Amber Laura's Blog, page 14

The Unveiling….

With a frank look at Nurse Hansen, Dr. Thompson inclined his head slightly toward the door. “Caro? Would you mind?”

“Of course,” she hurried to say, walking briskly toward her exit before the second word had come out of her mouth. The faster she escaped the better.

After she’d left, shutting the door quietly in her wake, Dr. Thompson moved further into the room. His hand grabbed the back of that damned turquoise chair and, with a tug, he drew it up beside her bed before taking a seat.

For a moment, he didn’t speak, his lips compressed in thought. His elbows rested on his knees, his fingers steepled together.

Then he looked up at Jackie. “I’m Max.”

For her part, Jackie looked fairly confused. “Your—?”

“I was on the bus that night,” he continued, speaking slowly. “I was the one who—”

“You saved my life?” Jackie’s eyebrows rose over a crinkled forehead.

Dr. Thompson laughed weakly. “A lot of people saved your life that night.”

Jackie batted this away with an impatient flick of her wrist. “You know what I mean.”

“Yes.”

Jackie stared up at him nonplussed. Dr. Thompson shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“You were there? On that bus?” She reiterated. Then, holding up a hand before he could speak, she said: “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be dense. It’s just—it’s a bit much. To swallow. You know?”

Dr. Thompson nodded slowly.

Jackie was still chewing over this enlightening find. “That a doctor would just happen to be on the same bus as a woman who gets stabbed. I mean, what are the odds?”

“Not great,” he conceded. “Especially since it was the first bus ride I’d probably taken in five years.”

That got her attention. Pushing herself up higher on the chair, she looked over at him. His face was calm, almost expressionless. “What?”

“My car broke down three days ago. On the side of the road coming home from work.” He shrugged. “So I had it towed to a local mechanics shop, but they weren’t going to get to it for a few days, and they didn’t have any loaner cars left.” He smirked. “I guess it was a busy week for car maintenance or something. So, I decided to take the bus.”

Which was perhaps more amazing than Jackie would be able to comprehend. The last time Max had taken a bus, he’d been doing his residency.

Jackie blinked.

“I’m not even sure why,” he confessed softly. “Normally, I’d have probably just called for a taxi. Or asked one my coworkers for a lift.”

In fact, he’d been on the verge of doing just that. Jack Turner, one of the hospital’s oncologists, had also been on the afternoon shift that day. He would have gladly picked Max up…

“But you didn’t.”

He shook his head. “No, I didn’t.” He’d pocketed his phone at the last minute, mumbling to himself it wouldn’t be worth the hassle of ride-sharing. He had a lot of documentation to do that evening, anyway. If he got there early, he just might have time to get it done before rounds. “I-I just took the bus instead.”

And no amount of logic, no amount of retrospective hindsight would tell him what had compelled this unusual decision. He’d just done it. Almost as if the decision had been made for him. He’d walked out the door and taken the few blocks necessary to make it to the bus stop. And he hadn’t thought any more about it. And then…

“And there I was,” Jackie whispered quietly.

“And there you were.”

She lifted a calm face to his. “This all still feels a little surreal. Like, at any moment, someone’s going to jump out of the closet and yell “Fooled ya! You weren’t stabbed. It was just a routine appendectomy!’ or something.” She puffed out her cheeks.

“I can only imagine.”

“Getting stabbed. Waking up in a hospital. Not remembering…I mean, before this week, the craziest thing that had ever happened to me was winning concert tickets in a bar raffle. And it wasn’t even for a band I liked that much.”

He smiled.

Jackie licked her lips, her voice high, strained. “It’s just, these are the kinds of things that happen to other people, you know? You hear about them on the news but it’s always somebody else. Never anyone you know. Certainly never yourself.” She shook her head. “I just can’t seem to wrap my head around it. That it really happened. To me. I can’t seem to make myself believe it’s real.”

He let out a long breath. He’d heard similar musings before. “Yeah….”

