My mouth fell open, and I stared at those eyes that had held such kindness and compassion that night that had changed my life.
How had I not noticed it until now? Those eyes have been my saving grace.
Granted, a lot had happened that night, my brain was confused. But I dreamed about those eyes every single night.
The face was a bit harder to see that night—my vision had been fuzzy—but not that fuzzy.
“You want me to run with you?” he asked.
He didn’t remember me.
Then again, I’d been a swollen, bloody, and bruised mess when he’d seen me.
The only thing that’d been the ‘same’ had been my eyes and my hair.
“I don’t do so well running in the darkness.” I swallowed hard. “Something happened in the dark… I just can’t do it anymore.”
“I’ll run with you,” he promised. “I’ll stay right by your side. Okay?”
I nodded mutely.
Then together we set out.
But outside wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.
It was later in the morning than it had been the night I was attacked. There were also lights that illuminated the area, making it almost impossible not to see.
There were shadows, yes, but they weren’t shadowy enough to cause me to think that something might pop out of them.
Like he’d done.
“I didn’t expect to see you here so early,” he mused as he ran, sounding like he was running at a very light pace.
I, on the other hand, was too busy huffing and puffing to answer him clearly.
“Have to,” I panted. “Work.”
He grunted. “What do you do for a living?”
I grimaced, frowning at the ground. “I used to be a nurse. I used to work twelve-hour shifts at the hospital. But I… quit.”
I could practically feel his gaze on me as he said, “Why?”
I considered whether or not to answer him but decided to just be open about it.
“I administered a wrong dose of medication, medication that had been given to me by a fellow nurse and I stupidly didn’t think to check it. And instead of the nurse owning up to her giving that medication dose to me, she started rumors about me at the hospital. And I didn’t like looking like a complete dumbass. So I… quit. Now I do odds and ends. Run errands for people and stuff like that,” I explained.
He tilted his head. “Did you report the other nurse who gave you the medication?”
I nodded, even though I was panting heavily now, I continued to speak. “She fucked up a few months later by administering her own wrong dose of medication, although hers was lethal. She killed the guy, then admitted that she’d screwed up before with me. Said that she was having trouble seeing, and that she was going blind. Then admitted that she started rumors about me to keep the heat off of her while she was going blind. They tried to call me back, to get me to come back, but I refused. The damage was done.”
“Wow,” Taos said as he passed the others in our class who’d already turned around. “It sounds like she needed to get fired. Then they needed to do something to entice you to come back.”
“They’ve tried.” I shrugged. “But it works out well this way. I make more money doing what I’m doing. I have the freedom to do what I want, when I want. And if I don’t want to do something, I don’t.”
Taos laughed as we turned around. “That would be very nice.”
I looked over at him. “What do you do for a living?”
Then I nearly slapped myself in the face. What the fuck was I thinking?
I knew what he did for a living! He owned a gym for Christ’s sake!
Seriously, Fran. What the ever-lovin’ fuck?
He seemed like he didn’t want to answer at first, but then said, “I used to be a police officer. I retired a few years ago after a particularly brutal case and decided to try out a different career path. The gym.”
I nodded. That sounded like a lot of fun, actually.
I was also a little bit relieved that he didn’t call me out on my stupid question.
I deserved it.
“The gym was always something that I wanted to do,” he said, filling the silence while I inwardly berated myself.
I’d always wanted to own a gym, too. But when I’d brought it up to my family, they’d convinced me otherwise. Apparently, gyms were hard to take off, and hard to keep going once they got established.
I’d always wanted to do something fitness related.
I wanted to own a gym. Be a trainer. Help people get fit.
Help people make their lives better.
Help them live longer.
Help them… live.
I knew that people were happy in all shapes and sizes, but I also wanted to make sure that they lived their best happy life. That meant being healthy.
And sadly, being healthy came with eating right and making sure that your heart was active. That you got your muscles moving for thirty minutes every day. That you put forth the effort, even when you didn’t want to.
And when the gym thing didn’t work out for me, I’d done the next best thing that I thought I might be able to hack to keep people healthy and living their best life: nursing.
Only, that didn’t quite work out the way I’d wanted it to, either.
Sadly, before any more could be said, the bay door came into view, and I realized that I’d gone on my first ‘dark’ run since my attack.
I felt… energized.
At least until I entered the door and found Maria, the cheating twat, and a woman standing there with their arms crossed, staring at the two of us.
“Find a new project, Taos?” Maria cooed.
I wanted to punch her in the throat for calling me a ‘project’ but I chose to take the higher road and walk to the side of the room where I’d placed my stuff right at the entry and shed my top layers.
That left me in my crop top, my short shorts, and my brand-new CrossFit shoes that the saleslady assured me were ‘really hard to find’ because they’d ‘just been released.’
When I came back it was to find Taos talking to some elderly gentleman that looked like he should’ve started this working out thing when his knees moved right.
“So I heard about you.”
I looked over to find Maria standing there with the same woman she was with earlier. She looked vaguely familiar, and I didn’t know why.
“Oh?” I asked.
She nodded. “I heard that you used to work at the hospital.”
The woman beside her flushed at the words, and it was then that I realized how I knew her. She’d been a nurse at the hospital when I’d worked there. Only, she’d been on a different floor.
“I did,” I confirmed.
“I also heard that you almost killed someone,” she pushed.
I narrowed my eyes. “I did.”
Maria looked taken aback at the honesty in my words. “A nurse loaded a syringe, then had to leave in an emergency. I administered that syringe with medication to the patient when I should have checked his chart. I didn’t. That’s on me.”
The woman standing next to Maria hissed in a breath that sounded like she was surprised.
As if she hadn’t quite known all the details.
Technically, I should’ve never administered that medication. Though it was something that happened quite a bit. A nurse would have something go wrong with another patient. And since the other patient was more critical, they’d give the other patient over to another nurse so it wouldn’t be too ‘hard’ on them with that added patient.