Feelings are a strange business. When you were growing up, you never suspected that you would grow to love girls in the way you were supposed to love boys. As the years had passed, you had often dreamt of stolen kisses and whispered promises that you would bury within the depths of yourself during waking hours. You let yourself keep the dreams in your subconscious though, they were soft and safe and comforting and they were far, far better than your nightmares.
You'd heard tales of people like you. The stories were always hushed but you knew that people like you were seen as an abomination. You often heard it described as a life style, when that couldn't of been further from the truth. If you could have helped it at all, you never would have allowed yourself to love women. It was dangerous and shameful and hard and not to mention very, very illegal.
It made life exceedingly hard on a day to day basis. You learned to be careful, to never let your eyes linger too long or to focus too much on one person. You learned to be closed off and distant because it was easier to guard yourself when no one was close to you. It kept potential suitors away as well, which was always an added bonus. It also meant that from the time you had realised and accepted it as a part of yourself, you had condemned yourself to a life alone.
As you began your nursing career you some how found yourself working in a busy London hospital, aptly named after its home city. You were placed on mens' surgical and on a day to day basis you found yourself quelling your revulsion against the wandering hands of both patients and doctors alike. Every time it happened, you had to steel yourself. Something about it turned your stomach in a way you knew it shouldn't. Of course, every nurse found themselves distraught and worried by wandering hands but you highly doubted that any felt a surge of nausea so strong that the room seemed to spin around them.
As much as you hated working in the hospital it was distracting enough to keep your thoughts from wandering. During your waking hours you hardly ever found yourself idle, and so it was rather easy to keep yourself focused. You often worked double shifts, just so that you would have an excuse to stay in when the other nurses went out to find a dashing chap to dance the night away with.
One day, in a rather cliched manner that you often refuse to consider, everything changed. And in a way that only fate could determine, it all began with a bump. One morning you found yourself running late, which was odd in itself because you never allowed such things to happen and in your head tardiness may as well be a crime, and so you left your bedroom in the Nurses' Home without your usual care. In rather a hurry, you failed to spot the new arrival coming along the landing and so you caused a crash collision. After apologising profusely and helping her to her feet, and of course helping her to regather her things (you were raised with manners, even if you do try to forget your childhood) you were off like a shot without even enquiring after her name.
That wasn't where the feelings began, and that's why you feel they are such a strange business. It wasn't as though it was love at first sight, or love at first collision in your case. It took time and then more time and then time to come to terms with how you felt, because if there's one thing you are then that is cautious and guarded. If you tried to pinpoint the exact moment your feelings for her began, you would have to say they started with annoyance when you found her in your smoking spot one break time not long after the incident.
The first thing she said to you, and even in your annoyed state you had registered her wonderful accent, was rather menial but you still remember it.
"Need a light?"
You had thanked her of course, as was only proper and the two of you had smoked and made small talk. You had learnt that she was new -which of course you already known- and that she was called Delia and that she hailed from the county of Pembrokeshire in Wales. All you had told her in return was that your name was Patsy Mount. There had been something in her eyes when you told her, a spark of determination you suppose, to learn more about you.
The meetings between the two of you began to increase until they were no longer chance meetings but organised outings after or between shifts. You acknowledged your growing feelings for your new-found friend but you pushed them down, because they were wrong and they shouldn't be there and you didn't want to ruin what was between you. You refused to lose the only friend you had ever let yourself have (other than your sister, whom you tried so very hard not to think of) because of what society labelled your perversion.
There were moments in which the two of you were too close. Moments that could be construed as anything but friendly but of course they weren't, that was just what you wanted them to be. Delia was friendly and bubbly and kind and beautiful. So bloody beautiful that you yearned for something more, but you knew that it was something you could never have. All at once your friendship was both too much and no where near enough. She was closer to you than any other person had been in more than a decade, but she had gotten too close and it would only end in disaster.
So you began to push her away. You decided that it would only be you that got hurt in the progress. After all, Delia had other friends. She had other people who cared for her and so you wouldn't be missed for long. You moved your smoking spot, and started working double shifts again. You closed yourself off because it would be easier in the long run if you were left to deal with your ridiculous infatuation on your own. You'd learnt to be good at being on your own, after losing all those you loved at such a young age.
You tried not to let yourself think of her, you couldn't let yourself because it hurt too much. You succeeded, partially. That is, until you were woken rather rudely by a very incessant knocking on the door of your bedroom after a rather gruelling night shift. In your striped men's pyjamas and your robe, with your hair pulled back into a braid, you answered your door to find a tear streaked Delia.
Of course you let her in, because really what else were you supposed to do? You feel rather uncertain of yourself in this situation. Although you've closed the door, she hasn't moved any further into the room. Rather she just stands there with her back resting against the door, tear tracks still drying on her face. You don't know what to say or what to do, you don't know why she's here or why she's crying and you don't know what to do.
You just stand there, biting your lip and she just looks at you. You don't knew what to say and she doesn't speak and so the pair of you stand in uncomfortable silence. She seems to steel herself against something, and she stands up from her leaning position. She looks uncertain and scared and oh bloody hell, she must know.
She seems to be faltering when it comes to words and you open your mouth to speak but before you know what's happening she speaks "Oh, sod it." Before you can fathom what exactly is happening you feel her hands on your face and what on earth is happening? And oh, her lips meet yours and it's wonderful and safe and warm and comfortable and so much better than you ever dreamed it could be. Feelings may be a strange and confusing business, and what you are doing may be wrong, but damn nothing but Delia seems to matter at this precise moment.