“And you were there!” She cried, her arms gesturing out at her sides. “You, of all people. It’s just—too, it’s too something. Unbelievable, I guess,” Jackie repeated. She tried to grin, but her lips wobbled. If he’d called for that taxi instead, if his car hadn’t broken down when it did… She played for flippancy. “I should have bought a lottery ticket that day.”

But Max didn’t smile. He wasn’t quite as willing to play the part of glibness. Because watching her now, he couldn’t help comparing her to the pale, scared woman laying on the floor of that bus. Her eyes wide, the pupils dilated wildly in a face like rice paper. Her lips had trembled as she’d gasped for breath, her fingers frantic, pulling at his wrist when he pushed down against the wound.

And her scream—he suppressed a shudder; the scream that had crawled up her throat and out of her mouth; the piecing shriek of confusion and pain, and black, naked fear. It had invaded the air, swimming against the crowded aisle as she’d lain there, her body struggling as it fought to survive….

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

At the sound of her voice, Max brought himself back to the present. Blinking, he tilted his head to one side. “Tell you?”

“That it was you,” Jackie explained. “That you were there.” There was hint of something in her voice. “You made me ask you.”

He let out a long breath at the accusation.

She pressed on. “Were you even going to tell me?”

“I don’t know,” he finally admitted.

Jackie’s brow furrowed. “But, why not? Why the state secret?” She waved her arm toward the door. “You should’ve seen Nurse Hansen when I brought it up. Cagey doesn’t even begin to describe it…”

Truth be told, Max wasn’t sure why he hadn’t told her. Only, that he hadn’t. That for some reason, he hadn’t wanted her to know. He’d have rather remained anonymous. “Does it matter?” He asked wearily, running a hand absently though his hair. “That it was me, as opposed to anyone else, I mean?”

“Yes!” She insisted, her palms slapping against the bed sheets. “Of course it does. If it wasn’t for you…” She shook her head. “I owe you my—”

“Nothing. You owe me nothing.” Max growled. This. This was why. This was precisely what he’d wanted to avoid. The look of shock and incredulity stamped across her features, the weight of coincidence or fate, or whatever—the shyness starting to steal over her person as her eyes dropped down to her lap and she reconciled him to someone of reverence.

He frowned. Being related to that of the hero, placed on a pedestal about that of mere man. He didn’t want that. He should have been used to it by now. He was used to it. As a surgeon, this was a common reaction from his patients. But Jackie—she was different. With her, it was different. Being so far removed….

“Don’t say that,” Jackie pleaded, her eyes misting. Without thought, her hand reached forward, sliding over the bedrails to grab his—just as she’d done that first day when she’d woken up so confused and alone. Her eyes lifted to his once more. “Don’t bat it away like it was nothing. It was everything. Don’t do that.”

“Okay.” Max let her fingers curl against his wrist. “Okay.”

Her chin jutted out stubbornly. “Besides, what’s that saying—save a life, gain a life?” she asked softly, refusing to let him off the hook.

Max laughed against his will. “I don’t think that’s how it goes…”

“Well. Whatever. Close enough,” Jackie insisted. She squeezed his hand. “Mark my words, Max Thompson—” Jackie’s eyes were steady on his. They were the bluest eyes. Almost violet. “Someday, I’m going to save you right back.” And with that, she let her hand go. He watched as she curled it up against the side of her body once more.

“Is that so?” he asked softly. For some reason, he didn’t mind the sound of that. Scooting the legs of his chair back, with something akin to reluctance, he rose to his feet.

“You better believe it,” she promised him, her eyes following along as he slowly moved toward the door.

“Then I’ll look forward to it,” he said, unable to keep the laughter out of his voice. His fingers curled around the door latch. Maybe he wasn’t so far removed as all that…

“You do that,” he heard her call out once he’d gained the outside corridor. “You do that.”

 

What’s His Name?

“The cops came in to get my statement this morning,” Jackie said with forced nonchalance as Nurse Hansen popped her head in the room the following afternoon. Stirring her cup of ice-cream, Jackie seemed to be waiting for the other woman to say something.

