My Shattered Reality

Chapter 6 My Brotherly Bond

“Candy?” I asked once again. I couldn’t help it but my eyes started to wander down ward…

Gah, Damnit, keep your eyes on her face, keep your eyes locked onto her gorgeous ones…

I looked right back up to her. Admittedly, eye contact was a little difficult for me, not exactly bringing good things in my past. But I managed and she smiled.

“Do you remember a single thing from last night?” She asked. I shook my head. “Good, because it’s a little blurry to me, too.”
I then had a good idea.

“Well, than, my sweet, sweet, Candy,” I said hopefully smoothly, though I don’t think it came out that way. “Should we just have to do it again to remember how it went?”
She nodded happily and she leaned down on me again, her bare skin against mine. Oh, my god, it’s been so long. Ok, only four months, but still.

I put my hand behind her neck and pulled her lips to mine. Damn, this woman could kiss.

Hands gone wild, more than my libido. Which, by the way, was getting the most it’s had in months. I hadn’t exactly been ‘relieving sexual tension on myself’ in quite a while, let alone an actual girl.

I suddenly paused.

“Protection?” I asked her.

“I’m on the pill,” She gasped out. That was all I needed. I put my hand behind her neck and pulled her lips to mine once again. She wrapped her arms around me, pressing her body (and her beautiful chest!) to my torso and I fell back with her on top of me…

A few hours later, we were both lying in bed, our extremities tangled up. As usual (for me) the blinds were closed, so it was thankfully dark. That was actually a good thing for me. I had a lot of scars and if one person saw more than half at once (and so far only my brother and some hospital people in my hometown have), that would be hard to explain. However, just one or two…drives women MAD. The weird thing is they don’t seem to care too much if I say it was a car blew up and I was borderline close to explain a burn, however they really love it if I say I had a stove accident to explain the burn.

Women are weird. Or maybe it was the whole honesty thing.

But anyway, Candy was just stroking my chest and my left forearm (like I said, small scars drive women crazy!) and seemed to be only half awake.

“That was fun,” I said at random out loud.

“Yes, it was.”

“Think we’ll ever do that again?”
“Probably not,” she said honestly.

“I kinds figured that,” I said back. She slowly got up and picked up her lacy underwear (this woman wears this stuff to work?) and sloooooowly put on her clothes. What a parting gift. Woot!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I smiled, looking down at the stove. I managed to scrape today off so I woke up a little late, but Carla and Izzy were asleep, so I decided to eat quietly, and I turned the TV on as low as I could while still hearing it, and smiled. But after I deal with a bunch of office paper work and a bunch of other stuff, they’re still asleep. So I spent the last hour or so trying to make a fancy brunch for her and a few other things for her and Izzy. But I heard a gentle knock at the door.

“Vanilla Bear?” I asked him. “What’s with the goofy grin?”
“I just had the best night. And then seeing as we forgot it, we re did the whole thing and then she had work so I came right here.”
“Ah…”
“Candy, from the bar.”
Then it hit me.

“So you got a little o’ that action?”
“Not little. A lot!” Then he just seems to gaze off.

“JD!” I say, and he then comes back.

“She is one of the best things that ever happened! I mean, she was…god damn…I mean…but still, this was the greatest night in so long…”
“If you’re quiet, you can tell me about it later.” He nods and walks in quietly, and takes a seat on the couch, and I quickly pile the little brunch/lunch thing onto a bed tray and set it by Carla, and then came back into the room, and sat down.

“You say she…what?”

“Yeah, I mean god damn, her moves were brilliant and she gave me a great parting gift by dressing reeeeeal slowly, ya know what I mean or ya know wat I mean?”

I high-fived him and we both fell apart laughing.

I listened for the next half hour as he recapped the whole thing and I just listened.

I watched him carefully. He was genuinely smiling, grinning like an idiot. And I don’t mean that one he’s had for the last few weeks that sometimes makes you wonder if it’s fake. This was real, and you knew it when you saw it.

“Man, oh man, the best of one night stands!”

I smile broadly and hug him and say, “Good for you, Vanilla Bear.”

“Oh, and I’m meeting her again tomorrow afternoon.”
“You two an item, now?”
“Nope. She left because she had a shift, then tonight she has some family coming…then tomorrow, we’re just finishing what we started, plain and simple.”
I roll my eyes.

“Dude, gonna get more condoms?”
“She’s on the pill!”

We talk a little more and soon after, Carla wakes up and comes in, carrying an empty plate, and JD and I fill her in, and she smiles like an idiot like both of us and we all just laugh it off.

