Friends Without Benefits

When I calmed down she handed me the plate of food and supervised my consumption of it. She made idle chitchat about different sights she and Angelica were planning to see, about a recent visit with her daughter Lisa. I half-listened. She didn’t seem to notice or, if she did, she didn’t seem to mind my absence of attention.

After Rose felt that I’d eaten enough she stood and reached for the plate. She didn’t offer a sympathetic smile, which I felt would have been most appropriate in the situation. Instead she gave me an affectionate, maternal smile; it was heavy with knowing wisdom and patience.

“Ah, Lizzybella, you will be fine. He is not perfect, he will make mistakes and so will you. It’s good that you discover this now. But you are perfect for each other.” She nodded, her smile grew as though she were amused.

She was right. He wasn’t perfect. He was making a new mistake by pushing me away and I was making an old mistake by letting him go.

“I’m so tired of making mistakes.”

Rose patted my hand. “Here is something for you, and I will tell you what it means—okay?”

I nodded. The food felt like a brick in my stomach. I just wanted to go to sleep.

“Amore non si compra né si vende, ma in premio d'amor, amor si rende. It means: Love cannot be bought nor sold, but the prize of love is love.”

I nodded, again on the verge of tears. She kissed my head then left me.

As soon as the door closed I flopped back on the bed. I lost the final battle and, therefore, the war against my irrationality, and cried myself to sleep on Nico’s pillow.

~*~

I tried to call Nico on Sunday morning. He didn’t answer. I tried again Sunday night. He didn’t answer. I texted him. He didn’t respond.

I hated Nico Manganiello.

I hated that, since he’d left, I walked around like half a person. I hated that I found nothing enjoyable—not knitting, not yoga, not Star Trek and Captain Janeway, not FARK.com. Mostly, I hated that I loved him so much.

Work helped a little. I was busy at work. My mind was preoccupied with others, with their problems, which put my issues into perspective.

I kept trying to reason with myself—Nico would be back in a week. In one week I would tell him that I wanted us to be together and then that would be that. . . I hoped.

The problem was, I realized that I had absolutely no control over him and his feelings, his decisions. I might spend the next week falling more and more hopelessly in love with him. Meanwhile, he might spend the next week falling more and more out of love with my petty, immature, emotionally stunted self.

Or maybe I was being too hard on myself. And maybe I needed to stop. Perhaps I deserved better. Perhaps I should demand better.

I needed to do something, stop making the same mistakes.

Therefore, Sunday night I resorted to asking Rose if she would call him, see if he answered. She happily agreed and dialed his number. Again he didn’t answer. However, he immediately texted her back.

“What does it say? What did he say?” I bounced from one foot to the other, impatient to see the screen.

Her brows lifted, but her face was calm, passive. “Here, you can read it yourself.”

She held the phone out to me, and I took it from her hands, greedily read the screen: Tell Elizabeth to stop calling.

I read and reread it a few times. My heart sunk. I handed her back the phone and buried my face in my hands. I felt the despair of being left.

~*~

Work officially began at 5:00 p.m. on Monday; although I arrived early, left my building right after Angelica’s 2:00 p.m. infusion. I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts. I arrived shortly after 3:00 p.m. and immediately started seeing patients.

I noted that both Meg and Dr. Ken Miles were also working in the ER.

Dr. Ken Miles, unfortunately, noticed me, despite my efforts to stealthfully slip into clinic rooms under the radar. At one point, while I was charting between patients, he seemed to be speaking especially loudly in the next alcove about something—a girl, a conquest, I heard the word tits. I rolled my eyes. For as much as he liked to point his finger at me, as much has he liked to say that I was immature because of my harmless, light-hearted pranks, he was one hundred times worse.

As evidence, I reasoned, he used the same finger to pick his nose that he used to point out my immaturity.

I skipped my dinner break, preferring instead the distraction of people with real problems, and redoubled my efforts to ignore him. This was easy to do at first. But then, just as I was making my way up to the fourth floor to meet Rose and Angelica for the evening visit, Dr. Ken Miles stepped out of a clinic room and dissected my elevator trajectory.

