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“I hate everyone! They all need to leave me alone.”
“I think everyone feels that way sometimes.” Her statement gave him pause.
His stare shifted to her. “What do you know about anything? You’re young. You have your whole life ahead of you. I’m stuck in here with all these people yelling at me!”
She took a step closer to him and then another. “That’s true, Mr. Craig. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have troubles too. Let me help you. Is your back giving you pain again? I can give you some medication to give you some relief.”
“You can leave me alone too,” he muttered.
This wouldn’t be easy. She continued trying to talk him back to bed for ten more minutes. Finally, she gave Janine a look, and she darted around Mr. Craig and delivered the injection in one quick jab.
He silenced at once. Then he slumped over.
“Help me get him in bed,” Wren ordered the guard. Together, the three of them lifted the man and carefully laid him in bed. She made sure to put the side rails up and secure him to the frame with soft restraints.
Only then did she release the breath she’d been holding. She dragged a hand over her face, trying to collect herself. Things like this didn’t happen every day, but they were upsetting for everyone involved. Seeing the distress on Mr. Craig’s face wasn’t easy to shake off.
Janine knew this as well. She moved to Wren and rested her arm over her shoulders. “Come on. Let’s take a short break. We’ll walk around the garden and look at the flowers they just planted.”
She nodded and moved off with Janine while the guard remained in front of Mr. Craig’s door to watch over him.
On the way outside, they stopped to talk to the head nurse and fill her in on the incident. When they made their escape into the small private garden where families and patients often congregated for visits, Wren walked straight to a bench and plopped down.
Janine came to sit next to her.
Long minutes passed while neither of them spoke. Birds chirped and somewhere in a distant part of town, a lawnmower hummed. So normal. But Wren’s life felt far from it.
“When are you going to make a break for it, Wren?”
Startled, she looked up at Janine. “What are you talking about?”
“You were in medical school before coming here. When are you going back?”
She stared into space for a long heartbeat. “Maybe never.”
Janine shook her head. “That would be such a shame.”
“It’s too difficult now. I’m too old. Adulting caught up with me.”
“That shouldn’t keep you from your dreams.”
She gazed at her friend, seeing that Janine cared about her more than just as a coworker. She had Wren’s best interests at heart.
“Life’s too short to be stuck here, Wren. I don’t know all of your story, but I know you’ve had it hard. That’s an even better reason to keep working toward your goal to become a doctor.”
She swallowed the lump of salt in her throat. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Oh, I am.”
They looked at each other and broke out laughing at the confident way Janine said that.
When they finished having a chuckle—and dispelling a good measure of stress from what just happened with Mr. Craig—Wren touched her friend’s forearm. “Thank you for being such a good friend. I needed it.”
Janine got to her feet. “I bet if you look around, you have quite a few people who care about you a lot.”
Long after she walked away, Wren continued to sit there, thinking that her friend might be right.
Chapter Fourteen