Finally, I think. He’s moving on with his life.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The last weekend was one of the best of my lives. I smile when I wake up shivering like hell in my tent. Even though I’m cold and I have to go to work in a few hours, I am way too happy and joyful to really care.

So I get ready, but then grab a list of places to find an apartment and find a good, but cheap, place. Maybe a place close to Sacred Heart, but gives me easy access to my land. I think I’ll just use it as a temporary place, or I’ll keep the land just to build a pool on it. A half acre is a lot more than people think. And I have a lot in my savings account, and a few months ago I have finally paid off all my debt. I could use my current salary for a crappy apartment until I can get some cool pool built and then I can get nicer apartment if I have anything left. Or maybe…

Okay, focus on current goal: find good, cheap, apartment.

I circle a few to look through later and I get straight to work, and change into my scrubs. Normally I wear my doctor’s coat to cover a scars on my arm, but now I just go back to my old and now more comfortable choice: long sleeve shirt under the scrubs.

I walk outside, and I think everyone can tell I’m in a good mood. Probably because I’m wearing a big, goofy, cheesy grin on my face. But either way, it goes great.

“Cindy!” Doctor Cox cries out. He looks like he’s about to go on some long rant, but he then gave me an odd look.

“Newbie, why the hell are you smiling when I am about to yell at you?”
“Do you really care?”

“No, I don’t.”

I kept talking, anyway,

“I landed Candy the Bartender this weekend. Best in my life…I forgot how warm and soft women can be…”
He just shakes his head and rolls his eyes, then he goes into his long rant about how I am supposed to check on ICU every single day. He knows I do, he’s just venting some form of frustration on me. Like I said, I’m the world’s punching bag. But today, I don’t even listen to him.

Don’t get me wrong, a few select words like ‘idiot’ and ‘incompetent’ reach me, but I’m much more into remembering last night…

But I snap out of it when out pagers beep. We both curse simultaneously and run for it.

Grace had gone into shock this weekend. They got her out of it, but she went unconscious and now was in the ICU. But now she just coded.

“Clear!”

“Get me the sedative!”
“Call for a gurney!”

“Where’s my adrenalin?”
I listen and help as best as I can, feeling my stomach drop every second.

But then we all freeze and just drop everything in our hands when there is one, long, beep. I remember how it went.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-

Then at that point, I just punched the heart monitor, and it clattered to the ground.

“NO!” I shout at the dead girl in the bed. Damnit, she was doing fine. Just before she went into shock, we were already chatting about her plans when she would get out of this hellhole this week. I knew I shouldn’t have taken those days off…

I walked right out into the room and straight to the staff lounge. What happened? What went wrong?

I sat down, just pondering it. But eight minutes later, my thought process is interrupted.

“Hello,” I said a little stiffly to Doctor Cox.

“Thinking about Wronski?”

“Grace.”

“I told you not to get attached to patients. You’re just making this harder on yourself.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “She was doing so well. What did I do wrong?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I shouldn’t have taken that weekend off…”

“I told you this before and I’ll say it again: no matter what you or me or anyone else does, we have the least control. God or fate or luck, whatever you want to call it, has the most control. Wronski drew the short straw. That’s all there is to it.”

“We’re doctors. We save people, not just keep them alive so some ominous force can kill them.”
He shakes his head and simply says, “Don’t torture yourself over this. It isn’t a mistake, or anything like that. It was luck of the draw.”

And with that, he walked right back out at the beep of his pager.

One thing I hate about hospitals is how quickly the mood can change. I started out with a great day. Now it was the bottom of the pits. I mean, for crying out loud, I loved my job one moment, and less than a minute later I despise and loathe it with a passion.

Sometimes, I hate my life.

I purse my lips, and lace my fingers through each other, and rest my chin on them. This is one of my weirder days. What the hell does God have against me? I mean, okay I don’t believe in him, but still.

I’m not sure I believe in fate anymore, but rather think that’s everyone’s choices chooses their lives. And I never did believe in God. I was told he helped anyone who prayed. I prayed like hell when I was young, but by age seven, it was all still the same. And as for luck…well, I also stopped believing in good luck by age nine, anyway, at least concerning me.

Chance. That was it. Not luck, fate, not God. Just…chance.

Damnit.

And I thought I was a doctor.

I sigh and get up. I do have other patients. I let one die on me today, I’m not going to let anyone else die on me, as well.

And also make it a point to keep up my pretenses. I still walk around with a big goofy smile, and I actually fool just about everyone. Even the Janitor.

But a surprise is waiting for me when I come back to work the next day.

“Dan!” I cry out in the parking lot, and he turns around.

“Johnny!” he shouts. He nuggies me and I squirm my way out of it and stand up.

