Page 31 of What We Break
Warren's in the hospital's care now. He's a chart number, a handoff. Not mine anymore. That's how this works—you do everything you can, you pass them off, and you move on to the next one. You start carrying every patient with you, this job eats you alive.
But it doesn't matter how often I tell myself that, I still carry them.
But for maybe half a second, looking at Laine, the whole scene just... went quiet. The sirens, the blood, Tony on the radio—all of it just dropped away. Just her eyes on mine.
Fuck. Tony's right. I've got it bad.
And I still don't have her goddamn phone number.
7
LAINE
"Ithink I'm actually dying," I groan, rolling up my yoga mat while sweat drips down my face. "Like, medically speaking, I'm pretty sure my legs have detached from my body."
Jamila, the woman who's been next to me for the past three classes, laughs while toweling off her neck. Her dark skin with gold undertones is gleaming in the sunlight. “Those warrior poses were brutal today. I don't think Jaycee's fully human."
"Right? Normal people don't hold those positions for that long without breaking a sweat." I glance toward the front of the room where our instructor is calmly packing up her things, looking like she just finished a leisurely stroll instead of putting us through an hour of torture.
Even Jamila looks pretty put together. Her dark braids are piled on the top of her head in a way that makes me think they’re about to tumble down any minute. But even in down dog, they didn’t. The woman is magic.
Or she superglued her hair before class.
Meanwhile I look like I fell in a lake. My hair clip gave up twenty minutes ago — just surrendered, popped right off my head like it had somewhere better to be — and my face is a color that exists in sometropical rainforest. "Meanwhile, I look like I've been through a car wash. Without the car."
She laughs. "But you made it through the whole class this time," Jamila points out. "Last week you had to take a break during the flow sequence."
She's right. Three weeks ago when I first started coming to this studio, I could barely make it through the warm-up. The thing about yoga when you're built like me — curvy, solid, what my mother diplomatically calls "sturdy" — is that every pose has a physics component nobody talks about. Warrior two is a completely different experience when your center of gravity lives in your hips. And don't get me started on crow pose. My body heard the instructions and laughed. Audibly.
But I'm keeping up now. Sweating buckets, but keeping up.
"Progress," I say, wiping my face with my towel. "Slow, painful progress."
Jamila's nose wrinkles with her smile. She's got this warm, direct energy — the kind of person who looks you in the eye when she talks and actually listens to the answer. "The best kind. You coming next week?"
"Definitely. I need to figure out how to do that crane pose without falling on my face."
"I finally got it down last month. I'll stick around after class and we can practice together if you want."
I have a crush on her. I think I want to be her best friend. “That would be great, thanks."
Such a small thing. Making plans for next week with someone who isn't leaving town. Someone who'll actually be here when next week comes. I spent ten years socializing almost exclusively with other travel nurses, which meant a constant revolving door of people. You'd get close to someone over three months of shared shifts and bad cafeteria coffee, and then one of you would leave and that was it. Friendship with an expiration date.
I don't know why I didn't try harder to get to know locals wherever I worked. Maybe they could sense the temporary on me. Maybe they didn't want to invest in someone who was already halfway out thedoor.
Maybe I didn't want them to invest either.
"Hey," Jamila says as we're walking toward the door, "a few of us are grabbing smoothies after class next Saturday. You should come."
This is it. This is the moment I've been waiting for. Play it cool Laine. It's just a possible friend. Don't be desperate. "I work most Saturday nights, but if it's early enough..."
"We usually go around four. That work?"
"Perfect. I'd love to."
"Great. See you next week, Laine."
I wave goodbye and head out to my car, still dripping and probably looking like a disaster. But I'm smiling. It's not a deep friendship yet — we don't know each other's middle names or childhood fears. But it's a start. I like her. She's funny and direct and she doesn't make me feel like I have to perform. Which, honestly, is rarer than it should be.
