Of Royal Descent by Ember Shane

Author:Ember Shane [Shane, Ember]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2013-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

16

Addy sat quietly while I explained everything Bradbury had related to me and what I had been through since arriving at the clinic. She didn't scream, she didn't cry, and she rarely made eye contact with me. I had no idea what she was thinking. When I reached the end of my narrative, she stood to examine my analgesic pump for the second time.

"In the last two hours, you've been through enough morphine to last three adult men three days post-op after major surgery. I don't understand how you're conscious right now or even still alive. How is your pain now? Did Edgar say anything about how high I'm allowed to set the pump?"

I furrowed my brow. This wasn't quite the reaction I had been expecting.

She approached the bedside. "Lay back, I want to look at what's under these bandages," she said, bringing up her arm in an attempt to remove one of the many gauze pads adhered to my body.

I grabbed her wrist. "Don't you have anything to say about what I've just told you?" I stared up at her and saw her eyes glistening with unshed tears.

"If I don't see your wounds, then I can't do my job," she choked out.

"I don't care about my wounds; I care about what you're thinking. Not as my nurse, but as my girlfriend," I said sternly.

She sucked in a breath. "As your girlfriend, Doyle, I'm very close to slipping into a state of shock. I know this isn't about me, and I know this makes me sound incredibly selfish, but if I could just have one hour to focus on doing my job, I will be free to be your girlfriend for the rest of the night, okay?"

I released her wrist, and she walked over to the kitchenette. She withdrew various medical supplies from one of the cabinets and returned to my bedside. Now armed with the tools of her profession, she set about removing my old dressings and reapplying new ones. She began with the largest bandage, directly in the center of my chest. I gazed intently into her face and saw her blanch when she got her first look at the wound. She recovered quickly, and her hands moved proficiently over my flesh.

I pressed my narcotic button and let the morphine do its job. Addy glanced at me but almost immediately returned her attention back to my chest. When she had finished, she moved along to the next invasive testing site and repeated the steps. In this way she worked until she had finished with my chest, stomach, and both arms. The silence was driving me insane.

"So, do you ever talk to your patients?" I asked with no venom to my voice.

A hint of a smile played at her mouth. "Usually, I do. But there's an unspoken code between nurses. In this line of work, there are generally two types of patients we speak to as little as possible: those that are a pain in the ass and those that grab your ass.

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