Chapter Two
Morgan
Thursday
Exhaustion clouded my eyes as I practically staggered into the break room for a much needed cup of coffee. When I went to medical school to become a nurse, I never realized how reliant on caffeine I would become. I took that path in life because I wanted to help people, not because I wanted to spend my entire life yawning and rubbing my eyes.
“Oh, hey, how’s it going, Morgan?”
I blanched as I caught sight of my best friend Nickie sprawled across the chairs as if she was in her own home. How was it fair that we did exactly the same job, but she always looked like she had stepped off a catwalk, or at least from the pages of a magazine? Her blonde hair was braided in a very neat style, her brown eyes sparkled as if she’d just had a long night of rest, and her pale skin looked totally unblemished by the day.
I, on the other hand, had my dark hair screwed up into a bun, my dark blue eyes definitely had no sparkle to them, and I knew for sure that I had a pimple brewing under the surface.
“Yeah, wonderful,” I muttered, my temper shining through. “What’cha reading there?” If there was one thing I loved, it was a good book. I always had my head buried in one, transporting myself to wonderful other worlds.
I flicked the coffee machine on and threw my hands onto my hips before smiling at my friend. It wasn’t her fault that I was such a mess and she wasn’t.
“The book you leant me, the one about the hapless rich guy falling for the tempting vixen before realizing that his best friend was the love of his life all along.”
“What? You only look about halfway through. How do you know that?”
“Oh come on, it’s obvious. I’m still loving it, though.” She swung her legs around until they hit the floor. “Are you alright? You look a bit tired.” That was putting it mildly! I thought. “Are you excited for the weekend?”
“So much!” I grabbed my paper cup and sat down next to her. “I’ll be sleeping from Friday night until Monday morning. Then maybe next week, I can make it to Thursday without looking like death.”
Nickie glared at me as if I’d said the worst thing in the world. “Are you serious? But you promised you would come out with me. I want to go to Lights Out – it looks amazing.”
“Oh no, did I really?” I threw my head back in despair. “Do I have to? I need so much sleep, you don’t understand.”
As Nickie stared at me, I got the horrible sense that I wasn’t going to be able to get out of it. She had this way of always making me do what she wanted; ever since I first met her in medical school, she had coerced me into many nights out, and I had a feeling this was going to be exactly the same.
“I’ll think about it,” I finally nodded at her, hoping that it would put her off hassling me for now. “I’ll see how tomorrow goes, then I’ll make a decision.”
“Okay sure, but you’ll come out to dinner with me after work, won’t you? I can not be bothered to cook tonight.”
“No, me neither.” Eating out was my one guilty pleasure. I did it way too often, but to be fair, I did work long hours. I just didn’t have time to slave over the oven every night, which was a damn shame because the one hobby I really adored was cooking and baking. “Yeah let’s do it.” I glanced at my watch and rose to my feet. “Right, I better get back. I’ll see you at the end of the day, okay?”
“Love you, Morgan!” Nickie called out sweetly. “See you in a bit!”
***
I tossed a sweater on over my scrubs and grabbed my backpack as relief flooded me. It had been a long day, with a lot of terrible things happening in the hospital. I just needed to get out before my workplace swallowed my whole.
“Come on, Morgan, let’s get going!” Nickie tugged on my arm excitedly. “I have a real hankering for some chicken.”
“Sure, sure, whatever you want.” I simply allowed her to pull me along with her towards wherever the hell she was going. I honestly didn’t care. I just needed something to satiate my growling stomach. “Take me anywhere with food.”
I wasn’t exactly surprised when we ended up at the diner at the end of the road. It was easy, convenient, cheap, to be honest, most of the medical staff ended up going there after a long day. When I looked around I recognized most of the faces in the room. I couldn’t recall a lot of their names, but I knew which floor and department they worked in.
After we ordered, Nickie cocked her head at me and gave me a curious look. “Are you ignoring your phone for a reason?”
“Oh shit, is it ringing?” I scrabbled around in my bag until I found it, but when I saw the name across the screen, I screwed up my nose and hit the decline button. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. Not someone I want to speak to.”
“Your mom?” Nickie knew me all too well.
“Yep, and she’s on another ‘I need a grandchild’ phase, which I am not in the mood to deal with right now.” I rolled my eyes in an exaggerated manner, trying to make light of a situation that in reality, felt very shitty. “I cannot deal.”
“Does she not realize that you’re only twenty six years old and don’t even have a serious boyfriend...or any boyfriend, for that matter?”