Unfortunately for Nurse Hansen, she’d only come in to see if Jackie had finished her tray of supper, but at the searching look, she walked further inside the dimly lit space. “Yeah. I figured as much.” And, at Jackie’s curious look, the nurse shrugged. “Saw them walk up to your door earlier.”

“Oh.”

“You okay?”

Jackie smiled faintly. “Yeah. I mean, I guess.” At least she’d started to remember things. After that first rough awakening, Jackie had lost most of her confusion, her body growing accustomed to her newfound situation: the stark grey bedrails surrounding her, the white pillow cases and sheets; light blue panel blinds, and that damn turquoise chair. The thing was hideous, really. She’d even gotten used to the perpetual soreness.

So when she’d spoken to the policemen, she’d been able to vividly put herself back on that bus, that moment when she’d tried to squeeze past the feuding couple standing in her way. She’d been able to recall their angry, raised voices, see clearly again their arms and fists flying about as they pushed and grabbed at one another.

It hadn’t been a pretty memory.

“It can be hard. Reliving bad moments,” the nurse said absently, coming to check one of the computer monitors now.

Jackie shifted carefully on the bed. “Yeah. Well, I’m still a little foggy on all the details.” She still could only vaguely recollect the actual stabbing. That still sort of felt like a dream—the sequence of things discombobulated, disconnected.

“That’s only to be expected.”

“Yeah.” Jackie took another small bite of ice-cream. Letting the thick cream slowly disintegrate in her mouth, she let her mind flash back to that afternoon. When she spoke next it was with a hesitant air. “But, as I was talking to them, I-I thought I remembered something.”

The nurse gave Jackie a long look; she had a rather sinking feeling about this…. “Oh?”

“Actually, it was someone. Or rather, it was their voice.”

Nurse Hansen sighed silently. Yeah. Definitely a bad feeling.

“A man’s voice,” Jackie clarified. “He was there with me after, you know. After I was stabbed. At least, I think so…” Jackie bit her lip, peeking up at the nurse hopefully.

Nurse Hansen nodded briskly. “Yes. There was a man.” She spoke almost against her will.

“So I didn’t dream him up?” Jackie murmured quietly to herself. For some reason that mattered to her.

“No. You didn’t dream him up.”

Jackie felt her throat constrict. Her eyes stared down at her hands, which were clutching the sides of her ice-cream cup with unnecessary vigor. “He was nice to me. He kept talking, although I’m not sure what he said.”

“It’s not really what he said that counts,” Nurse Hansen muttered. “It’s what he did.”

That caught Jackie’s attention. “Did? What did he do?”

“Honey, he saved your life.”

Jackie swallowed, but truth be told, she wasn’t sure she was surprised to hear that.

“He did?”

“Honey, you were thirteen blocks from the hospital in rush-hour when it happened. And you were bleeding pretty badly. If he hadn’t been there…” the nurse shook her head insistently.

Jackie felt her face go white.

“Whoa. Hey now, don’t go fainting on me,” Nurse Hansen ordered, stepping forward to take a closer look at Jackie’s sudden paleness. “I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean to upset you. Only, you did survive. It all worked out.” She patted Jackie’s shoulder with a rough sort of comfort. “No use crying over something that didn’t even happen, am I right?”

Jackie laughed weakly. Things were becoming foggy again. “I thought. He was holding my hand. I thought he was just offering comfort,” Jackie closed her eyes. “—but he was probably just checking my pulse.”

The nurse lifted her shoulders helpfully. “Blood flow can be denied to certain parts of the body in situations like this…he was probably assessing your circulation level…”

“I would have died?”

Nurse Hansen sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. Try not to dwell on it.”

“But, I don’t understand. He saved my life? I mean. I just assumed I made it to the hospital on time.”

“And so you did.”

“But only because of him?”

Nurse Hansen made a face as though she didn’t want to continue this conversation. Which was fair enough, because she didn’t. She had other rooms to check yet tonight; and this story was surely none of her business. But she held her impatience in check. Barely. “Yes.”

