Come Back Tomorrow, page 9
“I’d like to think so. I think of you as my friend, at least.”
“You called me ‘sweetheart’ just now. You did it yesterday too. I liked that.”
My eyes widen. Oh. I guess I did. I bet that’s why he was looking at me funny yesterday. I’ve been thinking of him that way in my head for a while now, and obviously, he’s been thinking things about us too. The question there was not if we’re friends as much as if we’re more than friends. Oh my.
“Tori, how come . . .” He stops and closes his eyes. “Never mind.”
“What? You can ask me anything, Will. It’s okay.”
He opens his eyes slowly and smirks at me. “Well, I was going to ask you why you don’t have a boyfriend, but that seemed too abrupt, so I was trying to think of a smoother way to ask.”
I bite my lip to keep from laughing. Wow, morphine is like truth serum for him.
I consider deflecting his question, but he’s probably not going to remember what I tell him anyway.
“I did have a boyfriend, but I broke up with him about three months ago. We’d been together for four years. I met him through some friends, and we really hit it off, so we started dating, and within a few months, we were living together. He’s good-looking and a lawyer, so everyone seemed to think he was perfect for me—even me—but he wasn’t. He wasn’t interested in who I really am; he just wanted a trophy wife to accompany him to social functions and take care of him. He thought once we got married, I’d quit all this silly psychology stuff, stay home, and raise his babies. I broke up with him the night he asked me to marry him.”
“Oh, Tori. I’m sorry! I think you made the right choice though. You should be with someone because they’re your soul mate, not because it’s easy or convenient.”
I stare at him for a moment because he’s managed to sum up in a sentence what it took me months to figure out. “Thanks. I think I made the right choice, too, although at the time, it really hurt me to do it.”
“That guy was stupid. He should have talked to you about what you wanted instead of telling you how it was going to be. I would never treat you like that.”
Um, is he sitting here thinking about how he would treat me if we were dating? Did I hear that right? “What about you? Did you ever find your soul mate?”
“No,” he answers softly. “I was dating someone when I first got sick, but it was casual, and she didn’t stick around when things got tough. Not that I blame her really. I dated before that, but nothing too serious. And I haven’t dated anyone since.”
Okay, exactly why the hell did I ask that question? He’s sitting here alone, so the only two possible answers to my question were: a) no, he’s never found his soul mate; or b) he found her, but he lost her somehow. And now we’re both sitting here thinking about how he’ll never find his soul mate because he’s dying. Brilliant, Tori. Just brilliant.
“I’m sorry, Will.”
He shrugs and scratches at his arm again, harder this time. “You seem to be scratching a lot today.”
“Yeah, itchiness is a side effect of the damn morphine. As if I wasn’t already itchy enough,” he mumbles.
Fuck, pain relief shouldn’t cost you this much!
“Tori, I’m so glad you come here every day. I don’t really want to be alone, and now that you’re here, I don’t have to be. And you’re sssoooo pretty,” he says, slurring drunkenly. “Your eyes are just so brown. Like chocolate and honey all mixed together. Did you know that?”
Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh! Oh God, but it’s so hard not to when he’s being this cute, and he has no idea what he’s telling me about himself when he’s saying these things. “No. I didn’t, Will. So you like the color brown they are?”
“Hell, yeah. I get lost there all the time.”
I can’t help it this time, and I chuckle softly.
“What?”
“You’re just so damn cute,” I say without thinking.
I panic for a second. Then I remember he’s not going to remember any of this anyway, and the smile that lights up his face would have been worth it even if he did.
“You think I’m cute?” he asks, smirking at me.
“Yes, I think you’re cute.”
“How cute?” I laugh again.
“As cute as they come,” I tell him, reaching up to ruffle his hair. I start to move my hand away, but he grabs it and entwines my fingers with his.
“Cute enough to let me do this?” he asks as his eyes drift closed.
