you going to go, Dad?” I give reasonable discourse a try.

“What the fuck do you care where I go?
Just get me out of here
.”

Okay, reasonable is historically not the way to go with Dad, at least not since our world turned to ashes. And, it would seem not much has changed.

I look down at his rolled up pant leg. Silver safety pins hold it folded near his knee. My neck twitches three times. It’s gotten worse since I got back. You would think being in a hot combat area in Afghanistan would be more stressful than the Windfield Skilled Nursing Facility in downtown Cleveland.

Nope. This is worse.

“You can’t stay with me, Dad. We’ve been down that dark alley before.” I scratch my forehead and close my eyes before taking a deep breath and counting to ten.

“I don’t want to stay with you, you jackass. I don’t need your help. I can take care of myself.”

The way you took care of me?

“I see.” I let out a tense chuckle, and Dad sniffs back at me.

“Uh huh. I bet you do.” His voice is gravelly, harder and more distant than the last time I saw him close to two years ago. Coming here today was the right thing to do, I need to keep reminding myself. But, I can’t stay. There’s nothing new to say. Only shadows and disappointment between us. Ghosts.

He hates me, and I love him. Or, I did love him. I don’t know what this is I feel right now. We’ll never be the same. We haven’t been the same for a long time. The fire destroyed more than just my face.

I think back to the weeks I’d spent in the hospital. The pain of the treatments, then the skin grafts. Seeing the monster I’d become when they finally let me look in a mirror. I was just a kid, and he let me go through it all alone.

And, I’m still hoping
he
will forgive
me
.

Dad clears his throat, his eyes like cannons shooting across the bow. I shift my weight, leaning back against the wall. There’s no point in sitting down; this won’t take much longer.

“So, you’re some sort of big hero now? I got your letters.” He won’t keep his eyes on my face. Even he can’t stand the reminder.

I’d been sending letters without fail every month. I’d sent them to the last address I’d known for him, never knowing if he got them or not—my gut telling me not.

From what the social worker shared with me over the phone, Dad’s so called “friends” dropped him at the door of the emergency room, comatose from alcohol poisoning and on his way to liver failure with an infection in his amputated leg that nearly killed him. The social worker managed to figure out our connection from past hospital records and get a message to me. Dad’s been here since and, with me finally making it back home, I can see just how much he’s changed.