“Aren’t you here like three days early?”
“Yeah, I convinced her, my boss, to let me off a little earlier, even if it means I come back a little earlier, as well.” We walk into the hospital and everyone who knows him greets him.

“Heeey, Coxy!” he says when he sees him. “How’s it going, Chief?”
“Oh, dear god, Newbie, did you just have to drag him in? I knew installing that cat door was a bad idea, but does anyone listen to me? No…”

“Hey, Chief?” Dan said. “Shut up. Now, JD, I was just talking with the right people, and who the hell is this Candy woman? And does she have a sister?”
He puts his arm around my shoulder and we walk off, laughing like good old times, as I tell him all about my one-night stand that lasted the whole weekend.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I watch those two brothers leave the waiting room. And when no one’s looking, I give myself a small smile.

I am honestly wondering if maybe Newbie was lying or exaggerating when he was drunk. Either that or he was a damn good actor. But I really like the first idea better.

And now with his brother here, and some sexcapade he had over the weekend, he’s definitely doing a lot better.

Yeah, I think he is.

No, I know he is.

I am positive now that he was lying. And think I’ll ‘talk’ to him about, though. I mean, what can go wrong?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I smile at my little brother while we’re in the staff lounge. It’s several hours later, and while we had talked a lot (and he had to leave and come back a few times), we were somehow right back where we started: Candy Florensco.

“I can’t believe you got a woman to have a one night stand with you,” I said finally. “Although I suppose if she was drunk…”
“You’re jealous!”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

We went back and forth like this for another two minutes before finally we both cracked up at our old game.

“So,” I finally say after a little bit more of catching up. “I hear you live in a tent?”

“Yeah, but I am going to go look at a few apartments next week. But who knows, I might just stay…”

I frown a little.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I ask him. JD nods and I just shrug. “Have it your way.”

“I might also get a pool, set up my Slip N’ Slide, and one of those jet spas that chicks just dig, ooh, and-”

“Johnny? I get it.”

He laughed and we got up so he could do his job and I could follow.

“Hello, there,” I said to a young woman in one of the beds.

“Dan, lay off of Courtney.”

“How about I stop this before it starts?” Courtney said. “I have a boy friend.”

“Oh…” I said.

“Dan, if you could please leave for a moment so I can give Courtney a check up.”
I left but listened in.

“Do you really have a boyfriend?” my brother asked as he tinkered with some machines.

“No, but it got him to shut up, didn’t it?”
“Nice.”
“You have a girlfriend? Or boyfriend?”
“No…flirting with a girl, though, and I had a best one night stand recently.”

“Who and who?”
“A bartender. Named Candy.”
“Blonde hair, blue highlight, usually wears a lot of pink and black?”
“Yeah.”
“I know her. She’s one of my sister’s friends!”

“All right. Well, we hit it off…and now we’re just back to normal.”

“And the girl you’re flirting with?”
Yeah, Johnny, who are you flirting with?

“There’s a young woman down in our Pharmaceuticals Department. Jenny Rosetta Anderson.”

She laughed.

“So, who was that guy that was with you?”
“My older brother’s visiting.”
“Ah…well, he’s cute, though.”
“I thought you wanted him out?”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t give him a chance. What does he do?”
“Bartender. Hold on, I’m gonna have to take a heart check.”
I watched from a corner as she turned around and Johnny got his hand on her back, under that gown, and started taking down her heartbeat.

“Does he live around here?”
“Actually, he’s only here for a few days or so, but he lives in Ohio.”

“No kidding? I’m considering that area for an internship.”
“Cool. So, anything problems with your chest? Breathing troubles or anything like that?”
“I feel a little tight…”
“Yeah, that’ll probably be due to the ribcage damage you took.”
“Okay. Does your older brother have an e-mail?”
“Yes, I do!” I said, walking back in.

“You were listening the whole time, weren’t you?” Johnny asked.

“Yep. Anyway, young lady…”

I gave her my e-mail and then Johnny told me she had to get some rest because tomorrow she was going to another hospital to be cared for by her brother.

“Turk!” I shouted.

“Hey, man, slap a brother some skin,” He said. We high-fived and I followed those two to their locker rooms, and we kept talking while those two changed into their streets.

“So, grab a few drinks?” I asked them.

“Can’t,” Turk said. “I’m spending some time with Izzy and Carla.”
I thought for a second.

“Can I meet the mini-you?” I asked him. He pulled out his cell phone and called Carla.

“Carla? Hey, babe…yeah, I’ll grab some groceries. Anyway, Dan came…yes, I mean JD’s bro. Anyway, he wants to meet Izzy. What do you…uh…yes, I’ll grab that too. Baby, since when do you like KFC? Yeah, yeah, I’ll grab some…don’t worry. All right, love you two.”
He hung up.