“Yes, cute enough to let you do that.” And a whole hell of a lot more . . . but not today.
"Sweetheart, you're sleepy. I know morphine knocks you out, plus you probably still need rest after being up all night. Why don't I go, and I'll come back first thing in the morning to check on you."
"I guess," Will says, pouting. "But tomorrow, I'll probably be back to 'boring' Will. I think I'm much more fun when I'm high on painkillers, don't you?"
"I admit you are . . . entertaining, but I'm happier when you're not in pain, and I like when we both get to remember what we talked about."
"Yeah, I guess there's that. But I like me better this way. I'm more like I was before I got sick."
I bite my lip, thinking about a completely unaltered Will flirting with me this way, and it nearly takes my breath away.
"Get some sleep, sweetheart. I'll see you tomorrow," I tell him, and I just can’t resist the urge to lean in and kiss his forehead before I go. He grins up at me lazily, his lips still curled in a smile long after his eyes close.
Chapter 13
As I walk out of the elevator, Jenny glances up from the nurses’ station and comes around to waylay me as I walk down the hall. “You need to prepare yourself. Will is having a really bad day today.”
My heart clenches in my chest. Jesus Christ, what have the last two days been? “What’s wrong?”
“His fever has been hovering around one-oh-four all day, and he’s delirious and confused. We had to put him in restraints because he tried to get out of bed this morning and fell, and he’s tried to pull his IV out twice already. He’s in and out of consciousness, and when he’s awake, he’s unpredictable. I’ve got one of the nurses sitting in there with him as much as possible, but I can’t keep someone in there all the time.”
“Oh, shit! Why didn’t you call me? I would have come up and sat with him!”
Jenny’s eyes widen. “Oh, I . . . I didn’t realize. You and I haven’t really talked in a few days, and I didn’t know . . .”
“Yes, I would have dropped what I was doing and come. Please, let me know when he needs anything.”
“Of course,” she says, as one corner of her mouth turns up.
“We’ll have to talk later, Jenny. I really need to see him now,” I tell her as I give her arm a squeeze.
I hurry down the hall, taking a deep breath before I push the door open. My peripheral vision registers the nurse sitting in the chair, but my gaze zeroes in on Will.
His eyes are closed, his brow furrowed as he rolls his head from side to side. His cheeks are flushed, his cheekbones tinged a ruddy pink, and there’s a sheen of sweat on his forehead. As I get closer, I see his shirt is soaked through under his arms as well.
I bite my lip and finally glance at the nurse sitting next to him.
She smiles at me kindly. “He’s been out for a while now, but he’s very restless.”
“I’ll stay with him if you have other things to do.”
“Buzz if you need anything,” she says, patting my arm lightly as she walks from the room.
I start to walk over to Will but change my mind halfway there, going into his bathroom instead. There’s a stack of washcloths on a shelf next to the sink, and I quickly wet one with cold water, wringing it out and folding it into a compress. Then I go to him and gently press the cool cloth to his forehead, wiping away the sweat that’s gathered there, then refold it and press it to each of his cheeks.
He huffs out a breath as I run my fingers through his hair, still holding the compress to the side of his face. He opens his eyes and stares at me for a full minute before whispering, “Tori?”
“Hello, Will. How are you feeling?” I ask, smiling to cover how upset I am.
“So . . . hot . . .”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. You have a really high fever today; that’s why you’re so hot. Do you remember?”
“No . . .” He licks his dry, chapped lips.
“Would you like some water?”
“Yes.”
I walk around to the other side of the bed and retrieve his cup.
He drinks thirstily, grunting as he shifts position on the bed. When he’s done, he releases the straw, wetting his lips again. “I need to go to class today. I have to finish my painting for Mr. Warner.”
He opens his eyes again and looks down at himself, pulling against the restraints and wincing.
“Will, you can’t go anywhere. You’re sick and you can’t get out of bed.”
“Sure I can,” he says, moving again and crying out in pain this time.
