Page 19 of Holiday Love
“It’s okay,” I interrupt, rushing to heal the wounds I inflicted. “Seriously, I understand why you had to stay with Carter. Please don’t feel bad, Gwen.”
She sniffles, her voice watery. “I wanted to be there for you. Wish I could take care of you now. Maybe you should come to New York? Stay with us?”
Hating that hopeful rise in her voice, I shake my head at the phone. “California is my home. I want to stay here. You’re busy with Carter anyway.”
“I’m never too busy for you.”
“I know, and I appreciate it, Sissy,” I say, using Gwen’s nickname to soothe her. She always likes it when I say that holdover from when we were little. Back then, I couldn’t pronounce the name Gwen, so she became Sissy, and it’s been that way ever since. “I want to stay here. I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t know…” She trails off into silence. At least her tears have slowed. When she speaks again, her voice is careful, measured, like she’s tiptoeing around a stick of dynamite. “Are you sure you can live with Helen without things getting…complicated?”
A prickle of heat crawls up the back of my neck. “Me? Complicated?” I scoff. “Please. I’m a dream roommate—quiet, tidy, never eats anyone’s leftovers.”
A disbelieving huff from Gwen. “Did you forget I’ve actually lived with you? You’renoneof those things.” She pauses, then says in a rush, “It’s just that Ireallylike Helen. She’s become a good friend—”
“I won’t do anything to jeopardize that.”
“Are you sure?”
I put my hand over my heart. “I promise. It’ll be fine.”
I tell myself it’s true, that it’s a promise I can keep.
Maybe if I say it enough, I’ll start to believe it.
Chapter ten
Helen
“No thanks. I don’t want it,” I say for the third time, ducking my head to avoid the black eyeliner in Lindsey’s hand.
“Come on, Dr. Chu,” Lindsey practically whines, “just a couple of whiskers. I can draw them on you super-fast. You’d make a great cat.”
She lunges at me again, and I twist away. “I told you. I don’t want to dress up or put on make-up for Halloween.”
I look around, still amazed by the transformation of our Emergency Department. Apparently, Lindsey and a couple of the other nurses got approval from the higher-ups to decorate for Halloween. Starting a few days ago, they’d gone to work, putting up glowing jack-o’-lanterns and gauzy spiderwebs with bowlsof candy corn everywhere. Skeletons dangle from the ceiling, swaying in the breeze of the air conditioner.
A respiratory tech walks by wearing a pointy witch’s hat. The phlebotomist has a pair of plastic vampire teeth and is running around telling people, “Iwantto draw your blood” in a fake Transylvanian accent before laughing hysterically.
Dr. G let Lindsey draw a fake mustache on his upper lip, but when she turned her attention to me, demanding I be a cat, I put my foot down.
“No way,” I say as firmly as possible, eyeing the waterproof eyeliner she’s brandishing. That stuff won’t come off for days.
“Have a little fun, Dr. Chu.Puh-lease?” Lindsey folds her hands together in an exaggerated plea.
I grip my clipboard tighter. I don’t like this. I don’t like it when people push me. My heart beats harder than it should for something so stupid. I know she’s just teasing, but it feels like I’m being cornered, which sparks a low, buzzing panic deep in my chest.
Flustered and overstimulated, I snap, “Look, I’m a five-foot-tall, biracial Asian woman with a high-pitched voice. Do you know how hard it is to get patients, oranyone, really, to take me seriously?”
Lindsey takes a step back, as her teasing grin collapses into something uncertain.
“Well,” I demand, throwing my hands up, “do you? Add in cat whiskers and no one will listen to me.”
“I—I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way,” she stutters, stepping back again, putting more distance between us.
A second too late, I register the way her shoulders hunch. The way her hand slips the eyeliner back into her pocket. How she won’t meet my gaze.
Ugh.
