“So you had fun last night, huh?” I ask.
She looks mortified. “I don’t even remember coming home. I didn’t think I had that much to drink, but apparently I did. I’m sorry for coming in here. This must feel totally weird to you.” She holds the blanket close to her face, and I see her eyes get heavy again. It’s not weird at all. It feels… good. “I must have thought this was Kai’s room.”
“I hope you had a great birthday,” I say.
“I think I did.”
“My birthday was yesterday also.” I can’t believe I just told her. I didn’t think that through. I never celebrate it because of what my dad did to himself on this day, but I just blurted it out without thinking.
Her eyes grow wide. “Really?”
I nod slowly and turn on my side to face her. “I don’t really like to celebrate it. It doesn’t elicit happy memories for me.”
“Me either,” she says, and her eyes glaze over. She looks exhausted. Is she about to cry?
“That’s understandable,” I say. “How do you do it, though? You seem like you have it way more together than I ever could.” She’s strong and confident. I’m surprised to see this moment of weakness.
“I don’t know. Sometimes my birthday is really hard. Especially because it’s a reminder of everything that I’ve lost. My family.” She pauses and looks pensively out the window. “I sometimes feel like I’m drowning without them, but then I remember they taught me how to swim.”
She’s insightful and inspiring. “It seems like you’ve been able to find peace, in a way,” I say encouragingly.
“I think I have.” She holds my gaze with her sleepy eyes and says, “You should try to find peace too. You have a really big reason to do that now, you know.”
I nod again and admit, “I never thought I’d be in this situation.”
“Being a father isn’t a situation. It’s a choice.”
“It wasn’t my choice, Sam.”
Her face hardens and her eyes fill with tears. “It’s your choice now. It’s your life now. That little boy depends on you to live. Stop dwelling on the events that you had no control over and start focusing on your future with Kai, because I know it’s going to be wonderful.”
I exhale and struggle to find my next breath. Her words are profound and tear right through me. These words come from a girl whose parents were murdered and her life forever altered. Yet she’s risen from it all and has the ability to be so positive about the rest of her life. And mine.
I reach out to push aside a thick curl that fell onto her face. She closes her eyes when my hand brushes against her cheek.
She places her hand over mine, her touch softens my soul. It transmits strength and security. Love and understanding. I don’t want her to let go. She exhales softly and is sound asleep.
“Where did you come from?” I whisper.
Sam
Past
Trenton, New Jersey
Age 20
CASSIE FALLS ONTO HER BED across from mine and lets out a sigh of relief.
“This was easily the hardest year yet. I don’t think I can take clinicals anymore.” She complains and rolls over, kicking off her tennis shoes. We just finished our microbiology final and we’re done for the semester.
“Seriously, Cassie? You’ve gotten straight As so far. What are you complaining about?”
“I don’t think I’m cut out for this, Sam. You’ll make a better nurse than me. You’re built for this. You have the desire to help people. Me? I’m disgusted by them. If I have to wipe another ass…” She stands up and pulls her tank top over her head. “I need a shower.”
We share a one-bedroom apartment that I swear is smaller than our dorm room was on campus. She takes three steps and is already in our bathroom. The water turns on and she’s still complaining. “How am I going to continue? Sure, I can do the book stuff just fine, but when you put me in front of a patient, I can’t do it. You saw what happened last week when I had to find that dude’s vein and draw blood. It was a mess! I should be wearing a sign that says ‘Beware – Nursing Student.’”
I shrug my shoulders, knowing she’s so much better than she thinks she is. Her confidence when it comes to her nursing abilities is lacking, but her skill is not. We’ll just need to work on that some more.
“Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I almost vomited all over my patient right after I was told I had to give her an enema. Imagine that!” I laugh and stretch out on my bed. Googie is perched on my pillow, and I rub her like I do every day. She’s as old as I am, and her stuffing is practically gone.
Cassie chuckles and I can hear the shower door close.
“Just think, this time next year, we’ll be on our own in a hospital, saving lives every single day,” I call out to her and wait for her response.
“Fuck that!” she says from the shower. “I need to find something else to do.”
“Stop being so dramatic,” I say and roll over on my side. “Always so damn dramatic.”
The water turns off and she’s in the room with a towel wrapped around her head and another one around her body. Drips of water trail behind her.
“Didn’t you dry yourself off at all?” I scold her as she drips onto the carpet.
“You didn’t listen to a word I said, Sam. Really listen. I can’t do this anymore.”
Her expression is serious, and I sit up on the bed. I quickly toss Googie to her and she catches her clumsily.
“Googie says you can do it, so you can. Now stop this nonsense and get your shit together.”
She looks at my floppy childhood friend, and I see the smile in her eyes.
“Well, if your dog thinks I can do it, then maybe I can.” She tosses Googie back to me and laughs out loud.
She slips into comfy leggings and a tank top and crawls into her own bed. Her eyes find mine and they glisten a bit. “Sam, I’m so proud of you,” she says.
“Don’t get sappy on me now,” I respond, wondering where this conversation is going.
“Seriously, look at you. You’re the star student. You do everything with ease and you have this innate desire to help people. You want to make them all better. Every last one of them. You have a gift and you don’t even know it.”
Her tone is serious, and I know she means every word that she’s saying. Aunt Peggy says the same words to me all of the time.
“It’s weird, Cass. I feel like I have a purpose, you know? I appreciate what I have and how I can help others. It scares the hell out of me that somehow I’ll mess it up, but I know what I’m supposed to be doing. Don’t you feel that way?” I ask her, curious.
“Hell no,” she answers definitively. “I don’t know what my purpose is or the reason I’m even in nursing school. I’m following your lead. Following in your footsteps. I see what makes you happy. What makes you tick. And I want to feel the same way. I want to be like you.”
I snort out loud.
“No you don’t. Trust me. You know me better than anyone and know everything that I’ve gone through. You do not want to be like me.”
“Sam, what you’ve overcome is tremendous. I’m going to get sappy on you again for a second, and you have to bear with me.” Her eyes are still wet, and I lie back down on my bed, staring up at the solar system poster tacked to the ceiling above me.
“Yeah, your life at sixteen was torn the fuck apart. I completely get that. But your entire outlook on life and how you function day-to-day is remarkable. Your strength is astonishing. You almost drowned when you were seven. What did you do? You got swim lessons and learned pool yoga.”