“No, sweetheart, you can’t. Please, just lie still, okay? Then it won’t hurt so much; I promise.”
“O-okay,” he says weakly.
I press the cloth to his forehead again, and he leans into the touch.
“That feels . . . so good.”
Tears sting my eyes as I smile at him, but his own eyes are already closed. I stand next to him for a while, holding the cloth to his forehead and running my fingers through his hair until he begins to move again in his sleep. I don’t want to wake him by trying to keep the compress on his forehead, so I sit down, holding my head in my hands.
Holy shit, how much worse can things get for him? I had thought the last two days were bad enough, and now this? Well, there’s no way I’m going to leave him like this, so I settle into my chair and pull out my Kindle.
Will is neither still nor quiet in his fevered sleep. He’s in almost constant motion, moaning and whimpering from the pain it’s causing him. I watch over him, feeling completely helpless. At this moment, there is absolutely nothing I can do to ease his suffering, and that’s getting to be an all-too-familiar feeling. I want to talk to him and spend time with him so much, but his illness is becoming a physical barrier between us. He’s there, on the other side, and I know he wants to be with me, but he can’t get past the ever-increasing failings of his body, and I can’t do anything but watch him drift further away.
Tears are streaming down my face, but thinking this way isn’t going to help either of us, so I bury myself in my book again until I hear the door open behind me.
Jenny peeks around it, but her usual smile falters as her gaze falls on Will. She walks over to him, laying a hand on his forehead, then pressing her fingers to his wrist and staring at the clock over the door as she takes his pulse. When she’s finished, she turns to me. “Well, he doesn’t seem any worse off than the last time I checked on him. Has he been awake at all?”
“When I first came in, I put a compress on his forehead, and he woke up, but he didn’t stay with me long. He’s so restless that I gave up on the idea because I didn’t want to keep waking him.”
“It’s a good idea for when he’s awake, but you’re right. When he’s sleeping, you should probably let him be. His body needs all the help it can get to fight off the fever.”
“What happened this morning? When did this all start?”
“Sometime during the night. When I got here at seven, he was already feverish. His temperature was around one-oh-two then, but it spiked around nine in between checks. He must have woken up and been completely confused, because he tried to get out of bed. I found him on the floor with his IV partially ripped out.
“We got him re-situated in bed, restarted his IV, and tried to use a chest band to restrain him, but it was too painful for him, and he yanked the IV out of position again, so we ended up having to use the arm restraints.”
“Damn. He knew who I was when he talked to me, but he told me he needed to go to school today to finish some project.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Jenny says, nodding. “A high fever makes you lose your grip on the present and often on reality. Hopefully, his fever will break soon though. Low- and medium-grade fevers are fairly common for his cancer, but high ones like this aren’t.”
“Do you think something else is wrong?”
“No, I don’t think so. He doesn’t have any new symptoms, and so far, his labs are clear. His body just has to work through it. Are you heading out soon? It’s almost seven.”
I shake my head. “No, I can’t leave him like this. I don’t want him to be all alone this way, and I know the nurses are too busy to sit with him. I’m gonna stay.”
Jenny looks at me—I mean, really looks—then shakes her head as if she’s decided something. “Listen, why don’t I get one of the nurses to sit with him for a while, and you can run out with me and grab some dinner? You have to be starving, and you may have a long night ahead of you.”
Hmm . . . she’s probably right. “Thanks, Jenny, I guess I should have some dinner, and we haven’t really talked in a while.”
“Great! I’ll send one of the nurses down, and I’ll clock out and get my stuff.”
I glance over at Will, and he’s shivering, so I get him another blanket, then lay the afghan I gave him on top and bring it all the way up to his chin. He never wakes, but after a few minutes, his shivers become a little less violent. I want to touch him, but I’m afraid of waking him, so I just blow him a kiss as I turn to meet Jenny at the door.
Since I don’t want to be gone too long, I suggest the Subway right across the street from the hospital.
