3. Zoe

3

ZOE

"How are you feeling today, Mrs. Beaumont?" I pulled back the curtain and flipped on the overhead light.

"Oh, I'm just fine." Mrs. Beaumont squinted as she lifted her hand to block out the fluorescent beams shining down on her. Today, she wore a pink silk scarf covering her head with her favorite flower birds of paradise on it. Tiny white wisps of hair escaped from beneath it. Her nails were painted the exact color of her scarf. She maintained a sense of style and class that I admired and knew that I would never emulate. I barely had time to throw on mascara, much less paint my nails. "No need to fuss over me."

I hated having to disturb my patients when they were resting, but unfortunately, that was part of the job. Thankfully, Mrs. Beaumont knew the drill and didn't give me too much of a hard time. Some patients got pretty riled up, violent even, when you disturbed them, which I understood, but it didn't make my job any easier.

"I heard you had a handsome visitor today." Mrs. Beaumont's grandchildren visited her every day. They were on a rotating schedule. Since she had nine total, it wasn't a burden on any one grandchild. She'd been in and out of the hospital for the past few months, battling a pretty gnarly respiratory infection. She was on several waitlists for assisted living facilities in the area, but since COVID, most of the care homes were at full capacity.

"Oh, yes, my grandson Samuel. I told him he needed to wait to meet my favorite nurse, but he had to get to work. He left his number, though. I promised him that you would call him." She motioned to the overbed table. I glanced over and saw there was a card sitting on it. "You take it, and you call him."

"Thank you, but I'm not really…" I took a deep breath as I removed her empty IV fluid bag and replaced it as I tried to find a diplomatic way to turn her grandson down. "You know, I don't really have time?—"

"Oh, pshh." Mrs. Beaumont shook her head dismissively. "That's just nonsense. When my Lawrence died, I told myself the same thing–that I didn't have time—what with raising three children, but that was hogwash. It was just an excuse 'cause I was too scared to get hurt again. Now, how long has it been? Five years? Eight? What?"

In about three months, it will be ten years; well, in eighty-two days, to be exact, but who's counting?

Oh, right, I was.

"It's been a while," I sighed, not wanting to say how long it had been. Mainly because every time I did, I got the same reaction. Even if people didn't say the words, they gave me the same look—the one that said I should move on. Get over it.

Mrs. Beaumont extended her arms toward me, and I placed my hands in hers. Her palms were baby-soft from the Vaseline Intensive Care hand lotion she kept by the side of her bed and applied several times throughout the day.

"Listen, I know that you might not feel ready, but honey, you let me tell ya a little secret; you're never gonna feel ready." She patted my hands between her own. "What you had was perfect, beautiful, and special. It was true love. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't have more perfect, more beautiful, and more special and another true love in your life. You're too young to give up on happily ever after, darlin'."

I forced myself to smile and nod as the alarm sounded on my phone, indicating my shift was blessedly over. "I'll be back to see you tomorrow. Try and get some rest." I switched off the light.

"Take the number," she demanded.

I sighed. The woman was ninety-seven, but she did not miss a beat. I could sit there and argue with her that I wasn't going to call it, but after a twelve-hour shift, I decided to go with the path of least resistance.

"Yes, ma'am." I snatched the card off the table.

"You won't regret it, sweetie. I promise." She gave me a wink, indicating she knew what I was going through.

As far as widows went, I was definitely on the younger side of the members in the club. I was close to thirty now, but when I first joined, I was eighteen. I remembered how scared I was. Austin had been my rock. We were together from the time I was twelve and he was thirteen, about to turn fourteen. We were kids. We grew up together. Then we had a kid, and we got married. And then he left and never came back.

Of course, on some level, I knew the danger every time he deployed, but for some reason, he was invincible to me. Maybe it was because we were so young, and I was naive. Or maybe it was because he promised me, and he'd never gone back on any promise he'd ever made to me. Or maybe I thought that our love was actually strong enough to bring him back home to me.

I don't know what it was, but it was still hard for me to believe that he was gone. Sometimes I still thought it was a mistake and he was going to walk through the door.

Tears began to fill my eyes as I walked down the hall to the locker room, but I quickly wiped them away. That was another reason I didn't want the movie made of his life. What good would bringing up the past do? I was having a hard enough time trying to go on with my life. Truth be told, I was barely getting by as it was. Reliving the worst days I'd ever had was not something that I wanted to sign up for.

"Zoe."

A deep voice sounded behind me. Before I turned, I knew exactly whose it was. Dr. Elias Russell.

We'd hooked up several times over the years. Not anything serious. In fact, we'd never even gone out on a date. The only time anything had happened between us had been in the on-call room. I liked Elias. He was sexy, funny, and an all-around good guy. He was not the typical narcissist that surgeons tended to be. But it was not serious. It was just physical. And it had only happened a handful of times scattered over three years.

Lately, he'd been texting me. Asking me out for dinner. Trying to push for more than just the occasional sex in the on-call room, but that was all I had to give.

I turned and put on my most professional voice, "Dr. Russell, what can I do for you?"

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" He motioned to the break room door.

"I just got off of a twelve-hour shift and?—"

He pushed the door open and held it. "It'll only take a minute."