“He knew what to do?” Jackie spoke the words quietly. They were more statement than question.

“Yes.”

Jackie’s eyes were wide; and getting wider by the second.

Nurse Hansen’s face looked pinched. “Look, honey, don’t go getting all worshipful. Truth be told, he didn’t do all that much…” at least, not until he got her to the hospital. That’s when he really saved her life, but Nurse Hansen wasn’t such a big mouth to let that out.

“But you said—?”

Nurse Hansen flapped her hands about in agitation. “Oh, he put pressure on the wound to control the bleeding. He elevated your legs; stayed on the phone with the hospital, explaining…”

“Explaining?”

Nurse Hansen gave up. “Your symptoms and signs. Kept them aware of the situation…That kind of stuff.”

Jackie stirred her spoon in her melted cup of ice-cream slowly. “Oh. But,” she gnawed on her bottom lip. “If I didn’t make him up, what, ah, what happened to him?”

“To who?”

“The man! What happened to him?”

“What do you mean what happened to him? Nothing. He was just fine.” Nurse Hansen said with a huff.

Jackie felt her face flush; her fingers pinched the cheap cardboard rim of the ice-cream cup. “No, I know that. I just thought—” Jackie bit her lip. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter what I thought.”

The room spun with an awful sort of silence. Tense, unnerved.

“I suppose I’d like to thank him,” Jackie said then, her voice small.

“I’m sure he knows how grateful you are.” Nurse Hansen seemed to be built out of stone, her face betraying none of her feelings.

Jackie nodded with a jerk, placing her cup down on her plastic tray. With a weary sigh, she pushed the cart it was sitting on off to the side of her bed. She blew out a hard breath. “I hope so.”

With quick steps, Nurse Hansen grabbed up her supper things, her fingers curling around the plastic tray as though it had become a lifeline of sorts. Holding it up meaningfully, she took a determined step backward. “Well. I’d best be getting back to it.”

“Right. Of course.” Jackie said gamely.

“Try not to think about it, will you?”

“About the mystery man who saved my life?” Jackie smiled. “Fat chance.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Nurse Hansen muttered under her breath, but luckily the sound didn’t reach Jackie’s ears. Only, on her second step backward, for the second time in as many minutes, she was waylaid from her attempt to leave when Jackie’s voice peppered the air once more.

“I’m just wondering, is it possible do you know, if he maybe come into the hospital with me?”

At the nurse’s frank stare, she felt a blush coating her cheeks. “Probably not, huh? Why would he? It’s not as if he knew me.”

Nurse Hansen spoke testily: “Goodness, how should I be expected to know such things? It’s not as if I stop every person wandering up and down these halls to ask them what they’re doing here, now do I? How would I possibly get anything done if I did?”

Jackie grimaced. “Right. Right.”

“Look, I only know what I heard. I wasn’t even here that evening.” Which was perhaps the only true thing she’d said during this whole exchange.

Jackie blew out her breath, and then, on the eve of a new thought, sat up a little straighter in her bed. “Do you think the police would know?”

“The police?”

“He would have been a witness, right?”

“Honey, I don’t think you need to be worrying about this—”

“He saved my life,” Jackie insisted. “I have to know.” She tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear determinedly. “I have to.”

Nurse Hansen nodded slowly, equal parts fear and frustration stealing over her body. This was not her story to tell. Indeed, she’d said far too much already.

Jackie didn’t seem to notice the nurse’s unease though. “If I could just get his name…”

Nurse Hansen shuffled the food tray against her hip. “Please, try not to fixate on this. What you need now is rest.”

“No, what I need are a few answers.”

Nurse Hansen closed her eyes. “I know, it’s just…”

“Max.”

At the sound of a new voice entering the conversation, two pairs of eyes jumped anxiously toward its speaker. And there, at the threshold of the doorway, stood none other than Dr. Thompson. With a barely perceptible glance, his eyes caught those of Nurse Hansen—and the look that passed between them was instantaneous and so quick it almost didn’t happen.

“His name is Max,” he reiterated into the growing silence.

