ANY DAY NOW, the cafeteria lady was going to stage an intervention for my all-consuming pudding habit. Either that, or she’d come up with some ridiculous nickname to call me.
Oh, wait—she already did that.
“Hey, Puddin’. Just the usual again tonight?” she asked with a sweet grin.
I nodded as I paid for my pudding and bottle of water, and then I headed back to the elevator.
Over the past week, I’d gotten used to the girl’s schedule in room 307. By eleven, she’d usually be asleep, and I could slip in, unnoticed, and drop off the tiny chocolate snack for her to see in the morning.
It had started out as only a one-time thing. That evening, when I’d seen her licking that chocolate off her finger, I had felt like I was seeing humanity for the first time in years. It was crazy, considering where I worked. Hospitals seemed to be a place where humanity soared. Lives of loved ones or patients themselves would be put into the hands of someone else, and out would come every base emotion imaginable—overwhelming fear, unending love, unsurpassable joy, and heart-rending pain. Everything would be thrown into one messy basket.
Being inside these hospital walls, I’d seen it all, yet I felt nothing anymore. I’d become immune to it all.
Megan’s death had been like an atom bomb to my psyche, obliterating every emotion I’d possessed until I saw nothing. An emotional overload, I guessed one could call it.
Every patient I would treat was just another blank face carrying me to the next.
The only reason I was here was Megan. It had nothing to do with taking care of my next patient or connecting with that person’s family. I couldn’t remember how to feel anything anymore.
Then, I’d seen her. As if she didn’t have a care in the world, she had been eating pudding without a spoon while staying in a hospital, like it was the most normal thing in the world. At that moment, I’d experienced the slightest sense of something other than pain again.
And I’d been supplying her habit ever since.
I didn’t know how long I was going to keep up the charade or if I could continue without being caught, but it was the only highlight of my day that didn’t feel overwrought with emotionless shades of gray.
With one pudding cup snug in my pocket, I was the epitome of stealth.
I slipped through the door quietly, ignoring the fact that I looked like a creepy stalker, and I stepped into the darkened room like I had a purpose.
I did work here, so there could be a dozen reasons for me entering a patient’s room.
Delivering a fudge snack pack was probably not one of them.
Like the many times before, I tried not to linger as I entered the room, but with each passing visit, it became more and more difficult.
The first night I’d decided to do this, I’d quickly done this drop-and-dash routine. I had gone in and out without a second glance.
But then, I’d met her. I’d come to her room and found myself face-to-face with the girl behind my late-night pudding runs. She was shy and timid, her gestures clumsy and unpracticed. She was so different from the polished and sophisticated girls I’d grown up with. Even her name was awkward. It sounded like the classic Eric Clapton song “Layla,” but hers was spelled all wrong.
She had made me curious. I’d suddenly wanted to know what else in this world would make her smile.
What made her laugh? Why does she quickly tug the collar of her shirt whenever I enter the room?
Curiosity wasn’t something I’d experienced in a while, and it had me lingering a little longer each time I entered her room at night. Eventually, it would become my ultimate undoing.
“Ouch! Shit!” I hissed under my breath as my knee collided with her bathroom door that had been left open.
I froze, listening for the slightest movement. My mind jumped ahead, trying to think of any plausible reason for being in her room at this hour.
Changing her sheets?
No, dumbass, she’s in them.
Heard a noise and just coming to check things out?
Yeah, okay. That could work.
Never mind the fact that I was the one making the noise.
Five seconds passed by as I stood in the shadows like a statue, my ears on high alert as I waited for any movement that might signal my need for a cover story.
But nothing happened—no movement, no screaming or shouting.
So, I continued with my weird late-night mission. That was what guys with nothing else to do did at night, right? Delivered pudding to hospital rooms in the dark?
Totally normal.
Pulling the small little snack pack out of my pocket, I carefully dropped it along with the plastic spoon on the wooden tray table next to her bed. I wasn’t sure if eating the pudding with her finger was a chosen thing or not. Everyone had their quirks, so I figured I’d give her the option. Hygiene was an awesome thing, especially in a hospital.
The moonlight from the window lit up the wisps of her hair, making it appear as if a golden halo surrounded her face. She looked innocent, yet a wisdom beyond anything I’d seen seemed to shine through her very pores. I wanted to reach out and touch a single strand just to see what angel hair would feel like between my fingers.
Instead, I turned away. I’d done enough loitering for tonight.
Much quieter this time, I stepped lightly to the door. I reached for the doorknob and turned it slightly before making my exit.
Then, a light voice behind me uttered, “You were definitely not on my list.”
Busted.
Knowing there was little I could do to escape, I stuck my hands in my pockets and pivoted around on my heels. I found her very much awake. Sitting up in bed in a loose T-shirt and shorts, she assessed me quietly with her knees pulled into her chest.
“Your list?” I asked., turning to flip the switch on the wall that turned on the overhead light. Standing in the dark while she was awake now felt awkward and weird.
