The Campus Cheaters Redemption

Chapter 13: Nurses Break The Rule Too

Daniel’s POV

Sebastian showed up first, backpack still on, cleats slung over one shoulder from his own practice across town. He leaned next to the foot of Daniel’s bed without thinking of his injuries, like a typical 12-year-old

“I heard you scored a goal today, big brother,” Sebastian said with a mocking tone of sarcasm.

“Wait until I get out of this bed, you knucklehead. I’m stuck in this bed being useless.”

“You’re not useless; you’re just on the bench, as always, bench boy,” Sebastian said it with such conviction that Daniel actually laughed, the first real laugh that hadn’t hurt his ribs in days.

“Why’d you even come here today, trying to make me feel some type of way?”

“Nah! Just teasing you a little bit. You can’t chase me around the hospital. Haha”

“You little wimp. How was school today?”

“I know, I love you too.” Sebastian pulled a crumpled drawing out of his backpack, the Pinnacles crest badly traced in marker, and taped it to the wall beside Daniel’s IV pole without asking permission for that either. “This is how my day went. I hope you like it.”

“You’re not sweet-talking me out of this one, plus it looks like your 3rd-grade girlfriend drew it for you.”

“Mm- whatever, I know you like it. It’s written all over your face.”

Daniel reached over with his good arm and ruffled Sebastian’s hair the way he always does after they mouthed each other, and for a while they just talked; about nothing, about everything, about a video game Sebastian was obsessed with and a teacher he hated. Sebastian had a bad way of being an inquisitive little brother.

“Is Jane coming today?” Sebastian asked

Daniel inhaled. “I don’t know, bud.”

“You guys fighting or something?”

“Not really. She texted about being busy with some new cheerleading formation that the board requested.”

“Yuck, adults.” Dad says relationships are like soccer; you gotta show up even when the odds are stacked against you.” Sebastian said it so confidently, as if he knew what his father meant by those words. Like it was the simplest advice in the world,

“Easier said than done, in this case,” said Daniel

“I think you should hurry up and get better – since you’ve always been the favorite striker at Holloway lately.”

“What do you know?” Daniel asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Ha! I know enough.” He grinned, all teeth, and the two of them kept talking about whether Jerome was actually any good until Sebastian’s ride honked twice from the parking lot. Daniel had a room by a front window. “Ubers are so dumb, I wasn’t even ready.”

“Well, see you later, bud.”

The kid left the way he’d arrived, all motion and no goodbye, just a fist bump against Daniel’s good shoulder and the door swinging shut behind him.

Daniel started staring at the ceiling tile with the water stain shaped like Florida and tried not to think about the drawing, about Jane’s voicemail he still hadn’t returned, about the ache under his cast that painkillers only half touched. He picked up his phone, thumbed open his messages, saw Jane’s message resting at the top, the soccer team group chat resting beneath it, and Rebecca’s and Dane’s below; he set the phone back down without opening either one of them.

The door opened without a knock this time.

“Evening rounds.” Nurse Faithful said, wheeling in her cart. “Your brother left in a hurry.”

“He’s twelve. Everything’s a hurry at twelve.”

“He has so much energy, he should go replace you in battle.”

Daniel released a small chuckle.

She started checking his chart, her fingers quick and businesslike, but her eyes kept drifting to his face longer than the chart required. “You look tired, Star Boy.”

“I am tired, tired of this bed, tired of being treated like I’m made of glass.”

“You are made of glass right now, cracked glass; give it time.” She set the chart down and perched on the edge of the visitor’s chair instead of leaving, which she hadn’t done before. “Can I ask you something and you don’t lie to me?”

“Depends on the question.”

“Your girlfriend, does she know about your other girlfriend? The one who visits when I’m on shift and leaves right before shift change like she’s timing it.”

Daniel’s throat went dry. “Is it that obvious?”

“I clean up after enough secrets in this job to recognize the pattern.” She didn’t sound angry, just tired in a way that matched his own. “I’m not judging you. I’m asking because I don’t want to be the third name on that list.”

“The third name on that list- what do you mean, Nurse?”

“I know you think of me; I’ve seen the ways you look at me yesterday.” She reached over and adjusted his blanket, a motion that was pure habit until her hand lingered against his good arm a beat too long, and neither of them pulled away first.

“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore,” he admitted, quieter than he meant to. “I used to know exactly who I was: striker, boyfriend, campus soccer team hero and all. While now I’m just a guy stuck in a bed who can’t stop lying to everybody who walks through that door. Because – what if I don’t walk the same anymore? These things really make me see everyone else as better than me now.”

“Then maybe stop thinking, and start doing,” she said, but she didn’t move her hand, and the space between them had gone thin and electric in a way that had nothing to do with medicine.

“You’re supposed to be the professional one,” he said, a weak attempt at a joke that didn’t land the way he wanted it to.

“I am the professional one. Professionally, I should be finishing your chart and moving on to Room 214.” She still hadn’t moved. “Unprofessionally, I have been thinking about this conversation since your last bath.”

“So what happens now?”

“Now, nothing. Not tonight.” She finally pulled her hand back, though it seemed to cost her something to do it. “You have a girlfriend, and a secret girlfriend, and enough going on in that head of yours without adding my name to the mess.”

“Your name is already added to the mess,” Daniel said with a soft smirk.

“When you figure out if you want me to be on that list, you tell me.”

“And if I don’t figure it out?” He asked

“Then I go on being your nurse, and you go on being my patient with my very bad attraction.” A pager buzzed at her hip, and she startled like she’d been caught at something else entirely, straightening up fast, cheeks flushing under the fluorescent light.

“Room 214 needs me.” She said, “Funny, you didn’t get hard today; you must have so much really going on inside. Do you mind if I come back to see you later tonight when the other nurses are distracted?”

“Of course I don’t mind. But wait, uhm… what did you mean by “stop thinking, start doing?”

Nurse Faithful giggled for a second while she slowly packed her cart. “Stop thinking about getting worse, and start doing your therapy on your own, small small, while your therapist is away. That’s what I meant. I have to go now. I will sneak you later, be happy.”

The door clicked shut behind her. Daniel lay there with his heartbeat loud in his own ears, the water-stained Florida still staring down at him, and for the first time since the tackle that put him there, he wasn’t thinking about the field at all.

He was thinking about Matt Downey.