chapter 11

I was walking out of the main building but in a sort of daze. What had happened today? The moment when Mathew had kissed my cheek was playing through my head like a broken record player. No one had ever done that to me and especially lived to tell about it. Why had I reacted like I did? It was strange how I froze instead of react and lash out. This was defiantly dangerous and I couldn’t let it take hold of me.

“A penny for your thoughts”

Jane appeared out of nowhere and I jumped almost out of my skin. I glared and she just smirked, then we began walking again.

“I thought you would have left already” I said to her as we came to her car and I leaned against the back door while she leaned into the car and started it up.

“Rai instructed me to have you home straight after school. I’m thinking she knows you’ll try and go to work.” She said with an amused smile on her face.

“You have got to be kidding me” I threw my hands up in the air in exasperation and planned on giving Rai an earful.

“She is just trying to look after you”

Jane leaned back on the car next to me and we just stood there in comfortable silence. She was right and I knew it but I didn’t like feeling useless and doing nothing productive.

“Alright I won’t go to work but there is somewhere I want to go. Will you drop me off at the bus station?” I hadn’t been there in so long it was about time I went for a visit.

“Rai will have my head if I show up without you or just leave you alone, so how about I just go with you?” she was asking an innocent question but for some reason I didn’t want to share this part of my life with anyone.

“I…you don’t have to, I can take care of myself and if anything happens I’ll be fine since I am going to a hospital.” She looked at me weird but walked over to the driver’s side and I thought she was just going to drop me off at the bus station.

“Alright, what hospital?” she asked while pulling out of the parking space. I was shocked at her stubbornness but admired it all the same.

“El Centro Regional Medical Center, it’s off highway eight in El Centro.” I directed as I searched through her car compartments for anything good to munch on.

“Your bag is in the back seat if you want it.”

I smirked at the way she decided to get me to stop snooping. My phone had many missed calls from the house and it was no doubt my father. The dread was probably evident on my face but I didn’t need to take this with me to the hospital so I quickly put my phone away. There was gum in my bag and I decided to entertain myself with that. It was a pretty long drive to El Centro and I was feeling bad that I was letting her take me all the way there.

“You want some gum?” she shook her head so I decided to enjoy the ride by laying down in the seat back and starring at the roof of the car.

“What do you do at the hospital?” Jane asked as she zoomed into another lane on the highway. I laughed at the cars movement and she gave me a weird look from the corner of her eye which only made me laugh again.

“I love to go and volunteer there. The children are amazing and since the hospital is so low in finance they need help taking care of the smaller children.” My voice was filled with such joy I was a little embarrassed to sound like a child with candy.

“Do you want to have a career in some medical field?”

“I do want to someday but even with my grades I can’t. It is just too much money for all those years. I’ll wait until I have a steady job and will study and work at the same time. Like I am doing now with school and the two jobs I have.” I knew I had a long shot at being able to pull that off because of how much work it was to keep up in school now. But I had to try otherwise I would never get anywhere and end up back here.

“You’re better off looking into different scholarships. With your grades it will be easy to find many and there are opportunities for a hospital to pay for all of your training so that in the end you will work for them.” She explained this as if she had been told this a million times. Well her father was a doctor so he probably had pushed his career on her or something like that. But she had a sort of unemotional demeanor when she said it that it made me wonder what history she had with this topic.

We actually reached the hospital in less time than I thought it would take. It wasn’t a completely silent ride because I hated complete silences. So I had ended up annoying Jane to no end. First it had been my bubble gum that I had popped loudly until I got a reaction from her. Than it was my finger tapping on the compartment in the middle of the two seats. I laughed so much during that ride I was sure I was going to cry.

“You remind me of donkey from that movie Shrek you know that?” Jane told me as we got out of the car. I just laughed and led the way into the hospital.

“Hello there Adel, the children have been asking for you all day. Who is this lovely friend of yours?”

The receptionist was a single mother with two kids and had actually lived in my town but moved here when she got a better job offer. Now she has a better life for her children and she is happy, just like I want to be.

“This is my friend Jane and she decided to accompany me today. You don’t mind do you?” I knew they would never say no to free help but it was still polite to ask.

“Of course not go right in”

She handed us passes and motioned us through to the elevators. Once the elevator was ascending I clung to the side railings for dear life.

“You okay?” Jane asked as she walked over to me.

“Yeah I’m fine I’m just a little afraid of heights” she looked at me for a moment and I thought she would laugh at me but she just nodded and looked at the floor number. I was about to do the same until I remembered I would always get more freaked when I looked at the floor number. So I quickly closed my eyes and hummed to a song I always loved to listen to.

“It doesn’t help to know” I told her as the elevator dinged and we walked out of the elevator. I was so use to coming that I could get off the elevator without looking.

“Come on” I smiled at her before leading the way to the first room that we were going to visit. No thoughts of my problems back in town invaded my mind as I prepared to visit the children I have come to accept as a part of my family. The laughter and smiles of the children was all that brought joy to my life now.