“You look like hell,” Jenny tells me, taking a bite of her sandwich.
I snort. “Tell it like it is, Jenny. Don’t hold anything back.”
She grins at me. “That’s what I’m here for! They don’t call me ‘honest Jenny’ for nothing.”
“I always thought they called you ‘annoying Jenny,’” I grumble, and I’m rewarded with a shot in the arm.
“Is it Will?”
“Yes.” I respond without hesitation. “He was doing so well, and then everything just went to hell in a handbasket on Sunday. I wish there was more I could do for him.”
“You’re doing a lot for him already—more than you usually do for patients in his situation.”
“Yes, Will is totally different from all the other patients I’ve befriended. It’s not that I didn’t care about the others, but with Will, it’s on a whole different level.”
“Is it because he’s so young?”
“I’m sure that’s part of it. It’s heartbreaking to see someone so young with a terminal disease, and I never knew lymphomas could have such nasty symptoms. It’s . . . more than that though.”
“Have you figured out yet why he’s alone and where his family and friends are?”
“No, not yet. He’s telling me things about himself now, which is better than before when he wasn’t even really interacting with me, but I can’t get near the topic of his family without him freezing up. He did talk to me a bit about his friends, however, and I know he has a friend named Jason who took care of him when he was sick before.”
“Where is Jason now?”
“I don’t know. Something bad happened between them because he told me Jason is pissed at him right now. When we got to the point of why, he stopped because he didn’t want to get that upset when he was having a good day. He promised he would tell me, so at least we’re heading in the right direction.”
“That’s good!” Jenny says.
“I feel kind of bad though. He’s in denial, and I need to get him to see that he needs these people, but he’d been feeling so good since last week’s procedure that I didn’t have the heart to try to push ahead to the hard topics. And he can be so persuasive and cute when he wants to be.”
“You seem to make him happy.”
I blush because I’m surprised she’s noticed, but then again, she’s with him every day.
“Do you find him attractive?”
I raise an eyebrow at her. “Is it possible to be breathing and female and not find him attractive?”
She giggles. “No, I guess not. He kills me with those green eyes.”
I smile, thinking of those eyes paired with his gorgeous smile until Jenny’s chuckle invades my daydream.
“You seem . . . different with him. Really different. If I didn’t know better—”
“No, Jenny.”
“I can see how much you both care about each other, and you’re both attracted to each other—”
“But what does it matter? The reality is he’s dying. I can’t help but care about him, and I’ll do anything I can for him, but it has to end there because anything more is just going to cause us both more pain in the end.”
“But what if he weren’t dying?”
I raise my eyes to stare at her. “What does that matter? He is dying, and I can’t afford to let myself think about if he weren’t.”
“Just humor me. Would things be different if he weren’t dying?”
I take a deep breath and make the admission to myself as well as to her. “Yes, things would be very different if he weren’t dying. He’s perfect, Jenny. Making him happy makes me happier than I’ve ever been, and he’s so . . . deep and affectionate and sweet. Did you know he’s an artist?”
“No!” She gasps, her eyes widening.
“Yes. When I went to his apartment to get his things for him, I saw some of his work. It’s so incredibly beautiful. I can’t believe how talented he is. And the things he’s told me about what he sees and feels when he paints—”
Jenny has gotten up and put her arms around me, and I realize tears are streaming down my face. “Oh God, Jenny, I already don’t have any idea how I’m going to survive watching him die. If I let myself feel anything else for him, when he dies, it really will destroy me.”
Shaking my head, I swipe at my tears. “Dammit, this isn’t supposed to be about me! This is why you don’t get emotionally involved with patients, because if you do, your needs and feelings start to come into play when what you really should be worrying about are their needs and feelings. That’s exactly what’s happened to me with Will, and I need to put a stop to it. I have to focus on helping him make peace with his life and getting back the people he needs rather than trying to become one of the people he needs. It’s too—selfish a thing for me to do. Fuck!”
