“You’ve got this.” I mimic the right motion and give her the memory line I used to learn knitting. “Come out the front door, grab your scarf…”
She puts the needle through and wraps it.
“Now duck out the back before the cat barfs.”
“Oh my fucking God,” she says, squinting at the needle. “Worst rhyme ever.”
“It worked, though. Where is the gratitude? Now move the yarn to the back and get ready to knit.”
She does. And a few minutes later, she’s holding her knitting up to the light and crowing about how great it looks. “Like real ribbing!”
“That’s because it is.”
We talk knitting for a while longer, and then I’m surprised when Nurse Hailey taps me on the back and says our time is up. “Meet us out in the hallway, please,” she says.
“Thank you,” Leila tells me. “I didn’t get your name.”
“It’s Jess. Good luck with your…is it going to be a sweater?” I ask, although the knitted piece is really too small for that.
“A hat,” she replies, and then the shape makes more sense. “It’s for my little brother. He loves Harry Potter, and these are Gryffindor colors. It’s for Christmas.”
“Oh! That’s brilliant. He’s going to love it. And you’re almost there. This will be done way before Christmas.”
Tired eyes lift to mine. “Has to,” she says, and her gaze dares me to look away. “I’m stage four. Might not make it to Christmas.”
Just like that, I crumple inside.
My exterior keeps going. I take her hand and give it a gentle squeeze. I call her by name and make eye contact and tell her I’ll be thinking about her. I pick up my bag with the play dough inside, and my feet carry me out the door.
Half the nursing students are in the hallway already. They’re bent over their clipboards, their pens flying over the page, their observations spilling forth. When I come to stand beside Violet, she’s writing “contusions on the inner arm.”
She sees me looking over her shoulder, and her head snaps up, clipboard hugged to her chest. “What the hell? Are you copying me?”
Of course I’m not. But it wasn’t until I saw Violet’s handwriting that I remembered all the observations we were supposed to be making.
I failed. Again.
This realization is a second little bomb going off inside my chest. So even though Nurse Hailey hasn’t come out yet to speak to us, I turn and march down the hall, heading for the elevators.
“Where are you going?” Violet calls after me. “Class isn’t over.”
I don’t even turn to look. I can’t, because there are tears spilling over now, tracking down my face.
When I step into the elevator, it’s already impossible to remember why I wanted any of this in the first place. Not only is nursing school hard, but sad things wait for me when it’s over. Everyone I left behind on the ward is better prepared than I am. None of them are escaping the building like me.
As I often do, I take the subway to my brother’s apartment. That’s my refuge. When Violet’s lip curls once too often, I hide in the waterfront condo at dinnertime.
On the train, I open my nursing textbook in my face and hide behind it until the tears stop.
That poor kid, knitting her brother a hat in October, in case she doesn’t make it to December.
Why?
13 Crankiness Makes Sense
Jess
Jamie isn’t home from work yet, but I let myself into the apartment with the spare key they gave me. He told me via text to get dinner started if I felt like it, and although I don’t feel like it, I do it anyway. He and Wes are nice enough to let me come over and eat their food every other night, so I might as well contribute in any way I can.
Not having money sucks. My bank account is like a horror movie—I can’t check the balance without screaming. The student loans I took out allow me a certain amount for living expenses, but I’m being extra stingy with those funds, buying only the bare necessities.
I had a friend in college who had a ton of cash left over from her loan (because she couldn’t be bothered to buy any textbooks) and she blew it on manicures and hair appointments. We all kept telling her it wasn’t free money and that loans need to be repaid. She didn’t listen, and now she’s paying the price in the form of insanely high interest rates. I, on the other hand, am going to be smart about this. There’s no such thing as free money. Anything extra, I’m keeping in my savings account and using to pay the sharks back.
Though I suppose buying groceries for Jamie and Wes every now and then would probably make me less of a dick for eating all their food.
I’m chopping up a green pepper at the counter when the front door creaks open. “In here!” I call out. “How do you feel about fajitas?”
“I feel awesome about fajitas!”
I freeze mid-chop. That’s not Jamie’s voice. Or Wes’s. Nope, it’s—
“J-Babe!” Blake looks delighted to see me as he lumbers into the kitchen.