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It was for the briefest of seconds.
But I was pretty sure it was the first time she looked at me since we were kids without outright malice in her pretty eyes.
“Let’s do it,” I agreed, holding down the nurse as Ama got to work.
She’d already gotten the bullet out and was working on dressing it when the paramedics finally came in and took the nurse out.
“Yeah. Excuse me, but I need a minute first,” Ama snapped at the officer who told her almost as the nurse was being wheeled out that he needed her statement. “I just operated on a co-worker,” she added, flicking on the water at the sink with her elbow.
“Your statement too,” the cop said, eyeing up my cut and the patches he found there.
“I wasn’t here,” I told him, shrugging. “I heard about it on the scanner and rushed over.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because the doctor here is an… old friend,” I said, even though I knew Ama would disagree with that.
The cop made a grunting noise and moved out of the room, leaving me alone with Ama for the first time in a long fucking time.
“Hey,” I said, moving closer, as she finished washing her hands, but still stood facing the sink her head ducked. “Ama…” I tried again.
It was right then that she let out a squeaky sob as her body started to shake.
“You’re alright,” I assured her, moving closer. I knew the last thing she probably wanted was for me to be the one there to comfort her. But my arm moved out, resting on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze.
She was just about to turn, to turn to me, to lean into me for comfort, when suddenly there was another voice in the room as her male nurse I’d met before rushed inside in his street clothes.
“Ama! I just heard! Are you okay?” he asked, shouldering me out of the way to get to his friend. “Dex said you were knocked out,” he added. “Let me look at your head,” he added, before turning to give me a pointed look.
Because, I was sure, he’d picked up on the tension between the two of us the last time I’d been at the clinic.
I gave him a nod and made my way out of the room, not even stopping to wash the blood off of my hands as I went outside.
Maybe it was stupid of me to run anytime I thought something was going on with the clinic, with Ama. It had been fucking years. She hated the air I breathed.
But, somehow, that didn’t stop my need to know she was okay.
I walked down the street, dipping into a convenience store I used to frequent as a kid. A place where they didn’t even raise their brows at the fact that I was walking in with bloodstained hands, going into the bathroom to clean up, then making my way back out to grab a cup of coffee.
“Long time,” Ray, the man behind the counter, greeted me.
“Yeah, I’m off in Golden Glades these days,” I told him.
“But still in our business enough ‘round here, it seems,” he said, glancing down at my clean hands. “You hear that shit about the clinic?” he asked, shaking his head, knowing how important it was to the neighborhood.
“Yeah. I just checked in. The nurse will pull through. The doctor got hit in the head, but seems fine.”
“Who the fuck would attack that nice girl?” he asked, taking my money and not giving me my change. He never did. Not since he knew I was making illegal cash via the gangs back in the day. When I’d asked about it once, he shrugged and said it was my way of giving back to the neighborhood for all my wrongdoings, that he used the cash to feed the homeless who happened in on occasion.
Rough areas got a bad rep.
Sure, there was crime, and often a lot of it. Violent and ugly, at times. Even catching innocent people up in it.
But it had its own sense of community, too. People who went out of their way to try to help others, ones who cheered for you hard when you actually made it out.
There’d been a giant party for Ama’s going away to college celebration.
“Yeah, it’s fucked up. But it was probably for the drugs,” I said, shrugging. It was no secret there was a drug problem in the area. Hell, there was a drug problem everywhere. From the rough neighborhoods like this all the way up to the ‘burbs and millionaire’s row.