“You called me ‘sweetheart’ just now. You did it yesterday too. I liked that.”
My eyes widen. Oh. I guess I did. I bet that’s why he was looking at me funny yesterday. I’ve been thinking of him that way in my head for a while now, and obviously, he’s been thinking things about us too. The question there was not if we’re friends as much as if we’re more than friends. Oh my.
“Tori, how come . . .” He stops and closes his eyes. “Never mind.”
“What? You can ask me anything, Will. It’s okay.”
He opens his eyes slowly and smirks at me. “Well, I was going to ask you why you don’t have a boyfriend, but that seemed too abrupt, so I was trying to think of a smoother way to ask.”
I bite my lip to keep from laughing. Wow, morphine is like truth serum for him.
I consider deflecting his question, but he’s probably not going to remember what I tell him anyway.
“I did have a boyfriend, but I broke up with him about three months ago. We’d been together for four years. I met him through some friends, and we really hit it off, so we started dating, and within a few months, we were living together. He’s good-looking and a lawyer, so everyone seemed to think he was perfect for me—even me—but he wasn’t. He wasn’t interested in who I really am; he just wanted a trophy wife to accompany him to social functions and take care of him. He thought once we got married, I’d quit all this silly psychology stuff, stay home, and raise his babies. I broke up with him the night he asked me to marry him.”
“Oh, Tori. I’m sorry! I think you made the right choice though. You should be with someone because they’re your soul mate, not because it’s easy or convenient.”
I stare at him for a moment because he’s managed to sum up in a sentence what it took me months to figure out. “Thanks. I think I made the right choice, too, although at the time, it really hurt me to do it.”
“That guy was stupid. He should have talked to you about what you wanted instead of telling you how it was going to be. I would never treat you like that.”
Um, is he sitting here thinking about how he would treat me if we were dating? Did I hear that right? “What about you? Did you ever find your soul mate?”
“No,” he answers softly. “I was dating someone when I first got sick, but it was casual, and she didn’t stick around when things got tough. Not that I blame her really. I dated before that, but nothing too serious. And I haven’t dated anyone since.”
Okay, exactly why the hell did I ask that question? He’s sitting here alone, so the only two possible answers to my question were: a) no, he’s never found his soul mate; or b) he found her, but he lost her somehow. And now we’re both sitting here thinking about how he’ll never find his soul mate because he’s dying. Brilliant, Tori. Just brilliant.
“I’m sorry, Will.”
He shrugs and scratches at his arm again, harder this time. “You seem to be scratching a lot today.”
“Yeah, itchiness is a side effect of the damn morphine. As if I wasn’t already itchy enough,” he mumbles.
Fuck, pain relief shouldn’t cost you this much!
“Tori, I’m so glad you come here every day. I don’t really want to be alone, and now that you’re here, I don’t have to be. And you’re sssoooo pretty,” he says, slurring drunkenly. “Your eyes are just so brown. Like chocolate and honey all mixed together. Did you know that?”
Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh! Oh God, but it’s so hard not to when he’s being this cute, and he has no idea what he’s telling me about himself when he’s saying these things. “No. I didn’t, Will. So you like the color brown they are?”
“Hell, yeah. I get lost there all the time.”
I can’t help it this time, and I chuckle softly.
“What?”
“You’re just so damn cute,” I say without thinking.
I panic for a second. Then I remember he’s not going to remember any of this anyway, and the smile that lights up his face would have been worth it even if he did.
“You think I’m cute?” he asks, smirking at me.
“Yes, I think you’re cute.”
“How cute?” I laugh again.
“As cute as they come,” I tell him, reaching up to ruffle his hair. I start to move my hand away, but he grabs it and entwines my fingers with his.
“Cute enough to let me do this?” he asks as his eyes drift closed.
“Yes, cute enough to let you do that.” And a whole hell of a lot more . . . but not today.
