I spendmost of the day at home, pretending to be unwell. It’s actually really nice to sit outside with Akila and talk and talk. Now, though, I need an excuse to not be in our bed when Perry finishes his shift. So, grimacing, I call Katie.
I dislike the bitch.
But she isn’t a nark like Mandy.
She picks up instantly. “Well, well. If it isn’t perfect Shoshanna Adel. Feeling better?” Katie sings through the speaker, her sideways smirk somehow visible, even through the phone.
I nod at the Uber driver as I exit his car, shut the door, and make my way into the hotel foyer. Lowering my head as I pass the doorman, I wrap a hand around my waist as if to protect myself somehow.
“Yeah. . .” I lie. In more ways than she knows.
Sweat slides down my chest and between my breasts, the tiny beads seeping into my low-cut white shirt, turning the material opaque.
I make my way towards the elevator, passing people who don’t know me but whom I still avoid as guilt plays out across my face. A preliminary walk of shame. Not that anything is happening tonight.
Maybe.
Probably.
Just that I shouldn’t be here in the first place. . . But the circumstances are unique. “So I need a favour. I need you to say I’m with you tonight.” Perry would never suspect I’d lower my chin to ask a favour from her, which is exactly why it is the perfect lie. Some lies drag you down with their weight. Others liberate you.
This one does both.
She clicks her tongue. “This has to do with Mr Tall, Tattooed, and Fucking Delicious, doesn’t it?”
I know that if I just admit it, she’ll think she has won and might let it go. “Yes.”
“You know, you’re a lot more interesting since he came to town. This side of you I might even like.”
Stepping into the elevator, I press the level two button, lean back onto the railing, and turn to watch the door close with the loyal and honest version of myself on the other side.
In here, I’m surrounded by mirrors reflecting the girl who has followed me for over a decade. I try not to look at the sixteen-year-old inside me, the one who begs me to steal this moment of freedom with him.
Akila is fine.
“No. You won’t,” I say.
“Yeah, you’re right.” She pauses, the silence teasing without the injection of her voice. “Okay. But. . . what do I get out of it?”
I let out a long sigh as the elevator chimes and then opens, revealing a long cream carpeted hallway with a few trays scattered outside of various doors. Striding out, I say, “I’ll do anything, Katie. Okay? I’ll get you better shifts.”
I hear her scoff. “You don’t have that kind of power.”
“I’m your resident. I could request things for you,” I say, stopping abruptly at room twenty-three. Shaking my head, I think about how crazy this is. I spin to stride back to the elevator, but the girl inside spins me back around and stations me right in front of it. Akila used to say, ‘You two are like magnets’. I seriously feel that pull now.
“Not my boss, though, so I doubt you’ll have any effect over my shifts,” Katie cuts into my thoughts.
“Fine!” I snap, glaring at the number two and the number three as though all my answers lay there, which they do and they don’t. “What do you want?”
“I want you to convince Perry to let me scrub in with you.”
Rolling my eyes, I lean my shoulder on the hallway wall. “He doesn’t like you.”
“I don’t like him. But for some reason helovesyou.”
“He doesn’t trust you,” I point out.
“I’m a better nurse than Mandy,” she bites out. “That sly bitch. You know she has big eyes for him.”