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He shook his head. “I don’t think she’s doing great, man. She’s your mom. She needs your support.”

“I do support her. I’m dropping my whole life in a week to pick up the pieces she’s leaving. There’s not one thing she’s asked me to do that I haven’t done.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it.”

I looked away from him.

“Look, I get that it’s hard,” he said. “It’s shitty and fucked up. Nobody likes it. But she can’t undo it, man. She would if she could.”

“Yeah, well she can’t.”

Brad let the silence stretch out between us. It was useless arguing about this. Nothing he said would change how I felt. I could not forgive her for this. I didn’t want to spend more time with her or pretend like any of this was okay.

“I’m playing nice,” I said. “I do what she needs me to do. I’m polite and I’m speaking to her. And frankly that’s more than she deserves.”

I saw him give up the argument. He knew me well enough to know the conversation was over.

He pulled away from the counter. “All right. You’re gonna do what you’re gonna do.” He knocked a knuckle on the granite. “I’ll see you.”

“Yeah. I’ll see you.”

He let himself out.

I dragged a hand down my mouth and swiveled to face the balcony. The Toilet King leered into my apartment.

If you can choose anger or empathy, always choose empathy.

I couldn’t. At this point anger was all I had.

I got up and closed the blinds.

CHAPTER 13

EMMA

I swear to God, I smell like rust,” Maddy whispered, sniffing her arm. “Do I smell like rust? That water at the cottage is so gross.”

We were walking through the halls of the surgical floor of Royaume Northwestern behind the charge nurse, Hector, assigned to give us a tour. We’d done paperwork, gotten our badges, trained on Royaume’s electronic medical record system. The tour was the last part of the day, then we’d get our schedules and go home. Our first real shift was tomorrow.

“I can’t tell if you smell like rust because I probably smell like it too,” I whispered.

“We need a third party to confirm. Do you think Justin would have told you if you smelled?”

I thought about it, and our new agreement to be brutally honest with each other. “Yeah, I actually do.” I sniffed the inside of my shirt. I couldn’t smell it, but maybe I was used to it? “We’re probably okay. Though I’m showering in the locker room whenever I can.”

“Ick. Same. Probably better to wash up in the lake.”

Hector’s shoes squeaked ahead of us. “Pyxis is in there, cafeteria’s on the ground floor. The chief of surgery is Dr. Rasmussen,” he said in a Mexican accent. “Stay out of his way, and hope to God he never notices you enough to make direct eye contact with you.”

Maddy gave me a face that meant to remind me she’d called this when we signed up for Med Surg.

“He’s that bad?” I asked.

He scoffed and looked over his shoulder at me. “There’s a reason we need travel nurses in this department, people quit left and right. He is craaaaanky. Super smart but he does not like anyone who doesn’t do their job, so don’t be messing anything up. He’s in a good mood today though. Maybe he won his game of golf yesterday.” He laughed at his own joke.

Maddy gave me a look.

“What’s your favorite thing from the cafeteria?” I asked, changing the subject.