"Sweetheart, you're sleepy. I know morphine knocks you out, plus you probably still need rest after being up all night. Why don't I go, and I'll come back first thing in the morning to check on you."
"I guess," Will says, pouting. "But tomorrow, I'll probably be back to 'boring' Will. I think I'm much more fun when I'm high on painkillers, don't you?"
"I admit you are . . . entertaining, but I'm happier when you're not in pain, and I like when we both get to remember what we talked about."
"Yeah, I guess there's that. But I like me better this way. I'm more like I was before I got sick."
I bite my lip, thinking about a completely unaltered Will flirting with me this way, and it nearly takes my breath away.
"Get some sleep, sweetheart. I'll see you tomorrow," I tell him, and I just can’t resist the urge to lean in and kiss his forehead before I go. He grins up at me lazily, his lips still curled in a smile long after his eyes close.
Chapter 13
As I walk out of the elevator, Jenny glances up from the nurses’ station and comes around to waylay me as I walk down the hall. “You need to prepare yourself. Will is having a really bad day today.”
My heart clenches in my chest. Jesus Christ, what have the last two days been? “What’s wrong?”
“His fever has been hovering around one-oh-four all day, and he’s delirious and confused. We had to put him in restraints because he tried to get out of bed this morning and fell, and he’s tried to pull his IV out twice already. He’s in and out of consciousness, and when he’s awake, he’s unpredictable. I’ve got one of the nurses sitting in there with him as much as possible, but I can’t keep someone in there all the time.”
“Oh, shit! Why didn’t you call me? I would have come up and sat with him!”
Jenny’s eyes widen. “Oh, I . . . I didn’t realize. You and I haven’t really talked in a few days, and I didn’t know . . .”
“Yes, I would have dropped what I was doing and come. Please, let me know when he needs anything.”
“Of course,” she says, as one corner of her mouth turns up.
“We’ll have to talk later, Jenny. I really need to see him now,” I tell her as I give her arm a squeeze.
I hurry down the hall, taking a deep breath before I push the door open. My peripheral vision registers the nurse sitting in the chair, but my gaze zeroes in on Will.
His eyes are closed, his brow furrowed as he rolls his head from side to side. His cheeks are flushed, his cheekbones tinged a ruddy pink, and there’s a sheen of sweat on his forehead. As I get closer, I see his shirt is soaked through under his arms as well.
I bite my lip and finally glance at the nurse sitting next to him.
She smiles at me kindly. “He’s been out for a while now, but he’s very restless.”
“I’ll stay with him if you have other things to do.”
“Buzz if you need anything,” she says, patting my arm lightly as she walks from the room.
I start to walk over to Will but change my mind halfway there, going into his bathroom instead. There’s a stack of washcloths on a shelf next to the sink, and I quickly wet one with cold water, wringing it out and folding it into a compress. Then I go to him and gently press the cool cloth to his forehead, wiping away the sweat that’s gathered there, then refold it and press it to each of his cheeks.
He huffs out a breath as I run my fingers through his hair, still holding the compress to the side of his face. He opens his eyes and stares at me for a full minute before whispering, “Tori?”
“Hello, Will. How are you feeling?” I ask, smiling to cover how upset I am.
“So . . . hot . . .”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. You have a really high fever today; that’s why you’re so hot. Do you remember?”
“No . . .” He licks his dry, chapped lips.
“Would you like some water?”
“Yes.”
I walk around to the other side of the bed and retrieve his cup.
He drinks thirstily, grunting as he shifts position on the bed. When he’s done, he releases the straw, wetting his lips again. “I need to go to class today. I have to finish my painting for Mr. Warner.”
He opens his eyes again and looks down at himself, pulling against the restraints and wincing.
“Will, you can’t go anywhere. You’re sick and you can’t get out of bed.”
“Sure I can,” he says, moving again and crying out in pain this time.
