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She continued, “This little girl, when she asked me if her mom and dad were going to be ok, I couldn’t say anything. Then, she looked at me with her brown eyes and said, ‘I wonder if we’re going to the zoo tomorrow.’”
“Zander, I don’t know how I held it together. I just kept hugging her. We played with the doll that she was holding. Her aunt eventually arrived and thanked me for staying with her. You see, I can’t be a nurse. I didn’t know what to say to the little girl. I couldn’t lie to her. I can’t be the person who has to stay with the girls and boys and families who have lost someone they loved.” Tears escaped her eyes.
Her shoulders racked with sobs. I held her, running my hands on her back, hoping to ease the pain.
When the sobs left her, I said, “Babe, this might be difficult for you to hear right now, but I have to say it.”
She pulled from my hug, her eyes searched my face, and her lips were slightly quivering. She was so torn up right now.
I placed her hands against my chest, “This is why you should exactly be what you have been planning for your whole life, a nurse. That little girl? She will probably not remember everything. But she will remember that there was this person, who hugged her and played with her. You were something normal for her when everything around her was falling apart.”
Her eyes glimmered with tears as she listened. “Your strength is amazing, Sedona. All these families, all these boys and girls, all the people you see in the hospitals, they need someone like you. You don’t need to lie. You just need to be there. Someone to remind them what normal is. That there is life after what they’re going through.”
Her hands caressed my face, I clutched at this feeling of intensity, of intimacy between us. This was another facet of her that I have never seen. I’ve seen the sexy, fun, brainy, goal-oriented, focused Sedona. But this, this was another side of her that I was getting to know.
Her body shook lightly, “I don’t know how I’d do this without you right now.”
There it was. The heart of her – needing me, asking me to be there for her.
“I’m here, babe,” I assured her. We stayed in this position for a while. I felt her head loll back on my shoulder. I slowly put her down the bed, stepped out of my clothes, put out the light, and hugged her close to me.
Sedona
First impressions may be just that,first.
Zander was a living contradiction of my first impressions.
Initially, I thought he was one of those good-looking, panty-collecting, jocks.
Contrary to popular gossip, he was not a panty-collector. Don’t get me wrong, he was quite familiar with women’s underwear.
When I asked him exactly how many women he had slept with, he cringed and asked me if I really wanted to know. I looked at him, straight through his wary eyes, and said, “Yes.”
He lifted his left hand, palm up, signifying ‘5’. I arched an eyebrow. He then turned his palm the other way, ‘5’. Five plus five.
“You’ve slept with 10 women?” My voice had that high-pitched quality.
He cringed again and said in a low voice, “Umm, I didn’t really keep count but that sounds about right.”
“Does that number include me?”
“Yeah,” his face was red.
He told me he started having sex when he was 15. He just turned 23. In my calculations, that was an average of 1-2 women/year. Kieran’s numbers were probably higher than his.
I said, “Wow, I have some catching up to do.” Of course, I was just joking.
His eyes were anything but calm; he said, “I don’t think so.”
“No?”
“Definitely, no. They’re in my past, Sedona. I wasn’t promiscuous or anything. I was always safe. I do have way more experience than you,” he breathed in, as if he was trying to collect himself, “I’m sorry, that’s just the way it was. Now with you, everything’s different.”
I sucked in a breath. He didn’t have to apologize. I wasn’t born yesterday. An extremely handsome, popular guy like him, I saw it firsthand how women threw themselves at him.
By his own admission, he’s only had two ex-girlfriends. He mentioned that one was when he was in high school and the other one, in college. Both lasted less than 4 months. I teased him that since 4 months was his relationship threshold; I should really start looking for my replacement. We were hitting the 5-month mark. He gave me this unflinching, steady look and said, “You have to know this by now, I’m keeping you.”
*****