My guard, Dan, hastened forward, walked at my elbow, apparently planning to usher me past Dr. Ken Miles. Dr. Ken Miles glared at both me and Dan then stood in the center of the hall, his pale-blue eyes focused on mine.

“Hey. We need to talk.” He lifted his chin toward me; his face was marred with an unhappy frown that didn’t diminish his prettiness. Instead of looking severe he looked like a pouty little girl.

“Not now. I have a patient in the CRU,” I mumbled as Dan and I passed.

“We still need to talk,” Ken called after me. “I’ll find you later.”

I shrugged, didn’t turn around. I noted that Dan was sending shifty eyed glances in my direction. I ignored him.

Angelica’s visit, apart from her being sleepy, was uneventful. She was nearing her fourth and final week on therapy and some of her lab values had improved. I shared the news with Rose and was gratified to be on the receiving end of one of her strangling, full-body hugs.

I wished that Nico had been there. The results were early, but promising. I wanted to tell him in person, celebrate with him, with Rose and Angelica, with this family that I loved. Instead the profound moment felt bittersweet.

Rose, Angelica, and their guards left shortly after the visit was over. Dan and I saw them off then walked the corridor back to the ER. I was fighting against losing myself in my thoughts. I was looking for a distraction, any distraction that would keep me safe from any prolonged pity staycation.

Just as I thought to myself—I’ll take anything, any distraction whatsoever, anything over more morose meanderings—Megalomaniac Meg appeared out of nowhere, stepped into our path.

Before we could alter course, Meg darted forward toward Dan. Her eyes were wide and fearful; I registered the strangeness of her expression before I registered her words. “Oh my god, that woman. I saw that woman, in the hospital. You have to come with me!”

Dan stiffed. “What woman? What did you see?”

Meg’s eyes bounced from me to Dan. “The woman who stalks Nico Moretti. She is here, in the hospital. I saw her.”

Automatically I shifted closer to Dan, and he moved closer to me. “We need to get you out of here.”

“No.” I shook my head. “We should call the police first.”

“This freaking hospital only has cell coverage in the doctors’ lounge.” Dan ran a hand over his forehead and scanned the hallway.

“I know where she is.” Meg tossed a thumb over her shoulder. “You could go get her now.”

Dan glanced from me to Meg. “No, my first priority is to keep Dr. Finney safe.”

“But the safest thing to do is to remove her as a threat. If you go with Meg, I can go to the doctors’ lounge and call the police. You could restrain her until they arrive. Didn’t you say that Quinn’s legal team was working on getting the restraining order in place on Friday?”

Dan nodded, glanced at his phone and its zero reception. He cursed again. “The restraining order went into effect today so, yes, if she is here then she’ll be arrested.” He searched my eyes then glanced down the hall once more. “Fine. This is what we’ll do: I’ll walk you to the lounge—”

“But she might get away by then!” Meg sounded frantic, her arms moved wildly toward the hall.

He held his hands up, fending off Meg’s frenetic arm waving, and addressed me. “I will walk you there and you will stay put. This doctor,” he pointed at Meg, “will then take me to where she saw the lady. Meanwhile, you will call the police and Quinn, okay?”

I nodded, my hands sweating. I wiped them on my teal scrubs. Dan gripped my elbow and began steering me to the break room. He released a steady string of expletives the entire way there.

When we arrived he physically placed me in the room and glowered at me with, what I assumed, was his absolute most serious, I mean business face. “You will stay here until I get back.”

I swallowed, nodded, and pulled my phone out of my pocket. I pressed 9-1-1. “Fine. Yes. Just go get the loony toon so we can all rest easier.”

“We have to hurry!” Meg tugged on Dan’s hand.

He pulled it out of her grasp and swung his glower in her direction. Under the weight of it she stumbled backward a few paces.

“After you.” He motioned to the hallway.

Meg, perhaps still a little wary after Dan’s impressively menacing scowl, fumbled for her footing and direction. Finally, after a delayed moment they were off.

I walked further into the empty room and crossed to the couch, sat down just as the 9-1-1 operator asked, “What is your emergency?”

I was poised to answer, but, before I could, a voice that sent shivers of fear racing down my spine sounded from behind the entrance of the break room. “Put the phone down.”