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Tayla
Till the moment I left for UCLA, I tried to make sure I was an exceptional daughter for my parents. I think the sole reason I put so much effort into being perfection was because I knew the disappointment my parents felt when there first born happened to be a baby girl. They are one of the most traditional people I know to this day, nothing was informal about them, and that still remains to this day. Anytime I visit them I'm constantly pushed more to be a vision of pure grace by them. They use tough love in order to control me in a small way, nevertheless, I let them. I know the shame it brings them having their first born as a daughter, not a son.
Lindsey thinks they are insane for it. "What messed up people shame their daughter on something that literally no one can control?" She has vented many of times about it. I can see where she gets this annoyance from, but I don't listen to it too much. My parents do love me. They have sacrificed a great deal to give myself and my brothers a truly blessed lifestyle, and there isn't much I can do to repay them, but I try every chance I can get.
"Tayla for the tenth time. I know. I know. I'll make sure the flowers are all blue okay?" Matthew's groan fills my ears. It's Tuesday now, and I'm on call for a night shift tonight. Typically I don't really mind night shifts. It's usually slow, the only surgeries are emergencies and I'm mostly just going over paperwork and checking up on patients if we are short staffed with nurses for the night. Which, by no surprise, we usually are. All of them have families and kids to take care of during the night, I for one, only got little old me.
"Matthew you seem to not be understanding me." I grit through my teeth. "The flowers can't be blue, they need to cerulean blue. You know Mom is specific when it comes to these things." I scold him. Poor Matthew is constantly the middle man between myself and my parents. They argue that they are way too busy to be answering all of my calls and messages, but I know for a fact they spend most days playing golf at the country club or lounging by the pool they spent thousands of dollars on. Matthew's schedule is more crammed then theirs, and yet he never fails to drop one of my calls. If he ever manages to, he calls me or texts me back within an hour.
"Jesus christ Tayla. Why isn't Dad doing this crap? It's Mom and his anniversary, he should be the one ordering the flowers not us." He sighs from the other line, his voice filling my car through bluetooth.
"Matthew. I just need you to order them okay? Use my card. Place the order today, make sure they arrive the morning of their anniversary okay? They need to be placed this far ahead of time. I already called them about the note." I hear him grunt as a response. "What time is practice today?" I question him.
"4:30. I should already be in the car but I-," Another grunt comes out from him and I hear him throwing things across his room in a hurry, "I should already be in the car but I can't find my freaking practice jersey." He finishes his sentence as more noise clatters in the background.
I sigh and flick my turning signal on to change lanes. I'm meeting Lindsey for dinner before my shift and I myself am also running late. Us Maddens really don't do well with time management. I look at my mirrors and over my shoulder to check for any cars. "Hamper in your closet my young brother." I laugh to myself. Matthew is on the varsity basketball team. His real passion is football but the high school season just ended so he fills his time with basketball.
He pauses for a moment before I hear his faint footsteps travel across the room. He shuffles some things around before he gives out a small chuckle. "2000 miles away and you know exactly where my shit is. I don't understand how you can do that." He answers with disbelief in his voice.
"Oh baby bro. I have many tricks up my sleeve just waiting to be revealed." A smirk grows on my face. Even though we so many miles apart, we are still insanely close. I really try my best to protect him, especially since Owen is fairly distant. "You will place the order for me yeah?"
"You know I will Tayla." He responds.
"I know. I gotta run. I love you Matthew. Kill it at practice today mkay?"
"I always do. Love you too." He grumbles before hanging up the phone. I miss Matthew. He is wise and one of the most intelligent men I know, but you would of never guessed that from him. He is the opposite of myself in many ways. He is outgoing, could talk the whole rooms ears off with the sound of his laugh alone. I am talkative to an extent, speaking mainly when I'm spoken too. Matt is the picture perfect high schooler. Straight A's, friends with the jocks, the nerds, everyone in between. Every girl falls at his feet by the way he is respectful to everyone. I like to take credit for it, I taught him well.
I finally pull into the parking lot of the restaurant I'm meeting Lindsey at. It's nothing super fancy, with I'm grateful for considering I threw on some leggings and a simple pink sweater so I could change easily into my scrubs after dinner. I enter the place, the warmth of the place instantly heating my cold face. The hostess greets me with a smile as she leads me towards Lindsey, sitting at a farther table against the window, her face carefully studying the menu.
