And then came the bigger things, ones that I was terrified of doing and was trying to talk myself into doing, anyway.
Not once, though, did I neglect a patient or become too distracted to care for them fully. I hadn’t even wanted to become a nurse, I’d wanted to be a counselor for abused kids, but I’d be damned if anyone would suffer because of what I was going through. I’d worked my ass off to be a nurse and to understand what patients needed, I wouldn’t ruin that because the people in my life were messed up assholes.
I’d started off in the ER when I’d gotten the job, and now I was on the Neurological Ward dealing with different areas and conditions, which was what I’d focused on during my degree. I’d read up on it, spoken to Neurologists at the hospital I’d worked in, assisted in some surgeries when I’d wanted to get away from my parents… none of it had been by the book, but that had been one perk of being the daughter of Ed and Raquel Rose.
That was why my education had slowed down slightly – because I’d been making sure while I was doing all of this that I was learning everything I could about this area of medicine. I didn’t want to rush through it and then end up fucking up someone’s life.
So, now I was working with patients who had neurological illnesses and traumas, and with the conditions they suffered from, any slip of my focus and concentration could lead to life changing problems. That could happen on any ward, sure, but for some reason neurosciences had always struck me as the most complex out of all of them.
I was still only just starting out in the department and the work was hard as hell, but I loved it and was studying for my neuroscience nursing exam so that I had my CNRN and could take on even more work. I already had a lot of it done, but there was no hurrying this so I was working my ass off to make sure I was confident with what I knew.
In my first week at the hospital in Gonzales County, I’d met the Townsend family when one of their girlfriends had been brought in. It had been Tate Townsend’s girlfriend Lily who’d been caught in a burning building while she was heavily pregnant, so I’d met him and his brother Levi before the others. It had only been minutes before the others, but they were my introduction to the Townsends. I’d been the one assigned with helping them all that night, something that hadn’t made sense until my former boss had let it slip that one of the family members had requested me specifically.
From there, a close friendship had grown between all of us, and I had friends now instead of just work acquaintances. I had a place to go for Thanksgiving, and they’d even invited me to join them for Christmas – if I was still alive by then, that was.
But in the four months that had passed, I’d gotten to know Levi the most. He was a close friend, and I spent a majority of my free time with him, hanging out, crossing off items on my list, and laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe.
My feelings for him weren’t just platonic, though, and that sucked because we were friends - that freaking friend zone - and he’d never given me any sign that it could ever change.
And let’s not forget the what ifs - I didn’t exactly have a lot of time if things between us did change. So maybe I was better to keep him friends, and if the opportunity to have sex with him ever came up, then he’d have helped me with both of my lists.
For now, I’d take anything I could to just hang around with him and enjoy the easy way he could make me laugh and live.Chapter ThreeLeviI was focused on the geological reports that I’d just received for a site we were looking at, so it wasn’t until Tate said her name that I actually listened in to what he was saying. “…Charlotte. I think it’s because she sees you as a science experiment or a freak of medical nature, but Lily thinks she has a crush on you.”
Looking up from the graphs and printouts covering the wooden surface, I frowned over at my brother. “Why would she think I was a freak of medical nature? Y’all just told me I was a freak of nature when we were kids.”
Shrugging, he tossed the apple in his hand up in the air. “Because you are.”
Closing my eyes in frustration, I dropped my head down, doing my best to talk myself out of what I wanted to do badly… and failed. Without even moving my upper body, I kicked out with my right leg, clipping him in the shin with steel toe cap of my safety boot. “Ow, you big, fat monkey sack. What was that for?”