Chapter Thirteen
CHARLIE
April 2017
Graduation is three weeks away.
I look at the four tickets I’m holding in my hand, the embossed lettering and swirly bullshit announcing the culmination of a four-year adventure. Every graduate gets four tickets.
No more, no less.
I heard once that some of the students who don’t need all four tickets auction them off at some underground night during grad week, some of them going for as high as $500 bucks. When I mentioned it to RJ, her eyes lit up like it was the most amazing thing she’d ever heard.
I’m pretty sure she’s inviting her brother, her boyfriend and her boss from the part-time job she’s had since freshman year, which would leave her one extra ticket to auction off.
Me, on the other hand… I’ll need all four.
Maybe.
If I can convince everyone to come.
If I can convinceanyoneto come.
I dread the conversation with my parents. They aren’t horrible people, by any means. But they just don’t get me. They still think the whole nursing thing is a mistake. They still want me to just find a man and settle down and have kids, like my older sister. Issy has two kids now. How you can meet someone, get married and have two entire human children only three and a half years later is mind blowing to me. Didn’t she have anything else she wanted to do?
I sigh and flick through the contacts on my phone.
And then I feel like an asshole because I know that getting married and starting a family isexactlywhat she wanted to do and I should be happy for her. I shouldn’t be upset that she didn’t do whatIthink should make her happy.
Mom and dad and Issy will come to the graduation. That’s not the issue. It’s that I’m going to invite my brother, who hasn’t seen or talked to my parents since he graduated high school and moved to New York. I get why that happened, and support my brother. When your dad tells you that being gay is a phase and that you just need to keep the exploration to yourself, there are only so many options you have on how to deal with it. My brother wanted to be out and proud, which is hard to do when you live in a tiny town in a red state full of conservative minds.
Grey and I talk a few times a month. He’s living a fun life, working as a waiter and going to school for architecture. I always tease him that he should have gone to cosmetology school and used all those nights when I did his makeup to his advantage. He just laughs and says, “Come on, Lee-Lee, quit with the stereotyping.”
When I find the Davenport section of my contacts list, I hesitate, my thumb hovering over which number I want to call first. If I call my parents, I’ll be on the phone forever and they’ll have all sorts of questions for me about what my plans are and whether I’ve gotten a job yet and am I dating someone. If I call Grey, he’ll get stuck on the cost of the ticket, and then we’ll end up in an awkward conversation about whether mom and dad will even talk to him and whether it’s worth it to fly all the way out to California for just a few days if they’re gonna be ignoring him the entire time.
So I chicken out and flick off two texts. One to Grey and one to my parents and sister.
Me: Grey baby, graduation is May 12th. I’ve got your ticket in my hand! Can’t wait to see you. Text me your flight details once you get it sorted.
Me: Hey everyone, I finally have the graduation tickets. Can’t wait to see you on the 12th! I’ll email you a link to the full schedule. Love you!
Then I put my phone down and lean my head back on the headrest, my headache making me want to call in sick for the first time since I started my clinical rotation at Glendale Adventist. I’ve been here since the start of junior year, and I’ve never missed a single day.
I glance at the side entrance and watch doctors and nurses coming and going, starting or ending shifts. There’s an eerie calm that overtakes you when you’re going into an environment as chaotic as a hospital. It’s almost like your body knows that you have to be calm in order to exist in such a place.
I really do enjoy working here. It has always been my dream, to help people, to find a way to make others’ lives better, even if it’s just with a smile and caring hands. I love those times when I get to see kids who need someone to give them a positive attitude when they’re all scraped up, or when I get to make things less scary for the person that’s never been in a hospital before.
But what I really enjoy is going through rooms and chatting with the people who seem to be here alone. There’s a sadness that permeates hospital walls. It’s like a unique form of cancer that can suck life out of people who don’t have anyone by their side when they’re wondering what’s happening with their body. Sometimes, if I let myself focus on it for too long, I can feel it leeching the natural optimism from my body, leaving only the rumblings of melancholy behind.
During my junior year, I cried after having to help a single mother with her newborn. The mom had been so clearly alone and scared for her little guy that needed stitches. But she had also been brave, so focused on making sure her son’s needs were taken care of. Of course, I was a brand new intern without really any capabilities to help her other than asking her how she was doing and trying to provide encouragement and support. By the time she left a few hours later, she had a smile on her face – an exhausted smile that didn’t entirely reach her eyes, but it was better than the look of loneliness and feeling of being lost that had been stamped on her face when she first arrived.
I’d said my goodbyes and stolen away to a little closet near my station, letting the tears fall for a few minutes before returning to work. My supervisor had seen me, and decided to have a pretty firm chat with me about not getting too emotionally involved.
“There are too many sad stories, Charlotte,” he’d said. “If you let yourself get upset about all of them, you’ll never make it. And you have to be here, physically and mentally, if you really want to make a difference.”
So now, every time I come to work, I have to put on my Nurse Charlie mask. The one in a permanently pleasant expression, with kind words but not too much empathy or sympathy. The one that helps but doesn’t get attached.
But I feel like this façade is just as draining as it is to emotionally invest in my patients. I’m looking forward to wrapping up my time here and starting my full-time job after graduation.
