Page 32 of Colt
His sparkle would have to be dimmed for him to reach down and touch me.
I don’t want that. Not for either of us.
“I think the bigger problem would be dating her stepbrother in a small town,” Sarah says pragmatically.
“Well. Yeah. That sounds like an absolute nightmare. And again, one of the many, many reasons it’s simply an impossibility. It’s never going to be like that.”
“Yeah. Okay.” We have a couple of walk-ins asking for the installation of permanent jewelry. Sarah does one, and I do the other. It’s a fun process that involves a welding pen, and I really enjoy it. I never considered myself creative until I started working at Sammy’s. She showed me some jewelry-making techniques since she hired me, and it makes me want to make things of my own. I didn’t leap in and get jewelry-making supplies, but I did get back into knitting. Which might not seem like the same thing, it’s all about creating new things and putting them out in the world.
I used to knit with my mom while she got her infusions. I stopped for a long time because it just hurt. But now I can find the peace in it again.
I like that. I want to be a nurse so that I can save people. I want to create things. Cancer isn’t an entity; it’s a disease. It doesn’t know how much I hate it. It doesn’t know the destruction that it causes. It’s not sentient.
Sometimes I wish it were. So that a heartyfuck cancermight mean something.
So the fact that I’m getting a job to help defeat something that steals, tears apart, destroys, might matter. I’m going to sit with people while they fight cancer. I’m going to help them find the strength to continue treatment, I’m going to be comforting and help them feel dignity, hope and peace.
I kind of wish cancer knew that.
But it doesn’t. And it never will. So I just have to make things, including making a difference, because it matters to me.
Everything else is something you can’t control.
When I get off my shift, I have a text from Cindy who wants Colt and me to come over for dinner tomorrow night if he has the energy. A family dinner, she says, with Gentry and Lily. I used to be so jealous of Lily because she got to run around with the boys. She was somehow one of them when I never was. I used to worry that Colt would fall in love with her, because she is beautiful, that is true. And I wondered if he would fall for her. Honestly, that could still happen.
I don’t ruminate about that. Because it’s silly. I need to stop ruminating in general.
I decide to go to the store in person, and pick up some frozen meals that will be easy for Colt to heat up for himself, some Cokes and beer, coffee for his house, and a few things to make a quick dinner. For tonight, I just get lazy and grab a precooked half rack of ribs along with some potato salad and macaroni salad. It’s going to be a beige wonder of a meal, but I don’t have the energy to worry about nutrition. I’ll just pray over it and call it good. The thought makes me laugh, though honestly, any thought about good health at the moment for Colt makes me laugh. A lack of green vegetables is the least of his concerns.
I give him a courtesy text before I pop over again. And then I ring the doorbell about twenty times before I walk in.
When I do, he’s sitting on the couch looking at me. “I’m not getting up.”
“Well, I didn’t want to walk in on you naked again.” My bad for bringing up the nudity immediately.
“It doesn’t make any difference to me. I have no modesty left. I’ve had nurses sponge out creases I didn’t know I had.”
I’m aware that that’s going to be part of my job as a nurse. You have to take care of people to the best of your ability, while preserving their dignity, but sometimes dignity is just hard to come by because injury and illness can be such an undignified experience. But the people caring for you can make it better. Andthey can make it worse. I met so many great and terrible medical professionals during my mom’s illness. And that was just me as a kid. So I can’t imagine how much more intense it was for the adults, for my mom.
“Did you have good nurses?”
He frowns. “Weird question. But yes.”
“It’s not a weird question. This is what I want to do. I think that it’s really important to have medical professionals who show you a lot of care. Even when they’re sponging out creases.”
“Wow. But yeah. I was really lucky, I think. Everyone was great.”
“I’m glad. I’ll probably end up getting work in Tolowa.” I carry the bags through the room and head into the kitchen. I open up his fridge and start putting things away, then I get out plates and silverware for the dinner that I brought home.
It takes a while, but eventually he comes into the kitchen. “You’re going to move away?”
“It makes the most sense. And I might not move. I might stay here. It’s only a forty-five-minute drive. But maybe I’ll work in the cancer center or…I don’t know.”
“My mom will probably see it as an excuse to get some investment properties in Tolowa.”
I grin. “Yeah. Okay. Probably.”
“Do you want to move?”