“Yeah, come on, but I have to grab some groceries and some KFC, all right?”
I nodded happily and followed them, though after I told Elliot that with a recent development, I would be getting a motel room, but thanked her, anyways.

We came to their apartment and I got to meet the little tyke.

“She’s so adorable.” I said. I gently picked her up and cradled her a little, Carla tracking my every move with her eyes.

“I didn’t know you were that good with babies,” Turk said.

“I’m good with kids in general. I take care of them pretty good, too.”
The baby started hiccupping a little so I bounced her up a down slightly. A small burp and she was giggling again.

“I didn’t know you were so good with kids, really, I mean it,” Carla said in what I’m pretty sure was shock.

“Ah…well…I always took care of JD when we were kids…sides, he wasn’t the only one in the fam to want to go into the medical field. I always considered a pediatrician. But I needed the money more than I could afford a degree, so, no dice there.”

Carla took her back and left the room to breast feed Izzy while we sat down and started catching up in our lives.

“…so she just sat right on me!” Johnny said.

“You’re kidding, right?” I asked.

“No! She sat right on me and I just said I was cool and she just ignored me…though she shifted her weight…and then I had to get up and go home, but still, it was wonderful!”
“You’ve been getting a lotta action lately,” I commented.

“He’s just been getting lucky,” Turk countered.

We were all laughing when Carla came back and called us all idiots. We watched two hours of sitcoms after that, and we started raving for something more to eat.

“I have some money, we can order some pizza.” That was a general agreement so we went through his bag and got the number to call.

We got the pizza and watched some pointless movies and Carla made us stay the night. I took the couch while Turk made JD a temporary bed with a bunch of blankets and pillows, and a nice sleeping bag, on the floor.

But after JD went to sleep, Turk came back into the kitchen to find me snacking a burrito.

“Hey,” I asked him. “Why was Carla so…intent on getting Johnny to stay?”
“Neither of us really like him sleeping in a tent. So we try and get him to stay as often as possible.”

I frowned.

“Why not just let him stay here then?”
“He won’t want to. He likes his tent. Maybe just the freedom.”
“Still the same…” I muttered.
“What?”
“We needed to learn early on how to put ourselves in positions where we can run.”
“Why?”

“Our mom got drunk a lot, so we didn’t want to be around her when she did.” I left out the part where whatever boyfriend of the week she had was also usually beating up Johnny, as well.

“That sucks.” He said. “So, any plans for while you’re here?”
“Not yet. We’ll probably just hang out this time.”

We talked a little bit more, and then he went to bed, but I stayed up.

I looked over to Johnny and sighed. I was planning on telling him not to come back to our hometown.

Frank George Stephan had been given a five year prison sentence ten years ago for some tax fraud or something like that. He got out and was living all right. But now he was trying to ‘only be friends’ with our mom.

But he also nearly killed Johnny. He was one of the worst of mom’s boy friends. We even took JD to a hospital, but he still nearly died. He had to tell those people he was mugged and the attacker got overtly pissed. Hell, even I took a few punches, which almost never happened.

I got up and set the plate back on the counter…

“Hey, sleeping beauty.”

I jumped and looked. Apparently I just woke Johnny up.

He came up and grabbed a vanilla/chocolate pudding cup from the fridge and sat down, and I did the same. He didn’t really look that hungry and seemed to be eating more out of something to keep his hands busy than to actually fill his stomach…which seems to have shrunken quite a bit since I last saw him.

“What has you down?” He asked me. I looked up from my spoon and looked at him.

“Nothing much, I guess. Just thinking.”
“Bout what?”
“Stuff.” he stopped.

“Seriously, what’s on your mind?”
I sighed. Guess it’s now or tomorrow. After that, probably never.

“Ah…don’t come back home.”
He frowned.

“Why?”
“Frank Stephan’s back, and I don’t know if he wants to start where he left off, but he’s talking with mom again.”
As expected, he paled.

“Is she crazy?” He said. “If he starts again…she’ll be taking the hits.”
“I don’t think so, to be honest. He still gets drunk and all, but he also took a construction job. Maybe his exhaustion will keep mom safe.”
Johnny looked down.

“Don’t worry, little bro. I’m taking care of her. But please don’t come back. That bastard nearly killed you.”
“Don’t remind me.” He frowned in thought. “What the hell does he want with her, anyway?”
“Who knows? But like I said. I don’t think it would be the best of ideas. I don’t think mom even remembers his last name…Frank George Stephan, remember?”

Johnny shrugged.