“Thanks for that stark reminder.” Okay, so maybe I’d pushed my love life to one side for the time being, but that was only because the right man hadn’t come along. I was a modern woman who was willing to wait until the right man came along...or at least until I wasn’t so exhausted. Whatever. “But no, she doesn’t seem to understand that. She was never a career woman, so she just doesn’t get it. It’s easier to ignore her, if I’m honest.”
“Yeah, my mom makes me crazy, too; that’s why I never bother going home.”
The waitress brought our food over to the table, and we both stuffed our faces like we’d been starved, but the conversation hadn’t been dropped. It was circling through my mind, and I could tell that it was running through Nicki’s, too.
“I mean, it would be nice to meet someone awesome.” She shrugged her shoulders and smirked. “Ben was alright, but he had no fire. What we had in bed wasn’t anything, it just didn’t grind my gears. Not like Antonio... Wow, he was incredible. It was just a shame that he had to put it about with everyone else, too.”
I nodded along like I understood, but really I had no clue. In reality, I’d never had that all consuming passion that sent me crazy. I’d liked guys well enough, I’d been attracted to men, but there was nothing that made me want to tear my clothes off. I never felt like if I didn’t have someone, I would die. I knew that I was missing out on something fundamental in my life, and it really sucked, but I couldn’t create it. Passion was just one of those things – it came from biology. If I hadn’t experienced it, then maybe I was just one of those women who would never get to have that.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Maybe we’ll both meet someone awesome at Lights Out tomorrow night.”
“Yeah, maybe...” Yep, there was no escape. What a freaking nightmare. I really didn’t want to mash my body through throngs of sweating bodies on my night off, but as usual, Nickie would get her way. “We’ll see.”
“Oh come on, Morgan, you’ll love it. You spend too much of your time inside, you’re getting too old for your age,” she whined pitifully. “I meant what I said about you only being twenty six years old. You’re too young to sleep the weekend away, you need to have some fun.”
“I’ve said we’ll see, let’s just leave it at that, okay?”
***
By the time I got home an hour or so later, the exhaustion was almost all consuming. It was a struggle to even keep my eyes open, but that didn’t stop me from seeing the damn state of the place. One of the jobs I always tried to leave myself was cleaning, but I never quite got around it. If only I had more hours in the day.
Still, I could do it on the weekend. I had to.
I slumped on the couch, unable to quite make it to bed, and I thought about the day. I always found it helpful to process before I went to sleep, to stop myself from getting stuck on things. I saw all kinds of terrible things at the hospital: drug addicts who wouldn’t stop using despite the fact that they were killing themselves, the horrifying results of terrible freak accidents, families distressed about what was happening to their loved ones... I didn’t work in the emergency room, but I still saw enough. Dealing with that helped me to recover.
Only this time, I wasn’t really thinking about what had happened at the hospital, I was thinking about the long list of ignored phone calls in my phone. I hated having to ignore her, but I just couldn’t deal. Of course I wanted find love, to get married, to have children... Career woman or not, that was my dream, and having her remind me that I was nowhere near achieving that just hurt.
But I also wanted what Nickie talked about – the passion, the lust, the heart-pounding desire that could only come from being with someone with whom you shared a deep chemistry with.
I’d thought Gary was sexy, but it wasn’t that. I had thought Brad was hot, but sex was something we both could’ve given or taken. It just wasn’t that. I just didn’t feel the need to share all the details like Nickie did about Antonio. I felt like I knew that man far too well, and I hadn’t even met him. Nickie just couldn’t get enough of his body. Sure he was an asshole, but she didn’t look back on their shared time with upset. She just remembered how incredible he was in the sack.
I glanced my eyes over the framed photographs I had dotted around my apartment, noticing how they all told a story. I had plenty of people in my life. I wasn’t lonely, but I still yearned for the whole damn picture. I couldn’t help but want it all...
I needed to force myself up before sadness totally consumed me. I needed to get to bed before I started imagining myself as an old maid. Much as I didn’t like the idea, maybe it was a good thing that Nickie was desperate to drag me out, to have some fun. There were worse things in the world. I was only twenty six...maybe there was more to life than being lazy after work and succumbing to tiredness.
Still, I would have to see because if I was as tired tomorrow as I felt at the moment, then there was no chance of me going anywhere. It took all that I had to raise my weary body off the couch and to drag it through the hallway towards my bedroom. My bed welcomed me with open arms, offering me some much needed comfort, and as I fell into its embrace, I felt that wonderful sense of happiness that could only come from a difficult day finally being over.