Captive (Sequel to Infatuation)

Chapter 1

SONG(s) FOR CHAPTER: 

♬ Love Note For A Rainy Day by SayWeCanFly ♬

♬ Already Missing You by Prince Royce ft. Selena Gomez ♬ 

CHAPTER 1

❀ GRACE WALKER ❀

        "I ALREADY TOLD you, Mrs. Nix. There's nothing seriously wrong with you so there's no need for you to be admitted."

        "Then how do explain these wrinkles on my hands?"

        "Old age, ma'am."

        "So now you're calling me old?"

        I sighed, running a hand through my hair as I looked at the frail woman, determined to convince me she was terminally ill and needed constant supervision. She was diagnosed with pneumonia two months ago and had come back every day since, attempting to persuade me that the doctor's prescription had not fixed her.

        My personal diagnosis of her was a hypochondriac.

        Holding my temper, I grabbed the clipboard she had just filled out her information on, scanning it before noticing it was the exact same thing she always wrote: TERMINALLY ILL, NEGLECTED BY DOCTORS. 

        "Would it comfort you if I listened to your lungs?" I asked.

        She snorted. "You can't tell anything by doing such a simple thing! I'm dying here!"

        Of old age, you hag. 

        I bit my tongue. "Mrs. Nix, symptoms of pneumonia include wheezing and I would be able to hear if anything were seriously wrong or blocking the oxygen from entering and leaving your lungs."

        She held her hands up before pulling a used tissue out of her jacket pocket. "Well what about the symptoms of coughing green gunk up?"

        Scrunching my nose, I averted my gaze. "You showed me the same tissue yesterday, Mrs. Nix. I'm sorry, but if you don't-"

        "Ah, Mrs. Nix, what a pleasure!"

        We both looked over my shoulder to see Evan, a fellow intern of mine, striding up to the counter. He smirked at me before leaning his elbows on the surface, giving her his best fake sympathetic look I had ever seen. He had this way of charming patients and leading them right out the door, a talent I clearly lacked.

        "Evan! Thank goodness someone who has a brain," she grumbled, sending a glare at me and I mentally mocked her in my mind like a five year old.

        Of course, Evan's grin only stretched. "Grace here is giving you trouble? What ever is the matter with you, hun?"

        Mrs. Nix didn't seem to catch onto his sarcastic tone. "My pneumonia has not gone away like this girl says it has! Look," she snaps, pulling the tissue out again.

        I was thankful when a patient had pushed the buzzer from his room, in need of assistance and I left the counter without another word as Mrs. Nix bragged about her green snot. I ended up helping a middle-aged man diagnosed with terminal cancer get out of the bed so he could use the restroom, his body too weak. My heart ached for people with things actually wrong with them.

        When I returned, Mrs. Nix was walking out the door with a smile on her lips. I gaped at Evan, seeing him doing it before and I was still amazed. "You need to teach me that," I said as I tore her paper off the clipboard. "She wouldn't stop accusing me of being a fraud."