“I guess so…she might be all right.”
“Does anyone here know?” I asked him.

“Know what?” he said, though I wondered if he knew I was being sarcastic.
“You know what I mean.”
“I was being sarcastic. None of them know and none of them are going to know.”

“You were always like that, annoying actually. I never got how those guys could be beating the crap out of you and yet you never let out one squeak.”

“If I cry, it gets worse. It’s a lesson that even applies in my life right now.”
I sighed and took a good look at him.

“Do you ever sleep?”

“I’m a doctor, so of course not.”
I just shook my head.

“Johnny…you stop eating and sleeping when you get depressed.”
“Well, I was, all right? Kim and I were looking forward to Jamie, but neither of us could probably ever handle it. But now…I’m just getting better.”
I shook my head to myself.

“Ah, well.” He said. “It was only a happy future that went out the window.”
“Johnny, don’t mull over this too much, all right?” he nodded and we both went back to bed.

It was the day after that idiot Daniel Dorian showed up at this hellhole. I was going to have to come up with a stupid nickname for him. Hm…

Oh, god, there’s Newbie. What girls name haven’t I used yet? Oh, forget it.

I whistled out my signature whistle.

“Cinderella!” I cried out. “Because I am running out of girls’ names I am going to start using Disney characters, understood? I’ll start with female ones to ease out the transition, just like I did with the doggie names, and soon we’ll be on our way.”
I responded before he could say anything. It was the only way to keep these idiots in line.

“Go check the vitals of that stab wound, and make sure the police investigating don’t aggravate her into a cardiac arrest, then I want you to do down and check on that car crash kiddie in Pediatrics and take some basics, make sure her surgeons didn’t nick her crushed aorta, then I want you to take these,” I handed him four charts. “Off my hands for this week.”

I waited for him to protest this and say something about fairness. But then I realized he zoned out.

I snapped my fingers in front of his face and shouted, “NEWBIE!”

“Ahh! I didn’t do it!” for a moment he actually looked fearful before he came back to reality.

“Then go do it and take care of these patients! And stop slipping into your fluffly little day dreams and go do your job, you idiot, or I’ll actually take up to the roof and throw you off it in the high hopes that the impact will knock some sense into your thick skull!”

I then took a good look at his face.

“And for god’s sake, Newbie, get some rest, it’s called beauty sleep for a reason, now I know you just had to stay up all night to straighten and dye your hair and get that manicure, but please sleep every now and then, or you’ll collapse on me like the anorexic you’re becoming and then I’ll be the one who has to treat you, and I have enough on my hands, got it?”

He opens his mouth to say something.

“What!? What do you not understand?” I ask him.

“Do you need me to check on the Wasserman woman?”
He was actually offering to cover one of my patients this afternoon?

“Fine, Newbie, fine! Now go, shoo, shoo like a flying carpet on the wind, Jasmine!”

But when he leaves, I hide a smile to myself. Recently, he’s been doing that a lot more lately, slipping off into his own little world. I know he’s just thinking. I’ve worked with him long enough to know some different faces, and I know Day-Dream Face from Thinking Face (yes, I know these things – they were MY interns, so shut up) and he’s been ‘thinking’ rather than day-dreaming all morning, about what I don’t know, but hey, better than nothing, right?

With that I went to the cafeteria. Finally. I’ve been working for the last six hours, and I would wait to just rest and eat for the next hour and a half or so.

I grab a lunch and sit down in a little booth next to a corner (the one actually in the corner was taken by a couple who I know was waiting for their kid to come out of a heart transplant) and I just bit into my grilled cheese and swallowed. Finally, sustenance. I never get how some of the people around here can just keep on going with nothing in their stomachs.

I smirk.

“Hey, Chief.”

Said facial expression melts off my face
Damnit.

“Dumbest,” hey, that’s a good name for Newbie’s brother. “Why are you trying to be the cloud on my sunny day?”
“Since when do you use Mother Nature metaphors?”
“Oh, who cares?” Damnit. “The point is, I don’t like you, I don’t like you here, I don’t want you here. You got that Sam I Am?”
“I understand.”
“So shoo!”
“I said I understand. I didn’t I was actually going to listen.”

“Why are you so much harder to scare than your little brother?” I asked as he bit into his own grilled cheese.

“Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Not another ‘Take my mantle of Newbie looking up to you’ speech.”

“Not exactly. Why do you have to scare him so much?”
“I have to do that to keep my interns in line.”
“Not what I meant. You ride on him more than anyone else and we all know it. Care to explain before I convince him to move to Beverly Hills or something?”
“I ride on them as much as they take to keep them in line-”

“That’s not what I’m talking about!” he said. I finally realize there’s no joking in his eyes. “Why do you have to be on his back more than anyone else?”
Because while he’s weak his got some of the most potential I’ve seen in years.