“No, sweetheart, you can’t. Please, just lie still, okay? Then it won’t hurt so much; I promise.”
“O-okay,” he says weakly.
I press the cloth to his forehead again, and he leans into the touch.
“That feels . . . so good.”
Tears sting my eyes as I smile at him, but his own eyes are already closed. I stand next to him for a while, holding the cloth to his forehead and running my fingers through his hair until he begins to move again in his sleep. I don’t want to wake him by trying to keep the compress on his forehead, so I sit down, holding my head in my hands.
Holy shit, how much worse can things get for him? I had thought the last two days were bad enough, and now this? Well, there’s no way I’m going to leave him like this, so I settle into my chair and pull out my Kindle.
Will is neither still nor quiet in his fevered sleep. He’s in almost constant motion, moaning and whimpering from the pain it’s causing him. I watch over him, feeling completely helpless. At this moment, there is absolutely nothing I can do to ease his suffering, and that’s getting to be an all-too-familiar feeling. I want to talk to him and spend time with him so much, but his illness is becoming a physical barrier between us. He’s there, on the other side, and I know he wants to be with me, but he can’t get past the ever-increasing failings of his body, and I can’t do anything but watch him drift further away.
Tears are streaming down my face, but thinking this way isn’t going to help either of us, so I bury myself in my book again until I hear the door open behind me.
Jenny peeks around it, but her usual smile falters as her gaze falls on Will. She walks over to him, laying a hand on his forehead, then pressing her fingers to his wrist and staring at the clock over the door as she takes his pulse. When she’s finished, she turns to me. “Well, he doesn’t seem any worse off than the last time I checked on him. Has he been awake at all?”
“When I first came in, I put a compress on his forehead, and he woke up, but he didn’t stay with me long. He’s so restless that I gave up on the idea because I didn’t want to keep waking him.”
“It’s a good idea for when he’s awake, but you’re right. When he’s sleeping, you should probably let him be. His body needs all the help it can get to fight off the fever.”
“What happened this morning? When did this all start?”
“Sometime during the night. When I got here at seven, he was already feverish. His temperature was around one-oh-two then, but it spiked around nine in between checks. He must have woken up and been completely confused, because he tried to get out of bed. I found him on the floor with his IV partially ripped out.
“We got him re-situated in bed, restarted his IV, and tried to use a chest band to restrain him, but it was too painful for him, and he yanked the IV out of position again, so we ended up having to use the arm restraints.”
“Damn. He knew who I was when he talked to me, but he told me he needed to go to school today to finish some project.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Jenny says, nodding. “A high fever makes you lose your grip on the present and often on reality. Hopefully, his fever will break soon though. Low- and medium-grade fevers are fairly common for his cancer, but high ones like this aren’t.”
“Do you think something else is wrong?”
“No, I don’t think so. He doesn’t have any new symptoms, and so far, his labs are clear. His body just has to work through it. Are you heading out soon? It’s almost seven.”
I shake my head. “No, I can’t leave him like this. I don’t want him to be all alone this way, and I know the nurses are too busy to sit with him. I’m gonna stay.”
Jenny looks at me—I mean, really looks—then shakes her head as if she’s decided something. “Listen, why don’t I get one of the nurses to sit with him for a while, and you can run out with me and grab some dinner? You have to be starving, and you may have a long night ahead of you.”
Hmm . . . she’s probably right. “Thanks, Jenny, I guess I should have some dinner, and we haven’t really talked in a while.”
“Great! I’ll send one of the nurses down, and I’ll clock out and get my stuff.”
I glance over at Will, and he’s shivering, so I get him another blanket, then lay the afghan I gave him on top and bring it all the way up to his chin. He never wakes, but after a few minutes, his shivers become a little less violent. I want to touch him, but I’m afraid of waking him, so I just blow him a kiss as I turn to meet Jenny at the door.
Since I don’t want to be gone too long, I suggest the Subway right across the street from the hospital.
