Chapter Text
“Did you see he was on the news again?”
“What? Did he win another dumb skateboarding trophy and then take his shirt off and wave it around in the air?”
The woman blinks, a tad dazed. Her fork drops into her bowl, and her arms cross. “Girl, did you see him on the news?”
The other woman crosses her arms in turn. “No. Just a lucky guess. It’s not like he’s the most creative.”
Heather had, in fact, watched the news, and saw Alejandro cross the finish line to a South American skateboarding competition. It had been a months long race, and he was neck and neck with some other man. She remembered how he looked as he rubbed it in the loser’s face, the look of accomplishment on his own apparent. But what was after that? He couldn’t just skateboard forever, Heather remembered thinking.
Leshawna chuckles. “You’re right about that.” She picks up her fork, jabbing it into her poke bowl. “You should check it out anyways. It was kind of incredible, and I know you’re itching to see him again.”
“Don’t make me barf. I’m sure I’ll see it sometime, if it was really that big of a deal.”
“It was. Skateboarding in South America has a long and—”
“No one cares Harold.”
Leshawna groans, dropping her fork again. “Heather, we’ve talked about this.”
“Yes we have! You already know I’m not going to sit here and listen to his giant nerd talk on dumb topics I don’t care about!”
Harold and Leshawna exchange a glance. “We know you care about Al though,” Leshawna finally says.
“I don’t!” She huffs, swiping her black hair out of her face and looking down to check her phone. “Whatever. Time’s almost up. I’m going back.”
“Bye girl,” Leshawna says.
“Bye Heather.” Harold then looks down at Leshawna. “Do you want to hear about South America and skateboarding?”
“No baby. But maybe later.”
“Gosh.”
~~~
Heather marches into the hospital, like there’s some sort of mechanism attached to her bones, forcing her body forwards. She has a lot on her to do list, well, if she would ever make one. She almost laughs, but stops herself so as to not look ridiculous in front of all these people.
She gets to her first patient’s room, some older guy who was diagnosed with diabetes a couple months ago. She starts his general check up, making notes of how the medication the doctor had prescribed last time is working. He seems to be doing fine, his vitals aren’t very good, but that’s to be expected and they’re an improvement from last time. He reports to have been feeling good lately as well.
“Well, if you’re fine, then goodbye. I’ll see you again in 3 months.”
The man hops off of the bed, and stands in front of her for a couple moments.
“Um, do you need something else?”
“No, just admiring you.” He grins. “I used to watch you on TV.”
“Um, okay.”
“You’re a lot prettier in person.”
“Okay, security!” she shouts.
A large man runs into the room in a moment’s time, and escorts the man out. He emerges into the room again. “People sure are weird, man.”
Heather takes her gloves off. “I don’t even get it. You’re the real reality TV show star.”
Owen giggles. “Oh, you. I haven’t competed in years, now that Noah’s settled down.”
“Same with me. People are just obsessed with the past, I guess.”
“Ooh! Speaking of, did you see Al on the news today? That guy ages like fine wine!” He giggles again. “He got so much money for it too, I can’t remember the number but it was a lot…”
“Don’t care. I didn’t even watch it.”
“Oh. Maybe I’ll talk to Leshawna about it later then. She doesn’t have any surgeries today, does she?”
“She has one in a couple hours from now, some guy with a brain tumor. But anyways, you can’t go talk to her, you need to stay here and protect the hospital.”
“Oh, right! My job! I forget!” He giggles again. “Bye Heather!”
“Bye Owen.”
He leaves, and she exhales. She gets ready to go meet with more patients, and spends the whole day running around, until eventually her shift ends and she gets the hell out of there.
Home for Heather is a one bedroom studio apartment. She throws her bag onto the chair right by her door, and then runs to the shower, scrubbing herself clean. She changes into pajamas, and collapses onto her bed, turning on the TV.
She flicks through the channels, eventually turning on the news to see that the subject of interest is no longer the skateboard competition. She exhales, and flicks through the channels some more, before standing and going to make herself something to eat.
She scrounges together some rice and veggies, topping it with an egg, and eats in on her bed as she watches some dumb TV show. She sets the empty bowl on her bedside table when she finishes, and picks up her phone.
She texts Leshawna: “Ugh, he looks so arrogant in the photos. I can’t escape it on Instagram.”
She waits, and gets a response in a couple minutes: “Your feed knows what you want to see.”
“Put a sock in it.” She types back.
Leshawna responds with some emojis, and Heather smiles for a moment. She exits out of the message, only to see that she has one unopened—
From Alejandro.
She taps back into the chat with Leshawna and rapid-fires a message to her, before deleting it all just as quick. She opens up the message from Alejandro.
It’s a photo of him holding a check of the money he won, then the words: “Want me to buy you anything, señorita loser?”
Heather rolls her eyes and types back: “You should think about investing in a life instead.”
She stares at her phone intently for the next 15 minutes, getting no response. She groans. He did send the message earlier that day, he’s probably just asleep by now or hasn’t checked his phone.
Whatever. What do I care, Heather thinks. He probably forgot he even sent her a message.
She turns her lamps off and buries herself in her covers.