With hopeful eyes, Jackie looked up at him, her voice eager, earnest in her address: “You know who he is?” Her blue eyes widened, her smile stretching fully across her face. “The man on the bus?”

Dr. Thompson gave her a wry smile. “Yeah, well, I guess you could say that.”

 

Waking Up Confused

Opening her eyes, Jackie tried to blink. Her lashes fluttered against the harsh, scratchy glare. Everything around her was blurry. The images bathed in a white-gold light and yet, unfamiliar. She sniffed.  Disinfectant. Rubbing Alcohol. The smell of it almost burned her nostrils.

And that’s when the pain hit her. Her breath caught, her stomach burned, seized, making her eyes water, her fingers curl pitifully down at her sides. For a moment, the pain infused her whole body, paralyzing her.

And then, it eased. Taking a shallow breath, Jackie felt her legs relax, her shoulders droop as her head fell back down into the pillow.

She was in bed.

But it wasn’t her bed.

Jackie eye’s shifted madly— across the stark white blinds at the tall double windows against the far wall, roam across the turquoise chair snuggled up against the corner, the tall custom-built wardrobe…

“Ms. Cambridge,” a voice called out. Jackie’s head whiplashed toward the sound. Groaning at the harsh movement, she winced up at the woman standing at the base of the door. She wore pastel colored scrubs.

Scrubs.

Jackie swallowed painfully. Her throat was dry, acrid. But she didn’t ask where she was. As her disorientation started to fall away, she could almost feel her synapses firing, absorbing everything.

The IV drip on her left.

Those teal scrubs.

The distinct squeak of shoes out in the hallway.

She was in a hospital.

Eyes growing wide as the thought imploded through her consciousness, panic stealing through her body once again, Jackie moved without thinking. Bracing her hands on either side of her, she went to push herself up off the bed.

“Whoa—!” Crossing over to her bed in a flat second, the nurse softly but firmly took hold of Jackie, and with the pressure of her hands laid her back down. “Take it easy. We don’t want to rip the stitches now do we, ducks?” The nurse offered a weak laugh. “Here. How about I incline the headrest?” And with the flip of a button on a remote, Jackie felt the top half of her shoulders elevate upward until she was halfway sitting.

“Stitches?” Jackie repeated, her voice little more that a squeak. “What-what happened to me?”

“Having a hard time remembering?” The nurse asked knowingly. She patted Jackie’s shoulder. “It’s all right. It’ll all come back shortly. Sometimes the anesthesia clouds up the mind. In fact…” She turned then to fiddle with one of the bags attached to the IV drip, punching something into the monitor.

Jackie held her breath, diverted by a sudden, acute ache. In her struggle to get up, she’d revived that sensation from earlier—the ripping, burning, paralyzing sensation when she breathed too fast, too hard.

She watched as the nurse changed one of the medical bags hanging there.

“What are you doing? Jackie asked once she could speak again.

“Just giving you something for the pain.”

“Oh.”

Jackie wet her lips nervously.

And then, before she could ask any more questions, her door opened again. This time a white-coated man strolled into the room.

“Nurse Hansen,” he called out curtly, nodding in her direction.

“Dr. Thompson,” she returned cordially.

Jackie stared at him curiously, her eyes following him as he reached the end of her bed, his hand automatically taking hold of the clipboard hanging on the railing there.

“You’re awake. Good,” he muttered absently, flipping over one of the pages. His eyes drifted over the sheets of paper until he was finally looking at Jackie. “How are you feeling this morning, Ms. Cambridge?”

Jackie swallowed. Her mouth felt dry.

“Jackie’s a little disorientated …” Nurse Hansen said into the silence. That caught his attention. Slowly, he dropped the clipboard back into the sideboard.

“Oh?” He queried with a gentle smile.

“She having some difficulties… remembering,” she added meaningfully.

He nodded slightly, but his eyes remained on Jackie’s face. “Can you tell me what you do remember?”

Jackie licked her lips. “I-I was on the bus. Going home.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“And, and,” Jackie turned helplessly toward the nurse, her eyes filling with tears. “And then I woke up here.”

