Story: Tender is the Night, Chapter 37, and The Beautiful and Damned, before Bethany moves to town

Notes: This came to me one night while I was trying to fall asleep, and it instantly became canon. So now you get to read it, too.

One Degree of Separation

Bethany

Forks is a drive-through town, the way Kansas is a fly-over state.

I've stopped for coffee here exactly twice, I think, in a little diner on the main street. I'd give route markers, but there aren't even any of those. The town is that small.

I can't believe I'm considering working here. Moving here.

Mom has told me countless times that Sadie and I are welcomed to stay at home as long as we need.

What I need is space. The Chicks said it best—"room to make my big mistakes." I have worked my ass off these last five years, putting myself through school and raising a daughter on my own, and it's finally paying off. In a few weeks I will graduate college, an actual, honest to God nurse.

Surely, I can move away from home for the first time ever.

Surely, I can get this job.

Surely, I can handle this, too.

Well, not if I'm late to my interview, I can't. There was some crazy accident on the only road into town, and police had it blocked off for investigation. They finally cleared enough of the shoulder to let us pass.

It was only one car, a little Toyota Corolla.

Why close the road for a single-car accident? Weird.

Weirder still, how does a car get that much damage from hydroplaning?

I take the turn into the hospital on two wheels. I'm going to be right on time. I know this means I'm technically late. I know.

Which is why it irks me, just a bit, when the senior nurse who comes to collect me says, "You're late."

"I apologize. There was an accident." I try not to think of myself as someone who scurries after people, but she leaves me no choice.

"You didn't leave early enough, then," she smarts back to me. I genuinely hope, if I were to get this job, this woman would not be my boss.

"I left Port Angeles two hours ago," I tell her, on the defensive. I know how to do this right. I know. That's why I gave myself extra time. I thought forty-five minutes would be enough wiggle room. I thought I'd be able to stop for coffee.

Maybe that's where my attitude came from.

I peek at her nametag.

Cindy.

She'd be my boss.

Fuck.

"You did your rotations through North Olympic Healthcare, correct?" she says, pushing open a staff only door.

I follow her through, always two steps behind. "That's right. One at the VA clinic, one at the children's hospital."

"Which did you prefer?"

"The children's hospital." She doesn't stop moving, but she does turn to look at me, eyebrow raised, and I know she wants me to elaborate. "I love children, being able to put a smile on their face."

"Speaking from experience?" she says, although if she knows my resume as well as I think she does, she'll see the gap, second semester of freshman year, right where a baby girl named Sadie would fit perfectly.

"I—" My words are stolen by the scene in front of me, one clearly not meant for public eyes.

"How can you say that?" The tall, native-looking man is livid as he gestures to one of the closed doors. "How can you look at her in that bed, and listen to what he did to her, and think she's okay?"

The woman he's yelling at looks like she's been crying and, if I didn't know better, is trying not to do the same currently. She also looks like she could rip someone's head off. Maybe his. "I didn't say she's okay right now…"

My feet pull me away too fast to catch the end of her sentence, but right before we disappear around another bend, I spare a glance back.

The man is collapsing onto her, blinking back tears that won't subside, and she's catching him with strong and graceful arms. They're related, I think, if their bone structure is anything to go by.

I think one day, I'd like Sadie to have a brother she can protect like that.

"Miss Rogers," Cindy says, hands clasped on a meticulously clean desk. One pen, and one folder with my information. This is her private office, I'd imagine, but you also couldn't convince me this isn't a hotel desk, one you can rent for a day. There is one single framed picture, facing away from her. I wonder if the stock photo is still inside. "You were about to tell me about your daughter, I believe."

I try not to show her how uncomfortable I am. "Was I?"

Cindy's lips quirk like she's trying not to smile. "You were."

So I do. I tell her about getting pregnant right out of high school, being on my own with my mom and figuring it out together. Sitting through class as a little freshman with crippling morning sickness, back aches that made it hard to move, and headaches that made hours of labs unbearable. I did them anyway. Everything required of me, and then some. I'm not top of my class, I tell her, but I'm incredibly proud of myself, and I want my daughter to be, too.

"I'm sure she is," she tells me, then moves on to reviewing my transcripts, practicum assessments, letters of recommendation.

"Do you have any questions for me?" she says.

"Well, I'm not going to ask what a typical day is, because I know there are no typical days in nursing." At this, she smiles, and I feel encouraged. "What's your favorite part about your job?"

She looks down at her forms, where if I squint hard enough—no, never mind, nurses' handwriting is almost as bad as doctors'. "I really enjoy the longer-stay patients. The ones who come in for a surgery, in an ambulance, and wind up with me for a few days, a week. I get to watch them get better, and I get to know that I made a difference in not only their care, but their comfort. Nobody enjoys being in the hospital. I'm half convinced it would make Mother Teresa grumpy. But I do whatever I can, whenever I can, for my patients, and I expect my staff to do the same. I'll tell you now, I run a tight ship. But it's so we don't capsize in rough waters."

I sort of love that. Not her, exactly—but that philosophy.

"Can you tell me about the staff? The people I'd be working with."

"As you can probably guess, people are in and out all the time. If the ER is short-staffed or there's an unruly family member in the trauma unit—"

Something about her words remind me of that man and woman in the hallway—

"But my main staff consists of four nurses. Marlene and Gina are connected at the hip most of the time. They've been here almost as long as I have. Gina's a gossip but can find a vein on a dead guy. And Marlene always sneaks the lab guys candy to get her bloodwork back faster. Kim is my newest nurse, but her bedside manner is impeccable. She's got the brightest smile, really makes everyone feel welcome. And her boyfriend brings us lunch sometimes, which is—well, brownie points never hurt anybody, do they?"

I laugh. "No, I don't think so."

Cindy leads me back through the maze of hallways. My stomach started growling somewhere around we'll call you if we're interested and hasn't stopped since. I don't even think there's a McDonald's here. Which, if I'm being honest, is probably for the best. Cheeseburgers are my guilty pleasure. I have to run for two hours to burn them off.

When we turn a corner, I almost run straight into the back of someone.

The person they're talking to—the dark-skinned woman from earlier—pulls them out of the way, closer to the edge of the hallway, and I catch the tail end of her sentence: "—get Embry to pick up Seth's shifts for a while."

What an interesting name, Embry. I've heard Emory, sure, but not Embry. But what do I know? When I picked Sadie's name, I thought I was so original. But she has to go by Sadie R. in class because there are two other Sadies. We do not like Sadie M.

Sadie C. is okay.

"If you're hungry," Cindy says, just as my stomach roars like a fucking dinosaur, "I'd recommend the bar on the south end of town. It's a pool hall, technically, but they've got the best cheeseburger this side of Olympic."

"Thank you," I say. "I'll check it out."

After another handshake, Cindy heads back the way we came, and I stand and take in my surroundings.

Something about this place just feels right. I can see myself eating lunch at that picnic table outside, sitting behind that desk and drinking lukewarm motor oil and calling it good. Making friends.

Tucking in and settling down.

Yes, I think.

This could be the place for me.