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She can’t say for sure when it was that she fell in love with Conrad Hawkins. To say or to think in that manner takes away from the thing that they have. Yet, she has an inkling of a thought to think that it was sometime between when he took that illegal shot in pool and when he gave her the table after she made a shot of her own.
She can say, with certainty, that every step along the way has been worth it. Even the hard ones.
“Thirty-year-old male,” she’s already three steps ahead. Hot on Irving's heels, she knows not o look at the patient’s face. Doing that, too soon, makes her hands shake hard and the IV is impossible to get in.
The EMTs release the gurney into their hands,” tachycardic at the scene. Potassium and sugar are bottomed out. He’s vomited twice in the ambulance, lost consciousness before we got to the scene.”
Irving suddenly stops and Nic almost knocks him over. She already has the ‘banana bag’ she knows he’s going to ask for and is distracted by the IV that she needs to start. So distracted that she doesn't see the gleam of the black leather bracelet on the wrist laying limp on the bed. The one that Irving sees.
“Dammit Irving,” if she hadn’t stopped she would have busted the ‘banana bag’ all over them. “What the hell-”
He looks at her and then nods his head down and she sees the sandy brown facial hair that lines a too familiar jaw. The expanse of sandy brown hair on arms stained with black ink leads her to the unmistakable tattoo that trail down her Conrad Hawkins forearm. Wrist to inner elbow, she knows the way that the ink swirls in certain areas and how to area close to his elbow the skin is rougher.
“What happened?”
Conrad smiles as a hand grabs him from behind. He’s pulled back and into a hug that smells like Dove. Like the Dove green bottle in Nic’s bathroom, the same soap he had to use two days ago when he stayed over at her apartment.
“Are you leaving without telling me goodbye?” Already, her lips are close enough that they brush against his as she speaks. She closes what little gap they have left by pulling his scrubbed shirt and moving him closer. Their lips pull against each other and he sighs with a tired smile.
He rests his forehead against hers, smiling when she runs her hands up his neck and through his hair. “Nic…” he pulls away, cupping her cheek in his hand as hers fall down to his shoulders. “I was going to come to find you. I’m just tired and you with a kid so I just…”
Nic rolls her eyes, Conrad just smiles. “Okay, go home.” She puts her arms around his waist,” you’re obviously exhausted.”
He doesn’t miss a beat with his charm,” it’s a good thing I was already on my way then.”
As he turns, or rather as NIc turns him toward the door, he turns back around and smiles. “Goodnight Conrad!”
“Night.”
Conrad turns back around three times to see Nic’s blurry figure watching as he walks away. Some nights his walking is problematic. It’s too cold some nights, the sweat that gathers down his back from the walk and the hospital cools on his skin. Other times, it’s so dark and so hot, his chances of getting mugged are so high….
“Hey!”
It’s bad enough that he doesn’t wear earbuds as he takes his nightly walk. He’s gone years though, years walking up and down this street without incident. Until today.
“Hey! You’re a doctor, right?”
Amongst the medicine, doctors learn to read a person. Addicts are never that hard to spot, a good doctor, the very best, might even be able to tell you what the addict’s preferences are. For the man standing in front of Conrad, it’s opioids. Specifically, heroin. “A resident.”
The guy leers forward, the knife in his hand coming too close to Conrad’s chest for him to feel completely safe. He knows that to avoid the blade he needs to arch his palm up and to prepare for the other man to arch when he smacks the knife away and yet he doesn’t.
“Don’t be a smartass, it’s unbecoming.”
Before he can stop himself, not that he would try,” most people would say heroin addiction is too.”
Surprisingly, there is no sharp sting of a knife through his gut. Just a sharp thump as a fist connects with the back of his head. Before he moves away, there’s another strike but by something much harder.
“You selling to this guy too? Huh, Bradley?”
From the ground, Conrad tries to get up. The man who attacked him from behind points the end of a bat at Conrad’s face. “You selling or is this the son of a bitch who sold you Trazodone instead of Xanax?”
The bat comes down again and it takes Conrad several dizzy moments to peel his face from the cement. “I didn’t-”
“Yeah,” it’s obvious that Bradley is far from hesitant to throw Conrad under the bus. “Yeah! He sold me the Trozo- he sold me the drugs, told me it was Xanax. He’s a Resident at that one hospital! I swear!”
Conrad stumbles to his feet, putting himself between Bradley and bat-guy. He knows by the look on the bad guy's face that he’s going to swing, Conrad still feels the need to protect. “Hey! Hey! Listen! Listen, I’m not-”
The bat comes around again with nothing but Conrad’s temporal skull plate to take the brunt of the blow he crumbles, hard. His knees go out first and before his head could hit the ground his body began to convulse.
The trauma was already done.
“Run! Get the hell out of here!”
A lucky fall, straight on his side. As his body convulses on the ground, his brain a swell of white pain, he vomits. Choking and bleeding he’s left on the side of the street. The world is a blur, nothing but lights that his eyes can’t focus on, and pain that eats his brain whole.
He has one singular thought before he falls under.
Nic