The doctor gave the nurse a look and with a bustle of activity, plumping Jackie’s pillow and reminding her to call if she needed anything, she slipped out the door, leaving the two of them alone.

The doctor came around the side of bed.

“Ms. Cambridge, that night on the bus,” he hesitated. It was marginal, a few seconds, but it reverberated through Jackie’s ears. “You were stabbed. With a short blade knife.”

“What?” Jackie blinked as the words floated distantly, almost comically over her head. “What? Wait. No. That, that doesn’t…” She tried to swallow but it scorched her throat. Then her eyes widened, wild. “Is that why I can’t breathe?”

Her voice was little more than a whispered pant of fear. “I was stabbed?”

Dr. Thompson continued, his voice even, detached. “The knife lacerated your liver, but luckily, the damage was minimal.”

“My liver?” Jackie whispered uncomprehendingly. Her hands moved, went to touch her stomach. Frantically, her fingers scuttled across the slim expanse. And then she felt it.

Her eyes widened disbelievingly. “Oh my God.”

“We had to perform emergency surgery. You lost quite a bit of blood.”

Jackie felt her heart rate giving out. Great hiccupping gusts of hysteria bobbed up her throat. “But, but that doesn’t make any sense!”

He smiled gently. “It’s a lot to take in. I understand if you…”

“A lot to take in? I-I…” Jackie’s eyes grew wild. Her heart was beating too hard. She could feel it shaking her. “I don’t understand. No, no!” she cried when he would have interrupted. “That just doesn’t…it doesn’t make sense. I was alone on that bus. I was just going home. It was a normal day. And I— I would remember something like that.” Her eyes were pleading. “I would! You don’t forget something like that.” She gulped, peeking up at him. “I was in surgery?” The words peppered the air hot and quick, as fast as she thought them. “No. No, this can’t. This can’t be right—” During her outburst, Nurse Hansen had silently reemerged in the room (at the telling look Dr. Thompson had sent her way through the hallway glass). But Jackie was too upset to take much notice.

She reached for the doctor’s wrist, her motion frenzied. “Please. Please, you’ve got to…” but whatever else she had been about to say would have to wait. The shot Nurse  Hansen had quietly administered had taken affect and, with it, Jackie’s eyelashes lowered, her speech stilling as she dropped off into a dreamless sleep.

Dr. Max Thompson stared down at her quizzically. Her dark hair hung limp and sweaty down the sides of her pale face. Large, dark circles were painted around each of her eyes. Her lips were patchy and dry. And her small fingers were still attached to his wrist, clinging there helplessly.

“Poor thing,” Nurse Hansen tisked, rounding the bed to properly tuck Ms. Cambridge in. “It’s always the hardest part. When they first wake up, so scared and confused.” She looked down at Jackie’s stark countenance. “And alone.”

“Any relatives?” Dr. Thompson asked curtly, as though the thought had only just then occurred to him, as in fact, it had.

“Oh sure,” Nurse Hansen said, “but they aren’t from around here.”

“And they aren’t coming?” He looked up then, his eyes hard when they latched onto hers.

She held up her hands defensively. “I called sir. That’s the best I could do. Mom’s poorly and when they heard that she was out of surgery and doing well, they asked for check-ups. Said they’d come if she took a turn.”

Dr. Thompson said something rough under his breath.

Nurse Hansen sent him a searching look. It wasn’t like him—it wasn’t like any of the staff—to get personally involved in a patient’s care. That was dangerous territory and everyone knew better than that. But then again, his was a little different case, wasn’t it?

“I’m just glad she had you, sir.”

Dr. Thompson’s head whipped up at that. His face took on a ruddy color before he carefully extracted his arm from underneath Jackie’s loosened fingers. “Watch for signs of infection, nurse,” he said then, his voice stanchly clinical. “It’s common with an abdominal injury.”

He said this as if she wasn’t perfectly aware of how to do her job.

