It was, of course. Five magical minutes of honesty wouldn’t change reality.
“I’m sorry.” Finn didn’t know if she was apologizing for the touch, or for being in prison in the first place, or both. What she’d done by putting herself here meant they’d found each other, but it also meant an uncrossable distance between them. Win-lose.
Vivi nodded. Then she nodded a second time, more briskly. Professional. “Can I please make noise about this med delay? You should be able to get treatment when I’m not here. You all should.” She sounded so worn down, and it was only Monday.
“No need,” Finn reassured her. If she could do nothing else, Finn could at least give Vivi a day without another fight.
Vivi didn’t appear the least bit happy about acquiescing. “Okay, next question. Are you hoping to work today, or should I write you a slip?”
Because of course Finn would need a slip to miss a work shift in the prison infirmary due to being in the prison infirmary. Had the outside world been this ridiculous? Finn sat up. The floor needed mopping, clean linens needed bringing up from the laundry, beds needed changing. It gave her something to do beyond contemplating how thoroughly she’d screwed up her life. The room stayed clear despite the angry throb near her eye. Not bad enough to skip her shift.
Vivi must have seen her flinch, however. “Nope, you’re in bed for today.”
“Come on, I’ll be fine.”
“You have a nursing license too?” Vivi exclaimed, eyes wide. “You never told me! No, seriously, lie down.”
Which was typical of how Vivi took care of her patients, though keeping prisoners in hospital beds didn’t make her popular with some of the guards and admin staff. Hospital beds were more comfortable than regular bunks.
Vivi helped Finn ease back down, took the expired ice packs, and returned with two fresh ones before Finn had even snagged the sheet to pull it up. Vivi smoothed the blessed cold onto Finn’s head in exactly the right places, took her pulse at the wrist, and covered her with the sheet.
All without a single unnecessary touch, because Vivi and ethics got along much better than Vivi and dress codes.
“Get some actual sleep,” Vivi said gently. “When you wake up I’ll tell you where I’m up to in The Last Airbender.”
Finn’s eyes drifted half closed. She was more worn out than she’d wanted to be. Tomorrow she’d double-time to get caught up. Vivi worked hard enough; she didn’t need to pick up Finn’s slack too. “You’ve forgiven me about the bats rushing out of the cave in that one episode?”
Vivi chuckled. “You’ll be forgiven when my roommate forgives me for waking her up when I shrieked.”
Finn gave her a sleepy thumbs up. “I accept full responsibility for not knowing you were afraid of bats, but it’s a travesty you’ve never seen it all.”
“Oh absolutely,” Vivi said with mock seriousness. “I had all the time in the world for TV while getting my degree and working over twenty hours a week, and I made bad choices. I’m so glad you came along to get me sorted out.”
Finn made an agreement-sounding hum; all she could manage. She should have gotten up. She could have. If Vivi had cleared her, she’d have made it through the day. She’d worked through worse at her last job, since it lacked paid sick days, a living wage, and management with any kind of morals.
However, Vivi had said to stay put, and now that Finn was lying back down, she had to admit her desire to get up was next to nil. It would be okay if she missed one more day to unconsciousness.
Two days later, when she walked into the infirmary and found a new day nurse in Vivienne Curiel’s place, Finn sure as hell wished she’d made a different choice.
Chapter One
Nearly eight months later
Finn wouldn’t have appreciated the exam room in the low income clinic half as much before prison. It might be shabby, but its walls had posters of kittens. Before prison, Finn would have noted those kittens in passing and moved on to stressing about something. Going to prison had left her with a lot less to stress about. No toxic job anymore. No on-again, off-again girlfriend either.
So there was plenty of space for enjoying the kittens. Her favorite was the black one with the white spot around its left eye. It looked a bit sassy, like a troublemaker, yet cute. You couldn’t be mad if it climbed the curtains.
Finn had never had such detailed thoughts about kittens in her life as in this room, but it wasn’t like she had anywhere else to be. An article she’d stumbled across had said to treat finding a job as a job itself and spend at least forty hours a week on it. The most Finn had hit in the three weeks and change since her release was thirty two. She suspected most of the postings she’d responded to were perpetual, meant to keep a slush pile in case of a vacancy. Few places were hiring for seasonal work in the couple of weeks before Christmas and New Year’s; those jobs got filled before Black Friday... by people without felony theft convictions.
Two different nonprofit employment services had been a bust so far as well. Finn had gone so far as to email every business in the queer chamber of commerce listings, hoping she didn’t sound desperate, requesting any leads on menial positions. When she’d asked her parole officer for ideas, he’d scanned her extensive log of work search activities and shrugged.
Would she be starting the new year employed? Signs pointed to no. Which sucked, but it wasn’t a surprise. She’d find something eventually; it didn’t have to be fantastic. The Austin bus system wasn’t as bad as she’d feared, so she could forgo the expense of a car. A girlfriend could wait even longer. None of her romantic relationships before prison had been particularly inspiring, and the woman she’d felt the strongest connection with in her whole life had possibly been the worst case of wrong place, wrong time ever.
Finn had already spent approximately ten zillion too many wakeful hours wishing that situation had worked out differently. She’d never come up with a single way it could have without a natural disaster or alien abduction, neither of which would have been great. Probably.
Anyway, Finn was moving forward. She needed migraine meds, which she’d already put off getting for far too long, working her way through the Medical Assistance Program application process while hating having to ask for help. All she had to do now was sit in the exam room and speculate about the personalities of kittens until a doctor showed up.
A clinic nurse came in first, saving Finn from her feline-related thoughts. She apologized for running late, but why would Finn complain about free health care? She counted herself lucky to have gotten her appointment moved up, especially three days before Christmas. Thank goodness the person who’d answered the phone had believed Finn that prodrome meant I’m going to have a migraine literally today, this can’t wait.
The nurse stayed for all of four minutes. Twenty minutes later, the doctor visited for five minutes, kind but harried. He agreed Finn needed both kinds of meds, the daily preventative she’d had the most luck with, and the abortive nasal spray for when the preventative didn’t work. Or, like today, when it hadn’t been available. Finn was assured her prescriptions would be e-zapped to the H-E-B grocery store on South Congress, and their pharmacy was open until nine o’clock. All she had to do was show her MAP card, and sweet, sweet lack of soul-crushing pain would (hopefully) be hers.