As I walked through it and inhaled his musky scent, I told myself that I was an idiot. He smelled good. He was age appropriate. He was a pediatric heart surgeon. Every ovary-carrying human in the hospital wanted him to impregnate them, and even those without ovaries wanted to have his babies.

And I was actively avoiding him.

What in the name of Tom Hardy was wrong with me?

If Nadia, Ashley, and Daphne knew that I'd been secretly hooking up with Elias and was now doing my best to ghost him, they would be arranging an intervention.

He shut the door and then took a step toward me. "I heard about the movie. I just wanted to check in and see how you were doing."

Shit. Now I felt doubly bad. I thought he was going to ask me out again, but he was genuinely concerned for my well-being.

"It's not the greatest, but it is what it is."

"Well, I'm here if you ever want to talk."

"Thanks." I started to walk around him and reached for the door handle.

He moved, blocking my path. "Have you ever talked to anyone?"

"What?" I glanced up at him.

"About Austin," he clarified. "Have you ever talked to anyone?"

"Um…"

"Even your friends? Family?"

I stared up at him, not sure why this conversation was taking place. We never talked about personal things. That was part of the appeal of our relationship, or should I say situationship. It was only physical. No feelings. No complications. No nothing. Just sex.

So, where was this coming from? Why was he asking me this? He'd grown up in Firefly, so of course he knew Austin. He knew everything about my situation and had never once made any reference to it. So why was he bringing it up now?

"I think you should. I know you never wanted to talk to me, but you need to talk to someone. Especially if this movie is going to happen."

He reached out to touch my arm in support, but I pulled it back out of his grasp.

"It was a long time ago. I'm fine." I stepped around him, pulled the door handle, and walked through it.

Anger bubbled up in me as I continued down the corridor. With each step I took, I could feel the tension coiling inside of me like a rattlesnake ready to strike. I wasn't sure exactly where the emotion was coming from. Maybe from the place of Elias not having a clue about my life and it not being any of his business. Or maybe it was because I had no say over a movie being made about the worst part of my life. Yeah, that was probably it.

When I reached the locker room, I opened the door and saw a group of nurses huddled in front of the flat screen on the wall. I walked straight past them and sat down on the bench in front of my locker. I tried to steady my breathing and erase the conversation with Elias from my head. It would be a lot easier if my brain had a delete button, or if it was an Etch-A-Sketch, and I could just shake it.

In through my nose, out through my mouth. No one had been through what I had been through. If they had, they might not be so quick to judge me.

When Austin died, I had just graduated high school. I had a two-year-old son. I was just about to start college. I had a lot on my plate. No, I didn't talk to anyone. I just took care of AJ and got through school. Then, after I got my bachelor's degree in nursing, I continued going to school to get my master's. Wasn't that enough? What did people want from me?

I took my foot out of my clog and rubbed the arch. Pain shot up through my calf. This was my fifth twelve-hour shift this week. I wasn't complaining. I had a lot of student loans to pay off. Sixty-hour work weeks were only possible because Walter was home with AJ. When I needed reinforcements, Austin's best friends, Harlan and Dawson, had always been there to answer the babysitting bat signal. It truly did take a village.

"He is so hot!" Anika's high-pitched squeal went right through me.

My head was still throbbing from last night's extracurricular activities. I was getting way too old for girls' nights when I had to work the following day. Next time, even if Nadia did camp out on my porch, I was going to have to be strong. Or at the very least, only have one shot.

"Oh my gosh! Zoe! Are they talking about your Austin?!" Anika shouted.

My stomach dropped as I stood and walked to the television.

On the screen, I saw Miles Ford being interviewed on a red carpet.

"All I can say is that the story of Austin James is one that is in development, and yes, I am attached to it."

Anika, Talia, and Kyra all looked at me with expectant faces.

"Aren't you so excited?!" Kyra asked.

"Miles Ford is going to play Austin!" Anika exclaimed. "Do you think you'll get to meet him?"

"I have had a crush on Miles Ford since I was ten years old, and he did that fast food commercial." Talia clasped her hands to her chest.

"Oh, the one where he goes down the slide and gives the girl the cheeseburger!" Kyra clapped.

"The cheeseburger!" they all chorused in unison.

I slowly backed away as they continued gushing about Miles Ford. Truth be told, I wasn't that close to anyone at work. It's not that I didn't get along with my co-workers; I just didn't like to talk about my personal life. They probably felt close to me because I knew all about their lives. I knew that Anika's husband had cheated on her twice, and she'd taken him back both times. I knew that Kyra's mom was struggling with substance abuse, and she was facing a prison sentence for a DUI. I knew that Talia was going to leave her husband as soon as she saved enough money to get her own apartment and that she'd been sleeping with Jonah, the X-ray tech, for the past six months.

All my life, people had always felt like they could talk to me and tell me personal things. Maybe it was because they knew, instinctively, that I was a steel trap and would never betray their trust. But it was a one-way street. I did not share my own thoughts, feelings, and struggles with people. Even Nadia, who I considered my closest friend, hadn't asked me why I didn't want the movie made, probably because she knew I didn't talk about my feelings.

Which was probably why what Elias had said hit so close to home. Maybe I should talk to someone about my feelings. Maybe one day I will. But today was not that day.