Page 63 of My Family

Am I so pathetic that I'm going to make Griff cry? I genuinely don't know if that's a win or the worst thing ever. The horrors.

"You have no idea how proud I am that you were brave enough to come tell me this," he says. "This is exactly why everything I do here is worth it."

That one I wasn't expecting. I feel my face go red and don't know what to say.

"Of course we're going to help you," he says, in fuller dad mode than I've ever seen him, and I know he loves that role. "I'm going to sign you up for weekly therapy sessions and arrange an extra appointment with Dr. Herrera. How does that sound?"

"Good," I say.

He looks at me for a second. "Whatever happens with Ethan, I don't know what things are like between you two, and it's not my place to assume. But I've known him for a long time. If there's one thing he is, it's loyal."

I think I'm going to die of embarrassment. Griff is giving me relationship advice. But for some reason I actually appreciate it.

"Thank you, sir," I say, and let out a small laugh.

"It's going to be okay," he says.

I don't know if it will be. But I already feel a lot better just from talking to him. Who would've thought that whole talking-about-it thing actually worked.

When I get back to the room, I don't even mind that much that Ethan isn't there.

Or so I tell myself.

He comes in around eleven. I know because I'm half-awake when the door opens, that light sleep I get when he's not next to me, the kind where every sound pulls me up a little. I hear him move through the room in the dark, careful not to wake anyone. The soft drag of the drawer. The creak of his mattress settling under his weight.

I don't say anything. He doesn't either. I'm not sure if he knows I'm awake. But the worst part is that I think he knows I am, but he doesn’t come to me.

I stay in my own bunk. I don't ask. He's tired and I'm tired and some nights that's just how it goes. But I pull my blanket up a little higher, and I close my eyes, and I can hear him breathing across the room. I feel my stupid eyes burning with tears, but I tell myself: I have no choice.

He’s going to leave me. And there’s nothing I can do.

Chapter 24. Ethan

The days at the hospital are incredible. Time moves fast, I always have something to do, and before I know it, the shift is over.

Of course I get tired sometimes. Actually, exhausted, starving, and falling asleep during classes back at the facility when I return. One of those days, a teacher calls me out in front of everyone.

“Is the class so boring it’s putting you to sleep? Maybe you’d like to step out and explain to Griff why you’re not sleeping at night.”

“I’m sorry,” I say immediately, while the whole room stares at me, and I feel sick with embarrassment. I’m not used to getting called out like that. I have no idea how Jack survives it so regularly. It’s awful. But I stay awake for the rest of the class, pressing my nails into my palms, and start drinking extra coffee to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Either way, I love it. The hospital, I mean. I’m shocked by how right the choice has been. I’d chosen nursing because it seemed practical and because I knew I wanted to help people, but I hadn’t understood until now how right it would feel. To be, for them, what I’d never had for myself.

I’m also making friends at the hospital. One of them is a blonde, blue-eyed resident named Clarice, who is teaching me how to draw blood efficiently, and we talk a lot. I don’t usually open up to people. It’s hard for me, but she makes me feel at ease. She’s thirty-seven and says she regrets going into medicine, that she should have followed her dream of going into theater.

“Now my husband keeps trying to convince me to go back to school and chase what I actually wanted, but when you’re already at this stage of life and you have kids, you can’t just reverse course that easily. So think carefully.”

I know very well what it feels like to regret something. But I don’t say that to her.

At first I have no intention of telling her about Aspire. I’m scared of what people will think once they find out where I come from. There are government incentive programs for employers who hire people coming out of the system, meant to give people like us a second chance, and I don’t know how that will land. But something in me starts talking and I don’t stop.

I tell her everything. My parents, my brother, and eventually a black-haired, blue-eyed boy who is back there waiting for me and is convinced that because I’m getting out soon, we’ll have to end things. That thought just destroys me. He’s distant. Quiet. And I just know this is on his mind. It makes me almost angry. After Harry’s house, I thought we’d be fine. But that isn’t the case.

The worst part is that I know it’s my fault.

“I don’t know if you understand, but I wouldn’t end things with him for anything,” I say. “I don’t care that I didn’t have time to explore or whatever people say you’re supposed to do. What’s the point of exploring when you’ve already found what you want? I found him on the first try. He makes me happy. He treats me like there’s nobody else in the world who matters to him. All I want is to build a life with him when we both get out.”

It’s the exhaustion, I think. We’re at the end of a long overnight shift, sitting in the nurses’ break room in case we’re needed, but the floor is quiet. The room is all white the way hospitals are, I’m probably on my eighth cup of coffee, and Clarice is wearing her white coat with her stethoscope hanging around her neck, her hair dry and frizzy, probably from the insane routine of being a mother of three and working there.