“Yeah, I made a suspect list of those with the greatest probability of being the person behind the pudding drop-offs. You were definitely not on it. Huh, I’m not wrong very often,” she said with a bit of surprise.
“How does that feel?”
“What?”
“Being wrong.”
“Oh…well, I kind of like it. It’s thrilling.” She gave a sheepish grin.
“So, who was on your list?” My hands still in my pockets, I took a few leisurely steps back into the room.
“Oh, um…well, there was my mom. She was almost immediately taken off. She leaves too early. She teaches morning classes now. She didn’t used to because she would teach me in the morning, but obviously, that’s not a problem since I’m not in high school anymore, and—oh, wow, I’m babbling.”
“So, you didn’t go to school?” I took a seat in the tired, worn-looking chair in the corner, hoping that it would calm her nerves.
She looked down and fiddled with her fingers a bit. “No, never. I was homeschooled.” she answered slowly. “My mom teaches at a local community college. She used to be a professor at UCLA, but when I started kindergarten, she decided to give up her position as chair of the religious studies department. Instead, she taught nights, so she could be home during the day. I always hated that she gave up the career she’d worked so hard to obtain just to teach algebra and American history to me throughout the years, but she never seemed to mind—or at least, she never showed it. My grandmother filled in at night when I was younger, and then after she died, a nurse helped,” she said the last part quietly.
“Who else was on the list?” I asked, moving her away from a topic I had a feeling was rough for her.
“Grace,” she answered.
“Who?”
“Grace. She’s a day nurse. She has long black hair and wears Disney and Hello Kitty scrubs even though she works nowhere near pediatrics.”
“Oh, you mean Snow White?” I asked.
She snorted, and it made me smile. No one I’d known back home would ever snort in public. It was a good, honest sound.
“That’s a good nickname for her. It’s perfect.”
“I didn’t come up with it. One of the other guys around here did. He said he heard her singing, and he swore that birds were flocking to the window to listen. So, from then on, she became Snow White.”
“She loves to sing. But I figured out it wasn’t her either. So, that left Abigail.”
“Oh, Nash’s granddaughter? I’ve seen her around. She’s sweet, but she’d never share pudding with you. Kids don’t share pudding snacks,” I said with a small grin.
“That’s a good rule to live by,” she answered quietly before asking, “How’s the knee?”
My eyes flew up to hers in surprise. “You were awake?”
She nodded. “How else did you think I was going to figure out the secret identity of my pudding delivery person?”
“Hmm…smart woman.”
“Glad you noticed.”
“Do all smart women eat pudding with their fingers?” Leaning back in the chair a bit further, I arched my eyebrow in question.
Her mouth fell open in embarrassment. “Oh my God, you saw that?”
A brief nod and a slight grin that I couldn’t contain were my only answers.
She started babbling again,
“I normally use a spoon. Like a normal person. I mean, who licks pudding off their fingers? Gross. And my hands were clean. Like, really clean!” she squeaked.
“It’s not like anyone was watching.”
I lifted an eyebrow and I watched her head fall to her lap.
“Well, apparently, you were watching. How embarrassing!” she laughed.
“Hey, it’s not a big deal, Lailah. We all have our weird habits. I’m sure I have mine. Some people eat peanut butter and pickle sandwiches or dip their chips in ice cream. We’re all a little crazy in our own little way.”
“I’m pretty sure those examples you just said only pertain to pregnant women,” she pointed out.
“What?”
“I really don’t think anyone who isn’t carrying another person in their uterus would be able to stomach peanut butter and pickles together. That’s just gross. And for the record again, I always use a spoon—except for that one time.”
“Okay, sure,” I answered, letting the disbelief in my voice bleed out.
She huffed in frustration. I couldn’t help but chuckle slightly when I rose from the chair.
The sound of my own laugh registered in my ears, and I suddenly felt conflicted. I didn’t remember the last time I’d heard anything remotely close to a laugh burst from my lungs. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
“I’d better get back to work. You need anything else before I go?” I asked quickly, looking around and briefly checking her hep-lock and pulse-ox monitor.
“Oh, um…nope, I’m good.”
In reaction to my clinical-sounding tone, she immediately retreated back to the shy and timid girl I’d met days before.
“Okay, well, I’ll see you around.”
“Okay.”
This time, I’d pulled the door halfway open before her lyrical voice once again halted me to a stop.
“Jude?” she called out.
Hearing my name on her lips for the first time made something tighten in my chest. It was something foreign and so long-ago forgotten that I didn’t even recognize it.
I turned to face her. “Yeah?”
“Is it all right for me to call you that?” she asked hesitantly, her bright blue eyes looking across the room at the badge that hung around my neck.
I nodded, pulling the plastic ID into my hand. “It’s my name.”
“Next time, do you think you could maybe come a bit earlier and stay a while?”
A grin I couldn’t contain spread across my face, and I found myself nodding. “Sure. See you then.”