Never Coming Back: a tale of loss and new beginnings by Deirdre Palmer

Author:Deirdre Palmer [Palmer, Deirdre]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction & Literature
Publisher: Crooked Cat Publishing
Published: 2016-12-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Kate stripped off her uniform and threw it onto the bed. Reaching beneath the grubby venetian blind, she lifted the casement to open the lower half of the window and let in some air. The slats of the blind were tilted half open, allowing her to see out while nobody could see in. At least, she didn’t think they could as the room was on the second floor of the nurses’ home and there were no other windows directly opposite. Not that she cared. If anyone caught an eyeful, good luck to them.

Peeling off her underwear, she stood naked by the window, gazing between the slats of the blind at the dense blue sky pierced by tall chimney pots that topped the buildings of the older part of the hospital. She smoothed her hands slowly down and across her body, feeling it begin to cool as it came into contact with the air. It had been a bit of a nightmare today. Two emergency admissions last night had filled to capacity the ward she was working on, and the nurse manager had taken herself off to some meeting or other, leaving Kate and an agency nurse to answer the ever-ringing phone as well as deal with the patients.

She was so hot and so tired. For two pins she could have thrown herself onto the bed and slept until morning, but it was only six o’clock. She’d jump in the shower and sluice away the pungent remains of a hard day on the ward – not that it ever went away entirely. Then she’d go over to the cafeteria for comfort food and a chat with whoever happened to be there.

As long as it wasn’t Xavi.

She’d deliberately avoided looking up his shifts, difficult though it was, so that she had no idea where he was unless they were on duty together. Except on clinic days, of course, when they bumped into one another – physically – at least six times a day because of the narrowness of the corridors and the meagre staff space. And then she had to endure that look, the lost look in his eyes, the silent appeal which the smiles he gave her had no hope of disguising.

It scared her to think it had come to this, that she could have fallen so completely out of love with him as completely as she had fallen in. And to think she’d given up Morgan, the flat – her whole life, apart from her job – in order to be with him. Only she hadn’t, in the end. It hadn’t taken her long to realise that prevaricating over moving in with Xavi hadn’t been about slowing everything down. It had been about her, and what she really wanted, and about swerving the biggest mistake of her life. One of them, anyway.

She’d made another mistake on Saturday night. She’d jumped into bed with a junior doctor she hardly knew, in his room after a party. It hadn’t meant anything, the sex; like scratching an itch.

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