“Fine. I’ll leave you alone.” She pats my arm before hurrying off.
She does leave it—for twenty minutes, which is a personal record. She opens her mouth again in the corridor outside the medication room, and I raise one finger without looking at her. She closes it.
Axel passes us at the nurses’ station and says, without breaking stride and without looking at me, “Carver. Bed seven needs a urinary catheter. The other nurses are busy.”
Bed seven is a forty-year-old man who has been awake since six and is not, by his own admission, particularly comfortable with the procedure. I know this because he tells me. Repeatedly. In increasingly creative language. Getting sworn at while holding a man’s penis really makes me wonder about my life choices sometimes.
As I’m pulling off the gloves, the patient grabs my wrist and twists, making me whimper. Another male nurse nearby catches the incident and pulls me away, but the damage is done. My wrist is swollen and needs icing.
Son of a bitch.
I don’t get to the icing either because as I’m halfway down the corridor, Axel comes out of a bay behind me. “Carver.”
I stop.
“Do you want to tell me why bed seven’s chart still doesn’t have the pre-procedure note?”
I turn around. He’s standing in the middle of the corridor with two residents flanking him, all three of them looking at me. The residents don’t meet my gaze. “I’ll complete it now,” I say, holding my injured wrist.
“You should have completed it before you went in.” His voice is even and loud. He doesn’t shout, but his tone is harsh. “That’s basic protocol. Is basic protocol something you need a refresher on?”
The corridor is not empty. Two nurses at the station have gone very quiet. A porter has found somewhere else to look.
My face is hot. “No.”
“Then act like it.” He turns back to the residents like I’ve already been dismissed.
I face forward and walk.
Eight years. Eight years and I have never been spoken to like a student who forgot to cap a needle. My throat is tight, my wrist still aches from where the patient grabbed it, and I would very much like to put my head through the nearest wall.
I know exactly what this is. He’s punishing me in front of the people I work with. Asshole. He just had to bring this into the workplace.
The charge nurse calls my name from the end of the corridor. “Carver. There’s a delivery at the front desk for you.” I’m still in the hallway when a staff assistant appears carrying a large white box with the careful expression of someone delivering something above her pay grade.
“Miranda Carver?” she says.
“That’s me.”
“Courier dropped it at the front desk. Said to deliver it personally.”
No name on the card. I take it. Brooke is at my elbow before I’ve set it down.
“What is that?”
“I have no idea.” The box is matte white with a ribbon, and the name printed along the side makes my hands go still.
That’s the brand. The exact brand of Brooke’s replica dress.
I open the box. Inside, folded in tissue paper, is the same wrap dress. Same cut. Same blue. With better quality fabric, the original.
“Oh, that’s gorgeous.” Brooke reaches in before I can stop her and holds it up. Her eyes widen. “Miranda.” She turns it over. “This is my dress.”
“It’s not your dress.”
“Yeah, that was a replica. This is the original.” She looks at me. “What is happening right now?”
I look at the dress. I know who sent this. And why. That’s why Grayson asked for the brand name. He found it and had it delivered before I had to explain myself to my best friend.