“Because it’s fun.”

He glared. Wow, his glare had some potential in it, too.

He then gave me a more…thoughtful, look. I know, Danny-Boy and thoughtful, hard to believe, but I swear he somehow managed to do just that.

“You are an idiot.” He said simply.

“What?”
“I mean it. I was talking to Johnny about it.”
So what, now he’s talking behind my back while pretending to look up at me? I am so going to throttle that little bastard.

“So he’s talking about me behind my back?”
“Not exactly. He just has you figured out.”

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“What he said about you.”
“What did he say?”
“I remember the words exactly,” he said, mockingly drifting off. “We were talking about day dreams and it ended up at you.” Now he looked back at me. “I asked him why he was always trying to get your attention when one, he has so many friends, and two, you hate him.”
I do not!

“What he said back was actually a little weird but makes perfect sense. I believe it was, ‘You can’t get burned if you don’t sit near the fire’.”
“What the damned hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” he said, finishing off his sandwich. “That you are trying to stay away from people. You’re doing that so you don’t get close to people, or attached to them. And if you don’t get close to someone, you can’t get hurt by them. If you don’t sit next to a fire, you do get cold, but you don’t get burned. That’s your problem. You don’t have many friends, true, and you do have a lot of rage, and you ride on him because he’s the only one you can take it out on without him running away. But you don’t want to get close because you don’t want to get hurt.”

Since when did Newbie become such a psychologist?

“Newbie…came up with that cock and bull story?”
“It’s the truth and you know it.”
“No, I just don’t have many friends because I am proudly a jackass.”

“You can keep believing that. But just so you know, he doesn’t. He knows you care. You just won’t let it slip through that armor on you that is your jackass act.”
The Dorian Brothers will pay!

“Now,” He said, pushing all his trash into one little napkin. “Do us all a favor: just because he won’t run doesn’t mean you can just dump all your crap on him, so please don’t.”
And with that, he just got up…and left.

I sat there for another ten minutes, trying not to mull over everything he just told me and failing miserably.

I watched as Barbie and Newbie walked in through the cafeteria double doors and watched. Neither of them saw me, and when they sat down, we couldn’t see each other at all. But I could hear them – barely, because they were talking a little quietly, but still, just enough to catch glimpses, so I know enough that when I need to I can hit a sore spot. Barbie was once again having trouble with her family and love life. Just like always.

“…and my mom doesn’t even know! I mean, I know you’re asking, how can I be living with my boyfriend for so long and not have my own parents know, but still!”

“Mm hm.”

Good, Newbie, you’re learning how to deal with women other than yourselves. Don’t try to respond…
“I mean, Keith is a doctor, too, but my mother always tells me to go for the rich man or to go for the hott man, if possible, both. When I asked her about the mind, she always goes on about how you need to have someone stupid so you can use them and their money a lot easier. But Keith is so nice to me and all and he really respects me which is so hard to find in a man and I just know that when she comes next month she’ll just try to scare him away.”

Breathe, woman!

“Yeah.”

Newbie? Hello? Anyone one home? Bet he isn’t even listening. Come on Barbie, test him, and when he’s clueless, smack him!

“I mean, she’ll do everything she can to get rid of him which by the s a lot because she’s been doing this for so long and I’m not even going to start on my father, who tried to get me to become an OBGYN because it’s a woman’s job, I mean, I never thought he of all people would have ended up a sexist and JD are you even listening?”
Finally. Bring on the backhand.

“Keith is sweet, mom’s going to scare him away, your dad’s a sexist for saying OBGYN is for women.”

HE’S ACTUALLY LISTENING?!?!

She seemed satisfied with the answer.

“Oh my god, my life is ruined!”

Not so much her life.

“Hey,” Newbie said. “Don’t worry too much about it. Your parents aren’t completely ready to accept that you’re a grown woman.”

What did I just say? Don’t engage! Okay, I didn’t actually say it you…I thought it at you! Little son-of-a-bitch…you’re supposed to be girly and able to read minds…

“JD, I’m almost thirty-one. They think that because I’m not married yet, I’m going to end up a spinster!”

“You are not. I know some women who have kids and live very successful lives without ever getting married, and their lives are just like everyone else.”
“Like your mom?”
There we go, Newbie. About time you froze. Wait, he’s actually talking.

“No, not my mother.”
“But she had two great kids…well, one and a half.”
“She also ended up a drunkard with a hundred different drunk boy friends and had eight husbands and seven more ended engagements. No, not my mother. And while I can’t think of any off the top of my head, there are several women who never get married but have great relationships. Like uh…Jordan and Dr. Cox.”
Oh, no you di’nt…you did NOT just bring me into this!

