Oh, who am I kidding? He is so much more than a patient to me. As bizarre and ridiculous as it is, I think I’m developing feelings for him.
I pat him dry. In the back of my mind, I know I need to make this snappy so I can check on my other patient. But he is irresistible, and I continue down his arms to his hands. I wonder how it must feel to be held by these arms, touched by these fingers.
I move the sheet further down past his waist and sigh. The V I anticipated is there under the sheet, and it’s pointing straight at the area of his body I’m most apprehensive about.
He is perfect, the symmetry and proportion of every part of his body remind me of the man on the front of my anatomy book in college with his arms and legs spread into an X. Some people just get it all, and Marcus is one of the few who are blessed with phenomenal looks.
I finish washing and drying his body above the waist and work a clean hospital gown back onto him. Okay, halfway there, now the nerve-wracking part. I bathe his long muscular leg that isn’t in a cast. I happen to be a foot woman, so I stop to admire his smooth well-cared-for foot. I can tell he must have regular pedicures, no dry skin or calluses for this guy. I meticulously wash his leg and foot. Something tells me he wouldn’t be happy to wake up to neglected feet.
I cover him up and feel guilty for not cleaning around his catheter and all of the other parts below his waist, but as much as I hate the thought, someone else is going to have to do it. I just can’t.
Having feelings for him makes everything I do less clinical and more personal. This doesn’t feel like I’m taking care of a patient anymore.
I know what it's like to be helpless and taken advantage of. I can’t bring myself to do the most intimate parts of my job. What if he is aware of everything that’s happening around him? What if he’s been listening to the twinge of longing in my voice when I speak to him? How would it make him feel to have me touching him that way?
It’s part of being a nurse, I’ve done it a thousand times, but I’ve never been even the least bit attracted to my patients. Not the hot athletes and attractive actors, or the male models, none of them. I had a healthy admiration for their buffed and polished skin. I could respect the physique of a man who spent a good portion of his life in a gym, but they never made me feel breathless and confused like Marcus does.
The responsible, logical side of my brain says what I’m doing, or not doing rather, is neglect. I wish that side of my brain would shut the hell up.
I should have had another nurse help me with his bath, but I’m not sharing him with anyone. I’ll get to those parts tomorrow.
I gaze down at my handy work, and I’m satisfied. He looks like the metrosexual that I suspect he is when he’s awake. He smells like soap, a vast improvement over the smelly lake water that clung to his skin.
I could stand here all night watching him, but I need to see my other patient. She needs my attention too, even if I can’t do anything to save her.
I turn the lights down and open the blinds that face the nurse's station so I will be able to see him. Before I go, I lean in close and press my cheek against his to whisper into his ear, “I’m waiting for you Marcus, wake up.”
I go back to work, real work, not gawking, and alternate my time equally between Marcus and my shooting victim for the rest of the night.
When the day crew arrives, I turn over my infatuation to the next nurse and sit down at a computer where no one will see me. I’ve been thinking about Elena’s comment last night. Do I really have an effect on Marcus’s heart rate?
I click through the electronically recorded vital signs and compare notes from my shift with those of other nurses during other shifts. His pulse does elevate whenever I’m in his room. It is directly correlated to my presence.
Every shift that I work, his pulse spikes up from seventy bpm to one-hundred bpm around assessment time when I’m in his room. She was right, I affect him. No, it can’t be. I’m sure this happens when any nurse is in his room.
I go back through his chart and check. It’s only me. His heart rate was the same all day long yesterday and the night shift results are all over the place.
Maybe it’s because I’m the only one that talks to him? That has to be it. Tomorrow night, I’ll test it out. I’ll come in and chat with Elena without talking to him directly. I’m sure this is all a big coincidence.
It has to be.
Chapter 6
I feel like I'm walking through waist-high water. It’s dark here, wherever ‘here’ is. The black ink engulfs me. I can’t see my hand in front of my face if I could even lift my hand.
Maybe I’m dreaming? Am I even alive? If I’m dead, this has got to be hell. A man like me would never end up in heaven.
This is all so fucking confusing. I think someone is speaking to me. Her voice floats in and out through my clouded mind, but I can’t make out the words.
They calm the raging storm going on in my head. It's not a voice I recognize. It's soothing and pleasant. I need that voice to survive. I try to hold on to the fraying edges of consciousness, but it drifts away. No, don't go! I need something to hold onto. That voice, I know it’s the key to my survival, my way back. Stay with me! I scream until I can’t hold on any longer and I succumb to the darkness, and her voice is gone again.
She’s back. I think I’m back. She is telling me something. Focus, damn it, what is she saying? Her voice floats in and out like the waves of the ocean. Every time I try to reach out to her she's slipping away, what the hell is happening to me?
I detest the feeling that control is just out of my grasp.
I swear she just said she’s taking care of me. No one takes care of me, and that is exactly the way I like it. I hate being dependent on anyone but this woman’s voice is undeniable as she draws me in.
Yes, she is taking care of me, that’s definitely what she’s saying, but who the hell are you and what has happened to me that I need to be taken care of?
I feel pain, yes pain, finally, something I am familiar with. This I can relate to; this is something I can firmly hold onto. The pain in my head, my God, it’s indescribable. I’ve felt a million different kinds of pain throughout my life, but this, this is misery.
Her voice plunges through the darkness like two arms reaching into the depths to rescue me. I feel her words wrap me in a warm blanket of safety and comfort.
She is saying something about my injuries. I must have been in an accident, yes that’s it.
The pieces of the puzzle are starting to fall into place. I was driving, wasn’t I? Yes, we went off of a bridge. We, shit, Megan. I remember when we hit the water looking over and seeing her floating in front of me. Her hair was floating around her beautiful face. She was staring at me with expressionless brown eyes. Her beautiful skin was as pale as a ghost, soulless and empty.
I can’t hold on any longer. I mentally clutch at the edges of what little sanity I have left, but it’s no use, the darkness washes over me again and swallows me up.
Warm hands are touching me. She’s back, and I wish she would talk louder, damn it! Hang on to the pain, it's the anchor that makes it possible to hear her voice. I grip tightly to familiar sensation of pain. Someone is touching my face, no, not just touching, shaving. No one has ever shaved my face before, and I don’t like the idea of being taken care of.