Ann: 2 AM saturday
It's been a relatively uneventful Friday night shift at the hospital. Of course I would never say that out loud, it's very bad luck. At the nurses station, we never use the word "quiet". We are all well-versed in medical juu-juu and we know that saying "wow, it's pretty quiet tonight, huh?" will immediately result in a wave of new patients, a car accident, a house fire and a (this is Pawnee after all) a racoon attack. Suffice it to say, the Q-word will never cross my lips.
It does however cross my mind and I take another sip of iced coffee and think "It has been pretty quiet tonight."
I recheck my charts and, finding nothing to do, I decide to go take a stroll, maybe visit Becca, my friend who is a nurse in the emergency room. I walk through the dim hallways and take the elevator down one floor to the emergency waiting room. It's a quiet night, there's only one person waiting in the far corner of the room. A rerun of Toddlers and Tiaras plays softly from the TV in the corner.
"Ann!" gestures Becca from the desk. "Come over, this is the episode where they buy the twins a helicopter." I stroll across the waiting room and crash into the empty chair next to Becca and help myself to the bag of chocolate covered espresso beans next to the keyboard.
"Cheers" I say to Becca. We clink our iced coffee cups as if they were champagne. Considering how much we preach to our patients about the dangers of substance abuse, all the nurses here are extremely dependent on caffeine.
The door next to us opens and another nurse, who's name I've forgotten, walks out with a clipboard in hand.
"April?" says the nurse to the person in the waiting room "The doctor is ready for you."
My head snaps up as I glance across the room. Sure enough, the other patient waiting is …
"April?" I say. April sees me and her eyes widen. She throws the hood of her jacket over her face but not before we make eye contact and I see a bruise on her cheek and a cut across her forehead. She hurries forward and hurtles through the door.
"You know her?" asks Becca, as Toddlers and Tiaras goes to commercials.
"Yeah, she's an intern at City Hall. What is she doing here?"
"She wouldn't tell us anything, but if I had to guess I'd say she got mugged. That or an angry boyfriend. Does she have a boyfriend?"
"Yeah but-" I picture Andy in my head. "It wasn't him, I know him."
"Hmm." says Becca thoughtfully. "You sure you know him?"
"Yes, and so do you!" I say. "It's Andy Dwyer, remember that teddy bear?"
"Oh I love Andy!" exclaimed Becca.
"And anyway, he's in Indianapolis this weekend visiting his cousin."
"I wonder what it was," says Becca, turning her attention back to the TV as the commercial break ends.
I can't get April out of my head, her expression when she saw me and the marks on her face. What happened to her to cause her to turn up at the emergency room at 2 in the morning? Who hurt her? Where was Andy?
April, earlier on Friday afternoon
I left City Hall in the late afternoon, unsure of how to fill the rest of my day. Then I remember that it was Friday and I groan internally. With Andy in Indianapolis, I have a whole weekend with nowhere to go but home. I slowly start making my way home, dragging my feet.
A car pulls up next to me.
"Want a ride, April?" asks Leslie, poking her head out of the window.
"Ew no." I say. "Stranger danger!" A few pedestrians on the street turn to look at us/ "Stranger danger! This pervert is trying to kidnap me!"
Leslie rolls her eyes while continuing to smile brightly. "Okay have a nice weekend! Text me that you got home safely!"
"No."
"I mean it!" Leslie drives away.
Ughhhhh
I miss Andy. I wish he would get his stupid butt back to Pawnee.
I slowly walk home, picking the longest possible route. When I get home I stop before I open the front door. I listen carefully. It's quiet inside. That means it's safe, for now at least. I open the door and as quickly as I can make my way upstairs to my bedroom. I close the door and push my dresser in front of it.
Home sweet home.
My bedroom has a bunkbed and my sister Natalie is on the top bunk on her phone.
"How is it today?" I ask, throwing my backpack on my bed.
"Eight." She answers, not taking her eyes off her phone.
"Fuck."
Our dad drinks a lot and gets violent when he's drunk. Sorry for not sugarcoating that. It's been our life for years now. Natalie and I have a rating scale for how drunk he is, and how violent he will inevitably become a few hours from now. It used to be a one to ten scale but now it's one through fourteen. Every now and then, there will be a night that's so bad we need to add another number to our scale to properly adjust. Our mom tries to stop him and usually he goes after her, too. She's told us before that it isn't as bad as how her father was in Puerto Rico. Say what you will about generational trauma, but this is my life and as much as it sucks, I'm used to it.