But for once, Nurse Hansen didn’t bite back. She had a feeling she’d crossed the line with that last comment, anyway.

“Yes sir.”

And with that he walked briskly out the door, calling out a colorless, “good day,” as he went.

“Touch-y,” Nurse Hansen muttered to an unconscious Jackie as she watched him stalk down the corridor, his back rigid. She patted Jackie’s still wrist. “Now get some rest, baby girl. You deserve it.”

 

Getting on the Bus….

Jackie pulled the knotted sash of her wool coat tighter around her person she stepped outside into the brisk winter chill. Immediately, her breath caught, small patches of it visible in the air. It was mid-February, and the cold-snap that usually accompanied a Minnesota winter had officially set in the ground. Only two months until summer, she reminded herself silently as she made her way quickly toward the bus stop, her head tucked low to avoid the harsh winds.

She hated taking the bus, but with a limited income and sky-high rent, she had little choice in the matter. Even if she could have afforded a car, she doubted she’d have enough left over to pay insurance and then gas. Having grown up in a small town where there were no taxis or subways let alone a bus line, this style of transportation had taken some getting used to.

Worse, working in the busiest part of the downtown area, some of the riders could be…well, eccentric wasn’t quite the right word. Colorful, maybe. And sometimes a little scary. Like the fellow yesterday, who’d reeked of stale cigarette smoke and something from the garbage. He’d sat in the seat directly in front of hers and had carried on a large, mostly unintelligible conversation with himself.

“Rat bastard,” Jackie had heard him muttering as the bus lumbered down the rough streets. “I’d give my eyeteeth to set that damn bird, right. Peaches, that’s what I like. A good, juicy peach right off the tree…”

And then, as he’d lifted himself to his feet, swaying toward the front of the bus to get off at the next stop, Jackie had spied a very wicked looking knife peeking out of his jacket flaps. She shivered remembering that; and this time it had nothing to do with the cold.

Before Jackie had time to let that image fully work its way through her consciousness, she heard the unmistakable belch of the bus as it slowly pulled into view. Chucked back to reality, she watched its large impressive body shudder to a squealing halt in front of where she stood. Shrugging off her thoughts, Jackie smartly alight as the doors whooshed open, the driver offering her a begrudging smile as she climbed on board.

It was this or walk. Or, even worse, go limping back home to her parents, admitting once and for all, that she couldn’t hack it out in the big city. It was exactly what they were waiting for her to do. Which made it entirely out of the question. Really, the bus wasn’t so bad.

Okay, so someone had put a little too much curry in their lunch. And yes, that woman was outright glaring at anyone who bothered to glance her way but there, there was a crew-cut styled, polo-sporting college kid, and oh—as Jackie advanced further down the rubber-lined aisle, her eyes scouting out a place to sit—there was a well dressed man with a briefcase talking on an expensive-looking phone. She ignored the woman wearing the two sizes too-small yoga pants, her greasy hair matted anyhow to her head…

Marching determinedly forward, it was something of a relief that Jackie finally spied an open spot. Quickly sliding into the cold, plastic seat, she turned her gaze out the window. Cold slivers of air managed to seep easily through the glass panel. But hey, it beat standing. It was a twenty minute trip from work to her apartment. Settling in, she tried to make herself comfortable.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been staring out the window when she became aware of a commotion breaking out between two passengers across the aisle from her. It was only as their voice grew increasingly louder, increasingly hotter, that she found her head turning—

“You lying son-of-a-bitch!” The words, a high-pitched squeal of sound, came from a red-faced woman.

Jackie tried to avert her gaze, but not before she saw the man sitting beside the woman smirk. This was apparently the wrong thing to do. With a crack, he was slapped for his efforts at nonchalance.

Now quite a few heads were turning in their direction. Jackie had given up any pretense to the otherwise at this point; now she was outright staring at the couple, who, oddly didn’t seem to notice, or care about, all the attention they were gaining.

“You stupid slut!” The man roared, his hand coming up to caress the pink welt her palm had left on his face. “What did you think, anyway? That you’re so special? Please.” His sneer showed of a set of yellowed teeth.