“JD, they hate each other.”
“Not really.”
Who are you to judge!

“Ellie,”
“Don’t even think of calling me that.”
“Elliot, they both have these little walls around themselves to protect themselves. Imagine two Great Walls of China, except it’s the Great Wall of Jordan and the Great Wall of Perry. These walls protect them from other people, from getting hurt, emotionally anyway, even though it prevents new friends, at least of a common kind. But their fighting, bickering, yelling, it’s like a bridge between them. No one else can reach that bridge because no one else can understand it. But that’s not the point!”
Newbie…you did not just…oh dear god, he’s actually right for the second time today…no, no, no! This is Newbie, he can’t be right!

“Then what is the point, JD?”
“Elliot, what I mean is that you don’t have to be your mother to be successful, because there are different kinds of successful, and to different people. You love being a doctor and helping people, so the fact that you are is what matters. Screw what your parents think. You’re doing what you love and at a great place: you’re successful.”

“You don’t understand what it’s like, JD, to have your parents reject you.”

“At least your parents know you. My dad is dead but he had to ask my brother what I did for a living before he came here. My mom still doesn’t even know what I do, and I doubt that she ever will. I haven’t even really talked to her in almost 13 years! You know? Heart-to-heart, politics, things like that. We exchange a stupid postcard saying we’re alive once a year and that’s it. And my brother…well, do you really need me to spell that out? And at least they supported you. My parents weren’t that big in my life, but you had them, because they did want you to be successful. So they are there for you, they just haven’t accepted that you aren’t the little doll girl anymore. You’re the one that has to prove that to them.”

After that, a very long pause.

“JD…you are so right! Thanks!”
“It’s what I’m here for. I am one giant shoulder…and a few selects.”

She laughed, I think.

“So,” She said. “How did you pay for college if ‘your parents weren’t there for you’?”
“In high school I had no friends, thus no life, so I just did the best I could on my grades and applied for every scholarship around. With a few of them, combined with a bank loan…that’s why I’m so good at double shifts now. I got a lot of overtime working at Barnes&Nobles to help me pay my way through college.”

Newbie…oh, my god, that explains so much…ah, Perry, pay attention! You need to get as much gossip on your side as possible.
“Oh my god…didn’t your parents help at all?”

“Do you really think my dad could possible afford it?”
“And your mom?”

“Elliot, she doesn’t even know that I am a doctor. All she knows is that it’s a high paying and tough job. Trust me, no.”
I was actually surprised by this. I always thought Newbie’s parents would have set aside their differences help him. I mean, I figured that a loan, and a scholarship, and maybe a crappy, low paying job might have been involved, but…damn, he was a little tougher than I thought.

But he’s still wuss.

“Wow. My parents paid my whole way through college.”
“You’re lucky. When other kids were mowing lawns to get new playing-card decks or something like that, I was putting my money in a jar and actually saving up. I never counted, to be honest, because I didn’t want to tempt myself.”
“Are you kidding?”
“No. I opened a savings account when I was fourteen and put all my jar money into it.”
“How much did that end up being?”
“Eight-hundred and forty-two dollars and seventeen cents.”

Well, for a 14-year-old, that is certainly a lot.
“Are you kidding me?”
“No. It took three years to get all that.”
“You were rich!”
“No, I was not. I didn’t touch it until college.”

“JD…oh, my god I am so sorry.”

“For what?”
“I always thought you just…I don’t know, got a lot of help, to be honest!”

“Does it make any difference? I’m here now, and that’s all that matters. That and my lunch break is going to end in about five minutes.”
“JD, you haven’t eaten anything!”
“It’s okay, I’m not hungry.”
And I thought he was getting better. Once again, this explained so much! But was he starving himself again?

“JD, if you’re not going to eat, you better go before Doctor Cox becomes an ass again.”
“One, he’s always on my case, and two, he’s sitting two booths over.”
WHAT?! Newbie, how the damned hell did you do that?

“What?” Barbie cried out. We both turned around at the same time. “Doctor Cox! How long were you sitting there?”
“Judging by his table, the crumbs, the fact that he wasn’t in line, and the way he’s sitting…”
Come on, Newbie, keep talking.

“…I’d guess he’d been here the whole time. Were you, Doctor Cox?”

Is this idiot a mind reader or something?
“Newbie…I don’t want to know how the hell you did that. But yes, you are going to get back to work right this minute. Now scram!”

Newbie got up and left, and Barbie scrammed right after looking at the clock.

I had some patients to get to, myself, so I just got up and left.