“You look like hell,” Jenny tells me, taking a bite of her sandwich.
I snort. “Tell it like it is, Jenny. Don’t hold anything back.”
She grins at me. “That’s what I’m here for! They don’t call me ‘honest Jenny’ for nothing.”
“I always thought they called you ‘annoying Jenny,’” I grumble, and I’m rewarded with a shot in the arm.
“Is it Will?”
“Yes.” I respond without hesitation. “He was doing so well, and then everything just went to hell in a handbasket on Sunday. I wish there was more I could do for him.”
“You’re doing a lot for him already—more than you usually do for patients in his situation.”
“Yes, Will is totally different from all the other patients I’ve befriended. It’s not that I didn’t care about the others, but with Will, it’s on a whole different level.”
“Is it because he’s so young?”
“I’m sure that’s part of it. It’s heartbreaking to see someone so young with a terminal disease, and I never knew lymphomas could have such nasty symptoms. It’s . . . more than that though.”
“Have you figured out yet why he’s alone and where his family and friends are?”
“No, not yet. He’s telling me things about himself now, which is better than before when he wasn’t even really interacting with me, but I can’t get near the topic of his family without him freezing up. He did talk to me a bit about his friends, however, and I know he has a friend named Jason who took care of him when he was sick before.”
“Where is Jason now?”
“I don’t know. Something bad happened between them because he told me Jason is pissed at him right now. When we got to the point of why, he stopped because he didn’t want to get that upset when he was having a good day. He promised he would tell me, so at least we’re heading in the right direction.”
“That’s good!” Jenny says.
“I feel kind of bad though. He’s in denial, and I need to get him to see that he needs these people, but he’d been feeling so good since last week’s procedure that I didn’t have the heart to try to push ahead to the hard topics. And he can be so persuasive and cute when he wants to be.”
“You seem to make him happy.”
I blush because I’m surprised she’s noticed, but then again, she’s with him every day.
“Do you find him attractive?”
I raise an eyebrow at her. “Is it possible to be breathing and female and not find him attractive?”
She giggles. “No, I guess not. He kills me with those green eyes.”
I smile, thinking of those eyes paired with his gorgeous smile until Jenny’s chuckle invades my daydream.
“You seem . . . different with him. Really different. If I didn’t know better—”
“No, Jenny.”
“I can see how much you both care about each other, and you’re both attracted to each other—”
“But what does it matter? The reality is he’s dying. I can’t help but care about him, and I’ll do anything I can for him, but it has to end there because anything more is just going to cause us both more pain in the end.”
“But what if he weren’t dying?”
I raise my eyes to stare at her. “What does that matter? He is dying, and I can’t afford to let myself think about if he weren’t.”
“Just humor me. Would things be different if he weren’t dying?”
I take a deep breath and make the admission to myself as well as to her. “Yes, things would be very different if he weren’t dying. He’s perfect, Jenny. Making him happy makes me happier than I’ve ever been, and he’s so . . . deep and affectionate and sweet. Did you know he’s an artist?”
“No!” She gasps, her eyes widening.
“Yes. When I went to his apartment to get his things for him, I saw some of his work. It’s so incredibly beautiful. I can’t believe how talented he is. And the things he’s told me about what he sees and feels when he paints—”
Jenny has gotten up and put her arms around me, and I realize tears are streaming down my face. “Oh God, Jenny, I already don’t have any idea how I’m going to survive watching him die. If I let myself feel anything else for him, when he dies, it really will destroy me.”
Shaking my head, I swipe at my tears. “Dammit, this isn’t supposed to be about me! This is why you don’t get emotionally involved with patients, because if you do, your needs and feelings start to come into play when what you really should be worrying about are their needs and feelings. That’s exactly what’s happened to me with Will, and I need to put a stop to it. I have to focus on helping him make peace with his life and getting back the people he needs rather than trying to become one of the people he needs. It’s too—selfish a thing for me to do. Fuck!”