She lifts her head and her face grows a large smile, flashing her perfectly straight teeth at me. "T! Sit your booty down we need to have a discussion." She says, shooing the hostess away and I just give her a sympathetic smile as she walks away. "I ordered you a Dr. P. The waiter is gonna be back in a minute so hurry up and look at the menu so we can order right away." She rushes me, scooting the paper placed in front of me closer.
I shake my head and slug of my coat, rapping it around the back of my chair. I don't need to look at the menu. Lemon Zucchini Pasta. I always get it when we come here. Definitely one of those people who preach 'why fix what isn't broken'. "Will you calm down Lins. We planned this dinner to have a relaxing night together before I work, not to have a rushed discussion." I throw a look her way.
She cocks her eyebrow and throws me one right back. "Tsk tsk tsk. Nuh uh young lady. You are hiding something from me and won't spill the beans!" I feel my face begin to instantly heat up. "You need to tell me T! We are best friends we are supposed to tell each other everything!" She exclaims.
Everything. I can't do that. But honestly, the guilt is eating me alive. Friday night felt like such a blur that the only reasonable thing out of it was lying to my best friend about how I was getting home. Yeah, that was the most reasonable thing. But I couldn't tell her what happened that night. I felt so embarrassed. Not only did I get so flustered about seeing my ex, I shoved my tongue down a strangers mouth. I mean seriously what if he had herpes or something. Oh my god. What if he had herpes!? Okay okay breathe. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he didn't. I'll try and ignore it.
However any time I try to erase it from my mind, that tall hunk of muscle flashes back into it. He was an asshole. An absolute asshole for talking down to me when all I did was bump into the guy. But when I was in the mist of removing my hoops and beating the guy's ass, of course with my luck Patrick just had to show up. Why couldn't he just leave me alone when I said I was going? If I didn't swap spit with my quote on quote "boyfriend", who knows what Patrick would of said, and I don't want to find out. I felt all the pain from last month rush back to me and I couldn't handle it and as much as I stayed confident in from of Patrick, I found myself lowering my guard to him. Someone I don't even know.
But he went with it. Oh my god I felt like a middle schooler again liking boys for the first time. He slung his arm around me and went along with my stupid excuse to get out of talking to Patrick. He didn't even let him speak to me for god's sake. And when I connected with his eyes, god those big dark forest green eyes, I found myself about to sob. What did he do? Cradled my head in his arm's and drove me home, gave me his jacket because I was freezing my butt off. I couldn't even give it back to him.
I didn't even know his name.
So that's why, as I sit here before my best friend in the whole wide world, I blow her off and respond with a simple, "I have nothing I'm hiding Lins. Your radar is all off, absolutely nothing is going on." I'd rather stick to my lie than be completely embarrassed, even if it's Lindsey I'm talking to.
Lindsey stares at me. Her deep brown eyes feel like they are staring into my soul, which they one hundred percent are. "Mhmm. Just know I would never hide a secret from you." She states before peeling her eyes away from mine and bowing her head to casually scan her menu over.
I raise my eyebrow as a smirk slowly appears on my face. "Hm okay." I pause for dramatic affect. "If that's so true, whatcha do after the club on Friday?" I ask, propping my elbows up on the table and rest my face in my hands.
Lindsey's body goes still and her eyes widen as she takes a deep breath it. "Ihookedupwith thehotguyEverrett!" She blurts out, smacking her mouth as she starts to blush.
I burst out laughing. "I knew it! I knew the second I saw you guys laughing at the bar you would be hooking up!" She shakes her head in disbelief that she spilled her secret.
"God damn it!" She runs her hands over her face, trying to hide her embarrassment. "You know I am not ashamed of a one night stand he was hot as hell." She states, pointing her finger right in my face.
I grab her index finger and lower her hand back down onto the table. "I never said you should be ashamed, because you shouldn't be Lins. You are single woman in her late twenties you can do anything you want and not feel embarrassed for it." I give her a few pats on her hand before moving mine away to place my napkin on my lap.
God I'm being such a hypocrite.
The waiter comes and we ramble off our orders before Lindsey speaks up again. "I know. You are right. Of course you are, you are like the All-Knowing Tayla." I try to hide my smirk.
"So are you going to spill the details about Mr. Confident or am I going to have to interrogate you for it?" I question her as I take a sip of my Dr. Pepper that was placed in front of me.
She shrugs her shoulders. "There is nothing much to tell. He was a good hook up, but I can't picture anything advancing from it. Like you said, I'm in my twenties and I'm still enjoying being on my own for right now. I'm going to wait until I find that moment in my life where all the pieces just seem to fit, especially when I decide to advance further with a guy. When that time comes, it comes. I'm not in any rush."
