Seeing you, seeing me

The day was longer than I thought it would be. I fought so hard to keep a smile on my face working in the primitive conditions. Nothing could have prepared me for what I was facing. I knew that it would be bad and nothing like what I had done in Chicago, but I was not ready or prepared for it to be this bad.

I knew that Carter was watching me. I would occasionally glance up with a smile on my face to see him watching me. I do not know if he was watching me to make sure that I did not get in over my head, or because I was a sight for his sore eyes. Either way I did appreciate having a friend, or someone who I hoped was a friend there to help if I did need it.

I was finally confident in my abilities as a doctor. Moreover, I think that all my years as a nurse helped me to be a better doctor. I could see things that I do not think I would have if I had not spent so much time on the floor. Of course, I was still accused of spending to much time with the patients, and being in the ER I can understand why.

There was not a lot of time to be attached to those who you were seeing. That was a luxury I had as a nurse that I was finding very hard to give up as a doctor. Here I did not have to give that up so much. There were many to see, but I could take more than 15 seconds to listen to them. By the end of the day, I was more tired than I had ever been at County. Maybe it was because I had just worked 12 hours and seen over one hundred people. However, I had never helped that many people in one day.

I wondered silently if Carter still wanted to talk to me. That was eating at me more than anything that I had seen during the day. The events that had unfolded during the day were swept under the rug with knowing that he was probably waiting to talk to me and give me the bad news in person. Wait a minute, here I was doing it again, I cannot be thinking so negatively.

My negativity was what part of what drug us under before and I was not going to let it do it again. I was not going to sabotage my chance at happiness with Carter in my mind. I needed to think positive until told, yes told by him, that it was not going to work. I told myself that I should not get my hopes up, but that I should not think that we did not have a chance at all. Stay somewhere in the middle of the road that was a safe place for right now.

When I had talked to him earlier he had not been overly friendly and warm, but then that could have been from the shock of me showing up unexpectedly. Even though he was not warm towards me, he definitely was not cold either. It is not as if he had turned and stormed off when he saw me like a scorned man. He had tried to make small talk. It was awkward that was for sure, but we had been in more awkward positions before.

This was just going to take some time; after all, it had been a year and a half since we had last seen each other. The words spoken between us at that time were not very great. "Abby you are carrying on an entire conversation in your head." I said to myself as I crossed the room. I headed to the little cafeteria and grabbed something that looked like food.

My body was literally exhausted as I ate what was in front of me. I could feel my eyelids getting heavy as I returned the tray and slowly started the trek back to where I would be sleeping. There he was standing outside, a lit cigarette in one hand, beer in the other, on what could be the front porch of the sleeping quarters.

He still wanted to talk I guess otherwise why would he be standing there. I looked up at him. The exhaustion showed clearly on my face. I was not sure what I would say to him. Maybe it was going to be best just to listen to what he had to say first. Small talk was better than no talk.