I don't know why I was heading to the hospital and I couldn’t think to take, or at least bring, some medicine for this headache that’s pounding in my head. It’s like today my head thinks that despite my father being in the hospital, it needs to be at the forefront of my attention. Skull-crushing pain that can’t bother to at least remind me to take the tension headache pills that would keep my neck from feeling like it would be better off severed!

I know I’m nervous. I’m a big-shot, HBIC (head bitch in charge) hospital administrator and I never get nervous. I get tense, I take my tension headache pills, and I go back to kicking ass.

I’m finally going to work for my father’s network of hospitals in one of his premiere holdings, and I’m losing my cool. I can’t help it – after my parents died, Al raised me, and I have worked hard to be the kind of person that he’d hire if he knew me based on nothing but merit.

I’ve worked hard to be the best, and I am.

That’s why I’m just now starting to work for him. It was one thing for Al to help me afford college, even some networking that helped me get ahead.

But a women in this world? Well, I could have taken every advantage and coasted my way up to the top. But I don’t want to get a trophy for greatness, I want to run the marathon and crack the finish line myself.

Stepping up to the nurse’s station, I start trying to breathe deeply and calm my nerves.

“Al Jefferson, please,” I say and try not to move any of my neck muscles, lest I irritate the beastly pain gripping me right now. “I’m his daughter.”

“Oh, Elodie!” The nurse’s tired demeanor turns to joy. “Your father talks about you all the time. It’s a shame about his accident.” She lowers her voice now and the joy seems to evaporate into…well it seems like nerves. She’s fidgeting with her pen all of the sudden, then tapping the keyoard quickly. She broke eye contact with me.

“Oh god!” Does this mean something terrible happened? “I thought he was recovering? Is he in ICU?” I feel my headache pound up higher and my heart is fluttering so hard I think I might faint. The feeling of being dropped off a roller coaster is impossible to ignore and I think I might actually start sweating. I’m not trying to sound like a bitch here but sweating through my foundation isn’t going to do anything but give me more of a headache.

“Heaven’s sake, no, dear. Elodie, he’s doing just fine but he needs to rest and stay off his feet. He’s too big into work, that one and can’t seem to make himself just take some time off.” She makes herself drop her pen and I wonder why she reacted that way. I don’t want to ask, though. I’m rubbing my temples and thinking about how I need to be strong for Al. I smile, thinking about how I get those workaholic tendencies from Al, even if he’s not my bio dad.

Al thinks he’s invincible, but a car accident isn’t something that he can just brush off. I need to make sure that I take anything off his plate that I can. Not just for running Savanna Memorial Hospital, the very hospital I’m in right now because he insisted on being admitted to his finest hospital (and hiring me there) but for anything he needs.

I have to stop thinking about myself and start being a good daughter!

He may not be my bio-dad, but I have that workaholic gene from him. I get several notifications on my phone – important emails from my new assistant that I really fight looking at, but I shove my phone back in my purse.

“This room,” the nurse directs. “He’s going to be okay, honey, I’m sorry that I spooked you!” She smiles and hurries back to her station.

Odd, but maybe she’s been working some hellacious shift. Nurses get to go a little batty after everything they do. Especially desk duty. Like I know it seems like they’d get to relax, but every hospital I’ve worked in, cocky doctors take the opportunity to practically punish a nurse on desk duty like she’s not doing her part.

Only the men, of course. Because despite the fact that Jefferson Medical Holdings has a large percentage of a male nurse workforce and has 51 percent female doctors, that 49 percent of the male doctor population has got to be just as bad as every other hospital that I’ve worked at. That’s to say full of dicks and the jerks attached to them.

“Elodie!” My father starts trying to get out of bed as soon as I walk through he door, but clutches his side and reluctantly stays in bed. “Give Daddy a hug!”

Whoa, he’s gotta be high on some pain meds right now because “Daddy” is a phrase reserved for the man I decide to meet on a phone app, not the man who admittedly raised me but has always had me call him Al.

“Al,” I say, hopefully not too sharply. I come forward and give him a hug. Not too tight because I know the accident has him in rough shape. He doesn’t have any cuts on his face so at least there was no face to glass horror in his car accident. “Are you feeling okay?”

Gah, that’s a stupid question. But, okay, I work in hospitals but I don’t actually do patient work, I handle the business of a hospital. I’m not sure how to ask the person you love that could have died, hey what do I say to you so that you know I care but I don’t sound stupid?

“I’ll be doing better when I bring down these crackpot fucking doctors! Dumb fucking surgeons!” Al’s whole face turns bright red. If it weren’t just a cartoon thing, I think that actual fucking smoke would come out of his ears.

“Al, what are you talking about? Are you suing these doctors? What did they do to you?” Maybe the nurse was nervous about these crazy allegations.

“The lazy fuckers managed to botch my surgery. They’ve got these sterling fucking reputations despite…well, just, fuck! I have to bring them down. They are not just losing their admitting privileges at every Jefferson Medical Holdings hospital, I am going to have their licenses!”

Okay, fuck. That’s terrible! “Great reputations, huh?” That just really irks me. I hate when people act like one thing but they’re really scum. “Tomorrow, I’ll find some dirt on these surgeons, Al. Let’s focus on you getting some rest.”

Al looks exhausted. “Thanks, Elodie.” Reluctantly, he leans back against his pillow.

I try to fluff it for him but in just a few seconds, he’s already snoring.

After the surgery, he’s probably still kind of out of it. That’s just normal.

Kissing his forehead, I vow to myself that I’ll get dirt on these shitty surgeons and I’ll help Al get their licenses revoked. I can’t imagine anyone else having to go through thinking that someone they loved could die because of negligence.

I’ll get all the details tomorrow.

Tonight, I’m going to get some caffeine, and get some of this stress out of my system.

Leaving the hospital room, I see that one of the emails I got is my secret passcode to an elite club here in the city.

I had no idea that I’d get it so quickly, but I guess I really am moving even higher up in the world.

I pity those that need pharmaceuticals to get rid of their stress each day. I mean, yeah I’ll take some pills for my tension headache, but I prefer my stress relief to come in the form of orgasm donation from a stranger…or two.