Evan, re-enlisting without telling me? He couldn’t. He wouldn’t…
The previous day, it felt like things had officially changed between us—like we had both decided to officially give in to the undeniable connection between us.
Or maybe he was just stringing me along, a voice in my head said. He got what he wanted, and now he’s free to go.
The thoughts created a bitter taste in my mouth, and I felt like my blood was literally starting to boil. It was a moment before I realized the other nurses were still talking to me.
“Tessa, are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said, though my voice came out harsh. I stood, recognizing the tale-tell stinging in my eyes indicating that angry tears were not far. “Excuse me.”
I bolted from the on-call room and headed straight for the women’s bathroom, were I locked myself in and stood before the mirror. My eyes swam with tears and my face looked a shade too pale.
Pity. I felt nothing but pity for the woman staring back at me. She just couldn’t stop getting hurt. She
had ignored the signs that things had been moving too fast, and now she was going to pay the price.
In the little bit of time I’d known Evan, strangely enough, it felt like he had already hurt me more than Tyler had.
Annoyed, I stormed out of the bathroom. A slow day no longer seemed desirable. I needed to keep busy to keep myself from thinking about how badly I wanted to ring Evan’s neck.
CHAPTER 18
Evan
The last foster family I stayed with, the Vicents, had been fairly decent. In fact, after the several rounds of Hell I’d been through with the previous families, the Vicents had practically been like The Brady Bunch. By the time I made it to their household though, I was already in my late teens, on the brink of adulthood. While the Vicents had treated me kindly enough, I had always harbored resentment toward them and it took me the longest time to figure out why. Logically, I knew I should have been grateful to have finally ended up with a family who didn’t treat me like a second-class citizen. Yet, it wasn’t until I reached legal age that I realized my issue with the Vicent family; I had simply resented them for not coming into my life sooner. I lamented about how my life could have been different had they been the first household I ended up with. I often wondered how much pain and suffering I could have potentially bypassed.
As I got older, I eventually learned to let go of the resentment and accepted that the Vicent household was the only place I could somewhat call home. Whenever I got a break from the military, I wound up on the Vicents’ doorstep. Yet, the military quickly began to change me. It got to the point that when I returned to visit the Vicents, it felt like coming home to a place I truly didn’t belong to anymore despite my sense of loyalty to the only people who had actually treated me like family. I had simply changed too much to fit into their world.
That was precisely how I felt when I returned to the night-shift. Entering the hospital during night hours felt like home, but it also felt like I didn’t entirely belong there anymore. The day shift had changed me—or more accurately, Tessa Kennery had changed me.
“Dr. Sholly, are you all right? You seem a little distracted tonight.”
“I’m fine,” I said to the nurse before me. Sheryl was her name. She was nice, skilled, pretty—but no comparison to Tessa.
Stop it, I said to myself.
“Dr. Sholly!” I turned around, seeing another nurse running toward me, out of breath. “You’re needed to fill in for Dr. Hans. We have a GSW. We have him stabilized, but you need to do the final assessment before surgery.”
I hurried off after her. She led me to a young man with a gunshot wound to the side that had broken a rib. When I got there, the other nurses and technicians stood around as if their job was done.
“He’s all set, Dr. Sholly,” one of them informed.
“Was a full-body examination conducted?” I asked.
They all paused to look at me. “His only injury was in his side and we’ve—”
“Standard procedure is to do a full body examination. You all should know that,” I said, feeling mildly agitated. They all muttered awkwardly around me, apologizing as I finished the full body examination and then sent out a request to get the patient to roll up to surgery.
Sherly stayed behind to help me organize the patient’s files and waited to accompany me in updating his family.
“Are you sure you’re feeling all right, Dr. Sholly? I can tell something is up.”
“Do you know Nurse Kennery, Sheryl?”
She titled her head to the side and glanced up at the ceiling, jogging her memory. “The name sort of rings a bell…”
“Tessa,” I said. “That’s her first name.”