She presses her lips together, trying to hold back a small smile before it breaks free, but I can't bring myself to return it. Not only does she not have parents, but she has no family or friends here. Now I feel even worse, and rightly so.
“I'm an ass.”
She lets out a quiet giggle. “It's fine.”
“So, what do you do on your days off then?” I ask, curious because I had the rest wrong and because keeping her talking to me is much more preferable than being stuck in here alone. And yeah, okay, I like hearing her talk despite my little freak-out before.
The sound of a scoff mixed with a laugh fills the room before she answers, “I don't particularly have many days off, but I spend them doing laundry, cleaning, getting groceries, that type of thing.” God, she's so much different than me and the people I hang out with that it's almost laughable. “What about you?”
I've always known my life wasn't great, but thinking about telling Jasmine about it now – the racing, fucking, drinking, drugs, and sleeping the days away – makes me feel ashamed of it, especially after what I said about hers. I'm not happy with my life, and lately I've felt like I'm drowning, yet I haven't done anything to change it so far.
“Not a whole lot,” I answer, which is a half-truth.
She bends over to get something out of a drawer, and my eyes instinctively flick to her ass. When she stands again, looking at me expectantly, it takes me a few seconds to realize she's still waiting for me to expand on my answer.
Once she sees that I'm not going to say anything more, she nods slowly. “Sounds about as exciting as mine.” Then, running a hand over her braid absentmindedly, she looks around the room as if she's trying to think of anything else that needs to be done in here. “Alright, well, if you don't need anything else, I'll be back after a while.”
The second she turns away from me, that anxiety I was feeling before rushes back at me, and it has me calling out before I even realize it. “Wait.” She halts, facing me again, with the same questioning look on her face that she had the first night we met. “Uh, what are the chances of being able to leave tonight?” I ask. “Can you get the doc in here to release me?”
“Oh, that's not likely to happen. The doctor will do his rounds in the morning and see how you're doing then. They want to keep an eye on you overnight.”
Fuck. I let out a sigh. “And if I insist on leaving?”
A frown forms between her brows. “Well, I mean, we can't stop you. You'd have to sign something saying that you're doing it against the medical advice given. I do recommend you stay, though.” Her eyes drop to the hand on my stomach, and I realize that I'm rapidly tapping it, so I stop.
When I say nothing more, she swivels around and leaves, taking all the light in the room with her. As soon as she's gone, the emptiness starts to grow once again, closing in around me, suffocating me, and all of the quiet starts getting really loud, or maybe it's just the ringing in my ear.
CHAPTER 9
JASMINE
“There she is,” Walter throws me the same line he always does when I walk into his room.
“Why aren't you asleep?” I look at my watch even though I know it's around midnight because I'm about to finish my shift. “It's late.”
“Just waiting to say goodbye to you before I drift off.”
“You mean goodnight,” I reply, checking over everything one last time. “I'm going to see you again tomorrow when I get back.”
He lets out a yawn. “One can never be sure about these things. I may not wake up.”
“Walter!” I place my hand on top of his and give it a little squeeze. My chest already aches at the hypothetical scenario, and I don't like hearing it. “Don't say stuff like that.”
He closes his eyes, but the sides of his mouth lift as he does, like he was expecting to get a rise out of me. “Just speaking the truth.”
“Well, it's not true tonight.”
Walter doesn't reply this time but starts quietly humming his usual song, remaining in the same position with his eyes closed.
“Don't worry, 'bout a thing.”
It looks as if he's content now that I'm in his room, and he's talked to me again. But he really is looking tired, so I work quickly to finish up so that he can get some sleep.
“Okay, I'm taking off now,” I quietly say once I'm done. “I'll see you tomorrow. Goodnight, Walter.”
“Night, Jaz,” he replies sleepily, and I watch as his breaths deepen and his body relaxes into sleep.
The next person to check in on before I finish up and leave is Campbell. I can't deny that I enjoyed talking with him today, even with his little outburst. I could tell he was out of sorts, so I chose not to take it personally, and I'm glad I didn't. After that, we seemed to be able to talk more and form some sort of rapport. What I told him wasn't all that much, but it wasn't just superficial fluff that I'd tell anyone. He wasn't as forthcoming, but that's okay. He still seemed happy and almost relieved to see me when I returned to his room again a little later.
