Chapter 1
It took everything in me not to touch my face. My forehead was totally numb right now but wouldn’t be for long. The urge to scrunch my face up as if to somehow have a peek at it, stupid as that sounded, was strong. That stuff my dermatologist had put on the biopsy site had stopped it from gushing blood like a mini geyser, dribbling down my face. There was that, I thought, trying not to grimace for what felt like the millionth time, digging deep for a happy thought. The spot had been big enough to be noticeable yet small enough I was confident the scar could be covered up with some kind of wannabe cutesy side swept bang business. Considering the alternative, I couldn’t say I was all that shook up about a small crater permanently etched near my hairline.
“Aftercare instructions. Next appointment. The results are typically in within the next one to three weeks. It’s been going along the latter of late, but-”
Fidgeting, trying to listen but feeling alarmingly distracted, I blurted right over her, “It’s been really busy, huh?”
The woman at the reception desk in crisp, sea foam green scrubs blinked, glanced at me, forced to stop mid spiel, and answered without missing a beat, “Busy all around this month.” Her smile was small, fleeting, yet meant to reassure. I didn’t get it, but I didn’t get much of anything in the way of faking things to appease someone else. Just give it to me straight, lady. They’ve been backed up lately, so don’t go holding your breath for a quick turnaround, chick.
Call back in three weeks. I made a mental note.
Reception lady, Stacia, her nametag read, cut in on my jumbled thoughts with, “Okay. Anything else? Questions? Concerns?”
Blinking, coming out of my brain fog, I realized she’d continued on, talking while I spaced out. My mind had wandered while I’d stared just over the top of her head, my eyes on the clock along the far wall.
“No questions,” I replied softly, feeling meek and awkward suddenly beneath her sharp stare.
She knew I hadn’t been listening but didn’t seem to care to repeat herself. Stacia was kind of a jerk. Awesome. And perhaps I was too, considering she was sitting there trying to send me on my way with the proper info and I was in lala land. Compassion, though, some people just lost it in this line of work. I supposed that was normal, considering, but toss the big C at someone and see how they reacted. It’s all I’d been able to think about since I’d gotten the strange bump of a lump on my forehead examined. Right off, the doc had said I needed it checked out. I’d never had a biopsy done before. The simple mention of the word had me shuddering, thinking up the worst. I couldn’t say why I did this to myself, freaking myself the hell out, yet here I was, still shaking in that mildly panicked on the outside, scrambling around shrieking with the alarms blaring in my head.
“Nope,” I said louder, smiling, the tip of my lips quirking up genuinely in the face of the strangely mocking twist of hers, “all set, I think.”
Stacia’s big ol’ fake smile and suddenly cheerful demeanor as she stacked all my papers and stapled them, perked right up, my next appointment card in the pile along with at the top corner, made me wonder how often she was doing that as her own personal way of giving a patient the mental middle finger and pretending she was sticking her sensible sneakered shoe into someone’s bum to shove them out the door. The way she wrangled that stapler, I’d just bet she’d love nothing more than to staple my papers to my ungrateful forehead, right between my eyebrows—read this, bish! kind of a thing. I almost laughed to myself at the mental image that presented. Almost. I wasn’t quite that mad.
I could probably use a good kick in the pants right now, kick start my brain.
My hand started to go to my forehead, a force of habit, my face pinching into the beginnings of a scowl. Grunting, feeling like I only had half a face as part of it pulled and the still numbed portion moved but felt like it was gone altogether, I dropped my hand and quickly smoothed out my expression.
“Gotta remember,” I muttered, absently taking the papers from her and folding them in half to stuff them into the oversized bag slung over my shoulder. “Don’t touch your damned face, Vel.”
There was nothing forced about the sympathetic look that came over Stacia’s apple cheeks and rather sharp features as she bid me a good day.
Right. So, maybe not a complete and total jerk. Maybe just a wee one. I’d bet she saw people with a lot worse going on with them than a maybe.
Maybe I’m kind of the jerk in this scenario?
Meh.
The bell above the door jingled as I pushed the bar to release it with my forearm and it popped open with an audible snick. That creaking, familiar sound, hinges groaning, followed by that immediate, audible swish, meant freedom was imminent. It was still chilly, mid-March, a gust of wind whipping past me not two seconds after I stepped out.
My thoughts kept going to my face. Coat zipped up, teeth already starting to chatter, I pulled my car keys out as a shiver wracked my thick frame.
The sound of my running shoes crunching leaves underfoot, tromping along the cement walk that led to the parking lot, were overloud, threatening to drown out the quiet, rhythmic thudding of my heartbeat in my ears.
We don’t know anything yet. Could be nothing. It’s probably nothing.
He’d seemed so certain it wasn’t nothing, though, as he’d stared down at me, confident, sure, maybe a smidge cocky, going through everything before jabbing my face with a needle to numb me up.
My fingers curled around my car keys until I felt it, that bite of metal digging into my skin. The slight pinch grounded me, gave me something to focus on.
What could I do in this situation but wait and see.
Wait and see... I flippin’ hated this wait and see crap.
Aftermath
Staring up at the ceiling, face throbbing dully, I was doing my best not to dwell on all of this too much, try and catch a few winks if that was even possible. Even now, I couldn’t help but sit here stewing in what ifs. My aftercare instructions lay next to me, wrinkled but still holding up surprisingly well. They should be in tatters from all the times I’d balled them up and tossed them across the room, to collect them on my next bathroom trip, and smooth them back out.
“You’re not helping yourself out any,” I sang softly under my breath. All day at work I’d walked around like this, in this semi aware, distracted state. I couldn’t help it.
The jingle of a small bell and tiny feet, like a Barbie sized horse was coming at me, tiny nails click-clacking at an alarming pace, alerted me I had company. If his little deer stampeding feet didn’t give him away, his excited reverse sneeze, getting all riled up thinking I was summoning him from the den, would have.
“Oh Captain, my Captain,” I told my little friend as he rushed the bed, hopping up onto the short chest at the foot of my twin bed to reach me.
Little doggy feet pitter pattered quietly, stomping all over me until he’d attempted to squish a few organs, my bladder among them, lunged at my face as if to lick me to death. Then, once I’d sternly but gently told him to settle down, he slumped down right between my knockers, placing his wet nose into the crook of my neck.
“You’re a weirdo, Cap,” I told him, ruffling his tiny little floppy ears. Eight pounds of fur and Love Me, Woman! like a hot doggo water bottle over my heart. I grinned.