So half an hour later, we are both checking in on the woman admitted for botulism. You know, is this the universe paying my back? I mean, for crying out loud, out of a population of a few hundred million people in this country, I think there are only hundreds, at most about a few thousand, cases in this country. And we just had to get one of those cases, didn’t we?

I walked out and went down the hall but was met with a surprise.

“Carla?”
“Perry!” What the hell…did that woman just hug me? Oh my god, she did.

The weird thing is that for some reason I’m not that repulsed by that at the moment.

“What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be on Maternity leave?”

“I got a friend to baby-sit for the afternoon so I can slowly learn to get over my ‘child separation anxiety’.” She said with a surprisingly calm face.

“How’s that going for ya?”

At that moment her smile looked slightly strained.

“Every waking moment and second there is this constant little TV in my head with no off button showing me every possible way my baby could be hurt or die along with exactly how and when and at least a few million other ways if not maimed or dead she could be uncomfortable or hurt.”

“That was even more morbid than me.”

She suddenly looked like she was about to burst.

“Carla, breathe in…” exactly five second pause. “Breath out.” Five second pause. “Breath in.” Pause. “Breath out.” Pause. “In…Out…In…Out…” And so on for about one minute straight, and soon she looked calm.

“Thanks, Perry.”
At that moment, right after I grabbed a few charts, Newbie walked by.

“Aladdin!” I shoved two more charts into his hands. “Get going!”

He nodded and kept walking. No comment, protest, remark, or retort. He actually took this in a mature fashion, and it was really starting to piss me off.

“Aladdin?” Carla said, raising an eyebrow. “What ever happened to girls’ names?”
“I got him started on Disney names for a week or two. I’ll think of a new category by then. So, seriously, what are you doing here?”
“I am going to surprise Turk, but he’s doing a transplant right now so I have to wait another hour or so until he’s done, so I thought that I’d come up here to catch up with everything.”

I just laughed a little, not that sarcastic one which is usually the only one anyone ever hears, but an actual but short laugh that not many people can actually squeeze out of me.

“Doctor Cox,” Newbie comes up. “I need a two more doctors to legally approve this patient of a drug trial.” He hands me a paper which I sign.

“Now scram, Bambi, before I-”

“Hey!” Carla said. We both looked at her. “I’m the only one who ever has or will be allowed to call JD Bambi so don’t even think about trying that one on him!”
“Fine, Snow White-”

“Doctor Cox!” Barbie came into my sight.

“Barbie, get out of my sight.”

“But-”

“Now!”
She huffs and stands up.

“Not until you agree to assist in a surgical consult!”
“Fine, will it get you to shut your yap and leave?” Without a word she did just that so I turn back to Newbie.

“Anyway, Peter Pan, you’re either going to leave my sight right now or I am going to lock you in a coffin down in the morgue just so I can attend the funeral and laugh while I watch you get buried alive.”
His shoulders just slump and he just nods, and I frown slightly as he walks off.

“I know that look,” Carla said. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Perry, don’t even think about lying to me.”
“Newbie. I’m not really sure why but lately he’s been pissing me off a little acting completely different.”

“Of course he’s been acting different. Did you not notice that?”
“I mean even more than usual, like he just takes whatever crap I dump on him without complaint, no retort, no comment, no nothing, and that gives me no leeway to yell at him to relieve some much release-needed tension and stress.”
She rolled her eyes.

“You’re upset he’s finally maturing.”
I refused to admit it but yeah, I think that might be it.

“So,” she said. “Catch me up on all the latest gossip?”
“You’ll have to ask Laverne.” With that said nurse walked right over and somehow these two women spent the next half hour talking about everything yet at the same time absolutely nothing. I just took care of some rounds and came back just as they finished up and right about when Carla and I walked into the lounge we saw Newbie sitting in a chair in the corner, just staring out the window.

“What’s the matter, Belle?” I asked. “Did the other princesses kick you off the playground?” Carla glares at me but I’m used to getting it from her when I insult him.

“No,” He said. “I was playing with matches and gas and burnt it down so now I have no where to play.” He said that in a bored, robotic, monotone voice which made me just stare at him in a slight shock.

After a few moments Carla just drags me away and I looked at her.

“I’ll be honest with ya. I was just creeped out by that.” Oh, god, I can’t believe I actually admitted to that.

“So was I. Damnit, Bambi, what’s wrong with you…” she looked at him rather wistfully.

“Carla…let’s just drop this. Come on, your girlfriend’s about to come out of surgery, I’m sure she’ll love to see you.”

She left, and I sat at the table, glaring Newbie.

So he wasn’t getting better.

Back to square one.