| |
ZOE
––––––––
It had been almost five weeks since Zoe had last seen Julius, having managed to beg and plead with others in her department to trade shifts. In some cases, Zoe had had to do several shifts back-to-back, but the exhaustion was worth it if it meant that she didn’t need to see Julius. She wasn’t sure that she would be able to pretend to be civil with him, to act as if nothing had happened, and the last thing she wanted was for others at work to see them together and to draw the wrong conclusion, or worse, the right conclusion.
No, Zoe would never live it down, not after her warning to other staff about inter-staff relationships. The worst part though wasn’t working crazy hours to avoid him, it was what happened when she got home. Try as she might to ignore and avoid him, her traitorous head and heart refused to listen, and each night she would go through the same routine.
She would check her house phone answering machine, followed by her cell phone voice mails, her cell phone text messages, her emails, and then, finally, her house letterbox. Nothing. Night after night, she would check, and night after night, there would be nothing from Julius. She had been stunned when he had left her that night and had fully expected him to text her later, apologising, but nothing.
As the days stretched on, Zoe was forced to admit what she had known all along, that Julius had meant what he had said. She had lost her best friend. All for one single night of mind-blowing pleasure. She wished that she could go back and change it, to that night, she would simply say goodnight and wave goodbye, instead of inviting him in. She was the reason she lost Julius, no one else was to blame, she threw her best friend away for selfish reasons.
As the weeks went past, Zoe withdrew into herself, barely remembering to eat most days, her stomach a constant churning storm. While her staff were scared of her before, they were positively terrified now, scurrying out of her way whenever she appeared. Not that she cared, she reminded herself each night as she cried herself to sleep. She preferred to be alone, it was better, she could do as she liked and no one would hurt her.
She reminded herself again the following morning when she dashed to the bathroom at work, losing her breakfast in private, as tears poured down her face. She heard a flush from the next stall and cringed, hoping they hadn’t heard her. The last thing she needed was to be reported as being unwell enough to do her job. She was just tired, that was all, bone achingly tired.
Zoe knew her avoiding tactics wouldn’t work forever. Shortly before the lunchtime rush, she was supervising one of her nurses as she spoke to a teenage patient when in walked Julius, surrounded by a gaggle of junior doctors. The unexpected sight of him caused a pain deep in Zoe’s chest, and she turned her head away from him, pressing her lips together tightly, ignoring the look of concern she saw flashing through his eyes.
She listened carefully to what he said, making notes in case her nurse missed anything. This was a teaching hospital, it was an honour to be accepted as a nurse or doctor here, and to be trained by the best in both fields. Zoe turned her attention back to the patient, a shy fifteen-year-old who had presented with excruciating backache.
“Nurse, a moment please?” Julius spoke over her shoulder. Head held high, Zoe walked out ahead of Julius and his team, stopping in the hallway a short distance from the patient’s room.
“You know the diagnosis?” Julius asked.
“Yes,” Zoe confirmed, a pang of sympathy for the girl whose life was about to change.
“I thought so,” Julius sighed. “I was called in by her father, a colleague of mine, when she first presented. You’ll take care of her?”
“I take care of all of my patients, doctor.” Zoe didn’t bother to hide the bite in her voice, simply turning on her heel and walking away, returning to her patient.
“I don’t understand,” Zoe’s nurse mused as they walked back to the main desk, having just left the patient’s room, “how can she not realise that she was pregnant? Or that she was in early labour?”
“It is more common than you think. Her period was irregular to start with and continued throughout the pregnancy, her only symptoms were extreme tiredness, which she thought was from staying up too late,” Zoe explained.
“Poor thing.”
“She has family around her that love her, she will be okay,” Zoe assured her young nurse, a niggling concern at the back of her mind. When the day finally slowed down, Zoe nipped out to the pharmacy next door, rushing back to use the staff bathroom. She pulled her purchase from her bag and opened it, reading the instructions carefully, chastising herself for even being here to start with.
Zoe sat in the stall, waiting, two minutes stretching an eternity, jumping when her timing eventually beeped. Looking at the stick in her hand, Zoe had her answer. Throwing everything in the bin, she washed her hands and returned to work.
It was a long day, another back to back shift for Zoe, who didn’t leave until almost dawn the following day, when the hospital was quiet and the world outside was not yet awake.
This was Zoe’s favourite time of the day, her time to think, to daydream, to rage, to be herself. There was so much possibility at the start of a new day, Zoe loved to greet it, loved to revel in all it contained.
As she made her way across the carpark, she saw a familiar figure emerge from a different section of the hospital and start to make their way across the carpark, headed for the staff accommodation. If she kept walking, their paths would eventually intersect before branching off into different directions. She kept walking, head held high, heart rate picking up the closer she got. She saw his eyes round in surprise when he saw her, he obviously wasn’t expecting to see her here.
“Emergency?” He questioned, and she could almost imagine that he cared.
“Double shift, I have them all month,” she wasn’t sure why she explained that to him. “I’m pregnant,” she blurted out, “I found out today.” Zoe hadn’t intended to tell Julius quite like this, maybe not at all, truthfully she had yet to even consider her options, but now that it was out, she didn’t regret it.
“No,” she watched as the colour drained from Julius’s face, shock registering in his eyes. “Tell me you’re joking, Zoe, tell me this is a mistake?” Julius grabbed her forearms, shaking her gently.
“Mistake or not, I’m pregnant,” she stepped back, removing her arms from his grasp.
“No. This,” he gestured to her stomach, “that, is a mistake, one that can be fixed, don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything.” He nodded, all business-like.
“Obviously, this is not what you wanted, maybe I shouldn’t have told you, but I think you deserve to know.” Zoe looked at Julius, shaking her head sadly at the man in front of her. How could she have been so wrong about him? This person in front of her was not the Julius that she had loved for the past decade, this was not her dearest friend, this person she didn’t recognise.
“You’re right, this is not what I wanted.” Zoe watched, mouth agape, as he turned and strode off. Zoe drove home in a daze, locking up her house and going through the motions of showering and brushing her teeth on autopilot. She didn’t remember choosing pyjamas or crawling into bed, only a deep emptiness that surrounded her.
Had Julius meant what Zoe thought he had meant? Would she fight him, if he insisted on a termination? Zoe didn’t know. All she knew for sure was that she had made a lifetime of regrets in a single night.
She wished that she had never gone to that stupid ball, she should have stayed home as she had intended to, with a book, stayed where it was safe. She could have heard about the ball the following day, soaking up the gossip like a sponge, pretending that she didn’t care that she hadn’t gone.
At least then she would still have Julius. Instead, she was even more alone now than she had ever been, only now, she was pregnant. An image of her mother flashed into her mind. No, Zoe thought vehemently, she was nothing like her mother. Her mother had pursued her father, falling pregnant against his wishes and having Zoe.
Her father had come back once Zoe was born and had given her mother an ultimatum. Him or the baby. Her mother had chosen him and Zoe had been raised by a grandmother until social services stepped in when she was eight. The damage had already been done, Zoe already aloof and distrustful.
Nursing was her salvation, her one place to belong, a place where she could use all of that love that she had never had a chance to give, showering it on her patients instead. When she had met Julius, she had poured all of her love and attention into cultivating their friendship, now she wasn’t sure what she would do.
