Chapter 1
The sliding doors to the Emergency Room unleash a steady stream of sounds and smells characteristic of only an establishment where the sick and sleep deprived congregate.
“Ashley Hansen.”
A woman in the far corner lets out a grunt before she slips her shoes back on and stalks toward the nurse who was already tapping her right foot impatiently. Thump. Thump. Thump. The sound of her clogs beating against the floor has an uneven rhythm.
“Finally. I’ve been waiting in this damn place for three hours.”
But the sick woman’s complaint only gets ignored when the nurse spins around without as much of a greeting, fully expecting the woman walking with the slight limp to follow her snappy pace into the exam room with ease.
“Can I help you, sir?”
The woman from behind the desk who must have been schooled in the same bedside manner hardly removes her eyes from the computer screen when she regards the father and daughter duo that’s just walked into the ER on a Friday afternoon.
“Yes, my daughter was just stung by a bee.”
He gently lifts Clarke’s hand to make his case, omitting the part about how it was a birthday surprise gone wrong.
“Any difficulty breathing?”
“No.”
“Fever?”
“No. But it’s swollen and---“
“Fill this out and return it to the desk once you’re done.”
They join the rest of the sick patients in their somber mood as they find two empty seats near the wall. The tattered chair nearly swallows her small frame as she sits down and her feet struggle to reach the floor when she leans back against it.
“How long is this going to take, daddy?” Clarke tugs at the sleeve of his sweater with her good hand.
The swelling in her left pinky was dangerously close to looking like a third thumb at this point, and Clarke hadn’t been prepared to lose a digit upon turning seven before today.
She clenches her eyes shut to try to block out the throbbing pain but her focus suddenly shifts to the grating voice of the nurse behind the desk instead. And it was starting to give her a headache.
“I know that it hurts, sweetie.” He says between checking boxes and squeezing letters into tiny spaces on the form. “Just be patient and you’ll be able to see the doctor soon.”
Clarke pouts and drops her body to the other side of the chair dramatically, blonde strands of hair falling into her face.
“Ouch.”
Her head knocks into a boney shoulder of the person sitting next to her and she rubs at the sore spot of her temple, still conscious not to aggravate her pinky.
“Sorry.” She mutters.
But the girl with the shoulder in question does nothing but arch a bushy eyebrow. She doesn’t even turn her head to look at Clarke.
“I said sorry.” Clarke pokes her, a little miffed that this person was ignoring her effort at civility.
“Jerk.”
This earns a different reaction from her.
A smile.
“Are you mocking me?”
She doesn’t say anything again but finally turns around and presses a finger to her lips to signal something.
“Oh. You can’t talk.” She’s mute.
The girl nods.
“A bee stung me.” Clarke raises her unsightly hook like she’s about to share a story about a prized battle wound even though she was complaining about the pain just a few minutes ago.
The little girl examines Clarke’s condition with a focus only matched by an actual physician and Clarke plays the role of the patient by eagerly anticipating a diagnosis. Or maybe, approval.
The girl smiles again and then pulls out a Band Aid from her backpack and hands it to Clarke. And as far as Clarke was concerned, she was cured.
“Want a candy bar? I saw a vending machine near the door.”
The girl nods.
“Daddy? Can we go buy a candy bar at the vending machine?”
Her dad glances over at Clarke’s new friend and then he meets the eyes of the little girl’s guardian who seems to voice no objection to the idea.
“Sure. But come back soon.”
He digs for the wallet in his back pocket, but the woman with Lexa speaks up.
“That’s fine. Let me. We’ve been waiting here for an hour now. I’m glad she’s made a friend.”
-
The two girls walk hand in hand out of the lobby over to the vending machine.
“What looks good?”
They muse the candy selection for a few minutes before deciding on a Kit Kat Bar because neither knew what “Fiber” meant even though the picture looked tasty.
Lexa offers through a series of hand movements to grab it from the machine even though Clarke still had one good hand left.
She unwraps the candy bar and breaks off two pieces for Clarke. And Clarke stares at it like she’s just gone through a famine three times over. In her defense, she did miss her own birthday cake.
But when she tries to stuff the entire bar into her mouth, Lexa launches forward and captures her wrist with a surprisingly strong grip.
“What’s wrong?”
Lexa didn’t have to motion her hands this time. The funny expression on her face certainly read Are you a savage? No one eats a Kit Kat Bar that way.
“I’m just really hungry.” Clarke rubs her stomach unconsciously. Maybe the girl’s hand movements were catching on.
But Lexa wasn’t going to have it as she held one bar hostage while Clarke gobbled the other one down in two bites.
“Can I please have the other one now?”
She hands the remaining bar over and presses a sweet kiss to Clarke’s cheek. The chocolate melts in her hand.
When the two of them return to the waiting room, a tad shy in their walk, Clarke’s dad doesn’t notice the blush on his daughter’s face or the twinkle in Lexa’s eyes. He does, however, notices that Clarke’s finger was starting to bruise.
“Clarke, stay here while I go have a talk with the nurse.”
She nods, but she isn’t sure what she’s agreeing to. She just knows that she wants to stay with her new girlfriend.
“My daughter’s finger is purple now. Purple.”
“Okay, sir. Let me see what I can do.”
“My name is Clarke, by the way.”
She tries to tell the girl while the inflection of her dad’s voice sound in the background.
Once again, Lexa doesn’t say anything. She just starts carving something onto the wooden arm of the chair. Clarke leans over to take a peek.
“Clarke.”
Both of their eyes shoot up at the word.
“We can go in now.”
“Wait, I---“
“Let’s go, honey.”
And with that, she’s suddenly led into the exam room without as much of a goodbye from her first girlfriend.
-
She twirls the pen in her hand. The clock reads 2:30AM.
“Another five hours until freedom, and I’m starving.”
“They finally fixed the vending machine outside if you want a quick fix.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, but I’d double check the expiration date if I were you.”
“No worries. I’m in a hospital after all.”
“Yes, but we need you to visit patients. We can’t have you flat on your back on the exam table.”
The nurse throws two dollar bills her way.
“I know you don’t carry cash with you, Dr. Griffin. Consider it a favor. Just remember this moment when you’re in need of a nurse’s assistance when a patient comes in for a rectal exam.”
-
Hm.
She watches the candy bar drop from the ring and a weird feeling of nostalgia comes over her as she unwraps the red plastic.
The waiting room looks no different to her than before. She’s seen it a hundred times coming into her shift but never with a Kit Kat Bar in her hand.
Only three people here. What if-
The patients look on as the woman in green scrubs check every chair arm in the room.
“Sir, can I take a look at your chair?”
“Sure.”
The man stands up so that Clarke could examine it. She runs her fingers across the wood twice over to make sure that she didn’t miss anything.
Nothing. Maybe they updated. It has been twenty years.
Clarke slips down onto the chair; her legs touching the floor this time. She stares down at the two remaining pieces of candy in her hand. One bar at a time, she says.
She smiles at the sweet memory but resolves that it was probably something best kept in her head.
And she finally decides to tuck the memory away and head back to reality behind those doors. But the sight of a lone chair someone had obviously moved next to the bathroom entrance catches her attention.
It wouldn’t hurt to check one last chair.
She walks over and there it was.
Lexa.
“Lexa.” She taps on the name carved into the chair. Twenty years. I wonder if she still remembers.
---
“Hey, can you look up a patient who came into the ER on June 30th 1990 with the first name Lexa?”
“That would be the second good deed I’ve done for you today, Dr. Griffin.” The old woman stares at her expectantly.
“Alright, I’ll call Trudy if it’s a drunk patient.”
“You got yourself a deal.”