For the next several hours, Natalie and I sit in silence and scroll through our phones. Around 8 pm, I take two bags of chips from my backpack and toss one up to Natalie for dinner. We leave our bedroom as rarely as possible when Dad's at anything higher than a seven.
"You're welcome," I say as I hear her open her bag of chips.
"Whatever." She answers. I love my sister so much.
Downstairs we can hear Dad yelling at the TV. Tonight is going to be a doozy, I can tell. At 11 PM Natalie climbs down from the top bunk and onto my desk. She opens the window and drops her backpack outside into the backyard.
"Where are you going?" I ask.
"Jeremy's,"
"Why?"
"Sex."
"Ah, okay." I go back to my magazine. Natalie usually disappears to some guy's house when Dad is getting this loud. It's her coping method I guess.
As Natalie climbs down the tree, I close the window behind her. I plug my phone in and crawl into bed. I'm still wearing a hoodie, jeans and my sneakers. My backpack sits next to me in bed. I've lived here long enough to know that I have to be able to make a quick getaway.
I doze off but wake up abruptly to shouting in the hall outside my door. I check my watch. One in the morning. I can hear my mom crying. I spring out of bed, put my phone in my pocket and throw my backpack onto my back.
"April!" shouts Dad in the hallway. "April get the fuck out here!" My hands are shaking as I try to open the window. Dad starts pounding on my door.
Fuck! Why isn't my window opened? It had opened for Natalie a couple hours ago. Something must have jammed. Judging from the slamming, Dad is bodyslamming my door and I'm a minute away from getting my ass kicked.
I strain upward at the window to no avail. "Come on come on come on!" I mutter, putting all of my weight into the frame. The window finally opens right as Dad breaks into my room.
"Where the fuck do you think you're going?!" He slurs at me. He steps across the small room and grabs my ankle. "Where the FUCK do you think you're going?"
I'll spare you the details but he really did a number on me tonight. The grand conclusion to the exciting episode of Domestic Violence at the Ludgate House was him throwing me down the stairs and me running out the front door. I didn't have my backpack but at least my phone had stayed in my pocket.
I run and run down the empty streets until it feels like my lungs are about to explode. I bend at the waist and pant until I can catch my breath. I slowly lower myself onto a park bench, breathing sharply between my teeth at the pain in my side.
Fuck! Something's wrong. I gingerly feel my side and wince. This is more than a bruise, I can tell. Something might be broken. I wait a couple for minutes on the bench but the pain isn't going away. It's getting sharper and I'm having difficulty taking a breath. Every time I inhale, it feels like something is stabbing me in the side. I'm not an idiot, I can make a fair guess that I have a broken rib or something like that. Finally, not seeing any other options, I open up my phone to look up directions to the emergency room.
My lock screen shows two missed calls and a text from Leslie.
April! I told you to text me that you got home safely!
I roll my eyes. I got home safely, that wasn't the dangerous part. I open Google maps and find that the hospital is only a couple minutes walk away. It takes me almost a quarter of an hour because every few steps I have to stop and catch my breath. My side is killing me. All I can think of is Andy. I don't want him to ever see me like this. I like that people fear me. It makes me feel temporarily like I'm not the powerless victim whose Dad hits them.
I walk into the harsh fluorescent lighting of the emergency room. It's empty except for a nurse at the front desk. Her eyes are glued to the TV in the corner. I walk up to the front desk. Her eyes widen as she looks at me. Fuck, I must look worse than I thought.
"What happened, honey?" She asks. "Would you like me to call the police?"
"No!" I say forcefully. "I fell."
She narrows her eyes at me.
"I fell… down the stairs." Not technically a lie.
"Okay baby, I'll get the doctor right out for you." I retreat to the farthest chair in the corner as she turns back to the TV.
I take out my phone and text Natalie
It was at least a 13
A minute late she answers.
Fuck
U ok?
I roll my eyes and type
No
She replies
Ok
My eyes tear up and I suddenly wish Natalie was here next to me.
Wya
ER
OK
The nurse brings me a cup of water and a form to fill out. I fill out my info and drop it off at the front desk, before going back to my chair. I applaud myself for managing to keep all this mess a secret from the people at work. I shudder to imagine Leslie if she were to find out about all this.
A few minutes later, a different nurse walks in and says
"April? The doctor is ready for you."
I stand up and put my phone in my pocket.
"April?" says a familiar voice. I look up and lock eyes with Ann Perkins. Her face is laced with concern but before she has time to gather her thoughts, I run through the door.
Fuck!