“You disgusting son of a—! That skank aint got half of what I got,” the woman shouted, her hands sliding suggestively up and down her body, which juggled and flopped about unattractively as the bus’s tires hit ruts in the cracked roadway.

The woman must have weighted somewhere near 250lbs.

The man snickered again. “Naw—but what she does have is in all the right places.” The man had to be drunk. At least, Jackie hoped so. To be taking that way….

His comment earned him another smack. Only this time, he grabbed her wrist, capturing it between the hard lines of his fingers. His eyes looked dangerous as he stared her down.

“One more time…” he threatened in a low, even tone.

“Oh I’ve got plenty more where that came from,” she spit back at him, her jowls quivering with the words, her chin jutting up to show her lack of fear.

Jackie swallowed. Things were escalating rather quickly. What had started as a cheap form of entertainment was hurtling quickly toward something uncomfortable, violent even.

The man moved to stand up. “I’m out of here,” he scoffed, clumsily gaining his feet.

He only managed to make it a step or two though. Rushing to her own feet, the woman reached out just in time to grab hold of the back of his shirt, halting him.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” she cried. “I’m not finished.”

Facing one another now, they stood there, in the middle of the aisle way, screaming at one another. Jackie sighed under her breath, their words floating unheard over her head. Closing her eyes, she spared a moment to envision the day when she wouldn’t have to deal with incidents like this. She’d have her own car. It didn’t even matter what kind. It would be hers and hers alone. Softly, she smiled.

Opening her eyes again, she was forced to face up with reality. The woman pushed the man. He stumbled backward, his hands closing into fists as he took an intimidating step toward her…

Looking out the window, anything to escape the pitiful display going on before her, Jackie realized with something of a shock that she was actually pretty close to her apartment. She only had about six blocks to go. Six more blocks until blissful silence. No. Five more blocks now. With an impatient tap of her foot she waited, waiting…

And then, seeing her stop ahead, Jackie reached up to pull on the lever above her head, signaling to the driver that she was getting off. Gaining her feet, her purse dangling over one shoulder, she felt her stomach muscles tighten. There was nothing for it. She’d have to shimmy around the feuding couple. Taking a deep breath, she stepped out onto the passage way.

Neither of them seemed inclined to move out of her way. Obscenities peppered the air, veins throbbed in one another’s forehead and neck, elbows and hands jostled and pushed….

As Jackie went to squeeze past them, her body pressed up tight against the row of seats, a “pardon me” halfway out of her mouth, she felt it: a hot, searing rip. Something slicing through her skin. Her breath wheezed, hissing with instinctive, unexpected pain. Looking down in disbelief, Jackie saw something protruding out of her side, a glint of shiny metallic, a splatter of blood.

And then, suddenly, it didn’t hurt anymore. Her legs wobbled, buckling under her weight. She must have screamed, she thought in a daze as she started to droop to the floor, because suddenly a man was there, cradling her on the ground, his voice commanding, authoritative.

“Someone call 911,” she heard him shout. “Everyone else, stand back. Give her some room.”

“What’s happened to her?”

“She’s been stabbed.”

Jackie frowned. They couldn’t be talking about her, could they? Stabbed?

The man’s voice was close suddenly, soft against her ear “…just hang on…I’ve got you, just hang out, okay? ….”

Then Jackie didn’t hear anything at all.

Tangerine Affect

Welcome to LitLiber’s Newest Story: Tangerine Affect.

Strangers who should have never met; two people meant to leave no lasting traces, no sacred impressions on one another’s lives. Only, it didn’t happen quite that way….

He saved her life. Literally.

Not that she remembered most of what happened. Only, when she opened her eyes, she was laying in a hospital bed. And he was still there-

He was still there because he couldn’t quite let her go. She would live; at his hands, she would live. And now, there was nothing left to be done except for him to get on with his own life. Only, he wasn’t sure how to do that.

Because somehow he found himself being saved right back.

And so they found themselves, two strangers who couldn’t seem to forget one another….