I sat in the hard chair, tapping my foot a little nervously. I had had job interviews before, but this wasn't like my old summer job, this was a real internship. If this went well, I could have a job after grad school. I fixed my sweater a little, hoping I looked good enough for this.

After another minute, a woman in a pantsuit walked out and smiled at me. "Laura?"

I stood up and walked over to her and gave her the best handshake I could, thankful that my hands weren't super sweaty. "Nice to meet you," I said smiling.

The interview was conducted how I could have guessed it would, asking about past jobs and experience. Then she asked the question I knew I would get, the one I spent the most time trying to figure out my response to. "Why do you want to work in hospice care?"

I resisted the urge to bite my lip as I paused to remember my response. "I have always wanted to do grief counseling, or therapy at a hospice center. My friends have always found that weird and depressing, but its what I've wanted to since I was about ten. When my mom was sick, we used a lot of the resources that the hospice center had to offer, and I have always wanted to be able to help other people the way that the center helped me."

She smiled at me and then continued the interview. "Thank you for coming in, Miss Hollis. We will be in touch by the end of the week."

"Thank you," I shook her outstretched hand. "It was very nice to meet you." I walked out of the office and took a deep breath. It had seemed to go well, but you could never really tell.

….

I followed one of the nurses around the first floor of the building. "In here we have some treadmills. They don't get used too much, patients will often opt to just walk around outside." I nodded, trying to remember everything I was being told in addition to where everything is. "The library is right down here." Perry said.

"Can patients go where ever they want when ever they want?" I asked.

"For the most part. Areas like the treadmill room and pool are closed when there can't be staff there. But the patients aren't confined to their rooms." She stopped walking and looked at me. "Any other questions?"

"Not that I can think of."

"I'm sure you'll be fine, and if you think of anything else, you can ask any of us." She smiled at me and I smiled back. "What are you studying?"

"Psychiatry."

"I'm sure you probably hoped to do more psychiatric work."

"Yeah, but I knew I would be interning. Either way, it's nice to be able to be here and see how everything works."

"You're a positive person aren't you?" I nodded. "Well, try and keep that mindset as much as you can, honey. Hospice centers aren't easy places to work at. Sure you may find it easy to bring people lunches and what not, but it's hard mentally. You get to know these people; your job is to make their final days the best that you can. Relationships form, and you will get worked up the first time one of your patients dies. The best you can do is to keep going and just compartmentalize everything."

"Thanks," I said slowly.

"Let's go and start collecting the dishes from breakfast." I followed the nurse to the elevator up to the residence.

….

My first week was going pretty well. For the most part, most of the patients were really nice people. The other interns and younger staff gave me tips about some of the patients that had been there for a while.

Perry had been right, the second day I was here one of the patients died. I had only just met him. Harold, 79, COPD. It was a weird day, he had been here for a month or so; another girl, Danny had spent a lot of time with him, and was pretty upset. I kept that in the back of my mind as I began to interact more and more with the patients.

I did a lot of the more grunt work: taking food to and from peoples rooms, cleaned the common areas, got stuff for the regular staff. But it was still much better than working the cash register at Hollister. That had been a painful job, not to mention all the jokes I got with my last name.

I had gotten to meet with some of the counselors and so I asked them questions and learned more about what they did and what I should be doing to prepare. One of them mentioned having me come and observe them later this summer.

….

I walked into the next room carrying the tray with the new resident's lunch. The room was empty, I put the tray down and stood there a little awkwardly, I hadn't met her yet and I thought I should introduce myself to her. I glanced at the chart that was next to the door. Before I could get past the name a door opened and I turned to see a girl walk into the living area, looking oddly at me. She wasn't actually a girl; she was probably about my age. But compared to most of the other patients I see, she was really young.

"You must be Ms. Karnstein," I said.

"Yeah," she said slowly, still eyeing me. She sat down on her bed. She crossed her legs, but she managed to do it looking like she was pissed off. Plus she was wearing almost black skinny jeans, black shirt, and somewhat dark eye make-up. Which made her look even more annoyed.

"I'm Laura, one of the interns. So I tend to bring meals and do clean up type of things." Her eyebrows were still arched. "Is there anything you need?"

"To not be here."

"Anything I can actually do?"

"No," she shook her head. She smiled a little, but it didn't look like she was smiling because she was happy.

"Then I will see you later today." I started to walk towards the door.

"So what's the deal?"

I turned around. "Sorry?"

"I mean do I just spend the rest of my life in this room?"

"It depends on what type of care you need and how your symptoms are. There are activities through out the week for the patients that are able to participate in them."

"Patients, that sounds so depressing."

"I'm sorry."

"It's whatever," she said and then turned and looked at her food.

I took that to mean she wanted to be alone so I walked out of her room and closed the door behind myself.