CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The nurses whispered behind the desk, behind clipboards, behind closed doors. Josie could see this; she tried to tell herself that she did not care even though she did. Her heart ached and caused her to close in on herself further.

She tried to be kind to her patients, tried to get over the horrible feeling that rolled through her. She often chewed her bottom lip, now to the point it had what she assumed was going to be a permanent scar. Also she knew that she still had dark bags under her eyes. Her hair probably looked like a mess, but mainly she just kept it up in a bun instead of spending time letting it down or anything of that sort. She just was too tired to do anything.

Her home life now consisted of her hiding in her room and trying to watch TV or read a book like a normal person, but it always ended up failing and she ended up staring at the ceiling until she finally fell asleep.

As she remembered it this feeling was almost worse than when her ex had left for her best friend. She burrowed her face into her pillow. Thinking about all those whispers the nurses had been doing this past week. How she tried to ignore them but always heard:

"I think she's depressed—“

"She shouldn't be, maybe that guy broke her heart like Stacey said he would."

"Of course, if she was dumb enough to fall for that kind of man—“

"You knew him?"

"Yeah, I dated him once. He ended up dumping me after our fourth date and gave no real reason. Said he wanted to keep looking, or something."

"That's dumb."

The whispers always continued though.

"I wonder if…“

"I'm sure…“

All these things were driving her up the wall, driving her further into a form of depression that wasn't dangerous, but still not good for her job or health. She had started to eat less and not go out very often. Not even for coffee in the morning like she used to.

Two weeks of this and she could not take it any longer.

“Why are you damn whispering like that?” Josie hissed one morning at the nurses in the locker room.

“What are you doing, Josie?” one of the nurses asked quietly.

“What do you mean? You’re the one whispering.”

“You look terrible. It looks like you’ve died and it scares the patients. You really should talk to someone…”

“I’m fine…”

“No, you’re not.”

“I am fine,” she murmured.

“Josie please, see someone about this. Take some more time off, please. You don’t need to be hurting yourself or pushing yourself this way.”

“You think I’m going to mess up?”

“No, we think you are hurting yourself and we can’t condone that,” her supervisor said as she walked into the locker room and motioned for Josie to come toward her.

“I see,” Josie murmured. They went to her office and sat down. The conversation was short and ended up with Josie leaving the hospital in tears. She spent the whole rest of the day and night in bed. In the morning, she had made her mind up.

She showered, spent several long minutes washing and conditioning her hair, scrubbing her body until she did not feel grimy any more, and let her muscles relax in the warmth of the water. She dressed in clothes that felt nice and just barely lifted her confidence. She messed with her hair a little, put on some lip gloss, and headed out the front door. Taking the longer route by walking she made her way to the diner she knew Blake usually ate at.

She did not see him, with a soft frown pulling at her glossed lips she walked up to the nearest regular waitress she saw.

“Hey, have you seen a man—”

“The man that is normally in here with you the past few weeks? He hasn’t been in here for two weeks. You guys have a falling out?”

Josie sighed and rubbed her face a bit. She gave a gentle nod and walked out with a takeout order instead of saying anything else. She nearly ripped her bag as she twiddled her fingers around the handle on her walk back.

As she got home she started looking over paperwork she had brought home to work on while she was taking her few days off… she toyed with her hands awkwardly.

***

The next morning, she got up early and made sure she looked presentable before she drove to the high school. She took a deep breath outside, staring at the building for what felt like hours. She checked the time and knew that there was plenty of time to get to the office before the principal probably got too busy to see her. As she went into the office she smiled sweetly at the receptionist who tilted her head to the side in confusion as to why there was someone she had never seen.

“Good morning, I was wondering if the principal had time to speak with me?”

“Good morning, what reason do you need to speak with Mr. Johnson?

“I’m a doctor at Lenora Regional Hospital. I have some time off and honestly don’t know what to do with myself. I was wondering if I could volunteer to speak with the students about the medical field? I used to come a couple of years ago...”

“I see, alright, may I have your name? I will see if he’s available.”

“My name is Josie Steele.”

“Alright, thank you Doctor Steele. I will let you know.”

“Thank you,” Josie sat down in the front office and waited patiently. It felt as though time had stopped moving. She was about to stand and leave when a man in his late forties walked up to her, a smile on his tired looking face.

“Good morning Doctor Steele, I hear you have some free time you’d like to fill?” He said.

“Yes, if you feel that it’s something your classes could use?” Josie nodded softly as they shook hands.

“Good to hear, my name is Robert Johnson…” Their conversation lasted about an hour. He wanted to know what she would be teaching, what plans she had, what days she was available and the like.

She went through in excessive detail saying that she could talk with the teachers about their lessons and she could incorporate what they were learning in class, but the principal shook his head and told her that everything in line with what they were currently learning.

“You have great timing!”

“I’m glad to hear that, so I will see you tomorrow morning?”

“Yes, meet me in my office and I will show you which room you’ll be using.”

“Thank you very much,” she smiled sweetly and headed back home to properly get everything set up for tomorrow. She could not help but feel extremely excited. She might get to speak in Blake’s class!

She checked her phone, not a word from him since. Out of curiosity, she sent a text to him. She wouldn’t dare apologize over text message, but she sent a small text anyway.

hey.

As she waited she tried to get into some simple yoga, tried to calm herself down, and relax. She sat down on the couch with a small chicken sandwich and stared at the TV, not even sure what she was watching.

Josie slept rough that night as bad dreams tormented her.