I smile at her. Lindsey may be the craziest Latina I have ever met when you get a few shots in her, but she never fails to surprise me with her outlook on life. "Cheers to that." I say as I raise my drink, our glasses clinking together.
• • •
After my dinner with Lins, my shift surprising flew by. I had two hip replacement surgeries which were not as eventful as the third one I had which was an open heart surgery for a coronary artery bypass graft surgery. It's one of the most common open heart surgeries preformed, about 200,000 people in just the US alone receive one each year, and yet it still thrills me to be able to sit in on one. I may not be the one holding the blade and cutting into someone's chest, but truthfully I feel myself shake a little when I see the person's heart exposed from their chest. It takes a certain personality to just be able to look at the inside of somebody's body and watch their vital organs get fixed and for some weird reason, I suppose I got blessed with that trait.
I think I was always like this though. I was always the person who would help walk my classmates to the nurse during school or check their heart rate when they swore they were having a heart attack, even at a young age. But the most prominent memory I have of being a caretaker was when I was fourteen. My parents took us to Colorado the first week of winter for them to view a beautiful ski lodge and see if they wanted to become shareholders in it. Of course though, my parents being true LA home bodies, they refused to go out on the slopes. Plus my mother argued she and father shouldn't because they needed to make sure that Matthew was okay, since he was eight at the time. But Owen and I both agreed that we needed to concur the bunny hill slope on our snowboards.
We went down the hill for about an hour, all going well. It's one time of the times that Owen and I couldn't stop laughing. We used to be so close when we were younger, considering we aren't too far off in age. I remember we decided to go down the hill for a final time since our parents didn't want us out there in the first place. I went first and everything was going amazing, the sun was setting over the mountain in front of me and snowflakes hit my rosy cheeks. I was frozen in time.
That was until then when I turned back to look at Owen and he was plastered by a tree, not moving.
I was only able to stop myself by falling right down on my butt. I quickly unbuckled my boots from my board and ran as fast as my legs could take me to my brother who still wasn't moving. When I reached him something inside of me clicked and I felt myself go into auto pilot. Owen, for some stupid reason which I still don't know till this day why, had opened his jacket, leaving his chest exposed with only a long sleeve to cover it. His impact on the tree caused him to break his collar bone, but that was the least of my concerns, because there was a jagged branch that sliced right by his bone as well. And I still so clearly remember the blood seeping down him, turn the crystal white snow red.
It was that exact moment when I knew I wanted to become someone who helped save others. Because I was the one who applied pressure to his wound right away to help control the bleeding and I was the one who got the other skiers to call 911. Yeah my parents came to the hospital, but I was the one sitting in the waiting room during his surgery, my leg continuously bouncing while I sat and waited to make sure my brother would be okay. I knew I needed to save people, just like I think I helped save him that day.
My apartment is cold when I enter it and I curse myself for not cranking the heat before I left. You would think I would learn my lesson after the countless amount of times I have done it. I slug my coat off and my heart insanely drops when I set it onto the second hook next to a large black Carhartt jacket I wore the other night. I stare at it for a minute before picking it up. It feels rough against my hands. I walk over to my couch, filled with decorative pillows, and plop down. For some reason, a urge I can't describe, I throw the jacket over my shoulders and put it on. It instantly warms my body and I lay further down on the couch, wrapping it around me tightly. I take a deep breath in.
Mint and grass.
Whoever the guy is, by the aroma of his jacket alone he smells like he chews ten packets of gum while running through a grassy field. He smelt the same that night. I recognized it the second he pulled me closer to his chest. I figured the mint was normal, almost everybody has excess to something with that smell, but grass? This is Chicago. It smells like population and pee, with hints of burnt coffee here and there. Most definitely not grass. Even Millennium Park doesn't have that freshness.
I shove my hands in the pockets, questioning the second I threw myself onto that man, when my fingers touch a stiff small object. I slide it out and look down at the card stock paper in my hand. A business card by the looks of it. I bring it closer to my face as I examine the small letters on the paper. I feel my chest insanely tighten at the words in front of me.
Noah Hayes
(858) 651-5050
Representative: Emily Dridgent
• • •
•what up what up my homies
•okay fact, apparently if you call that number it will read beautiful phrases to you and i hope thats true cuz you babies deserve it <3 someone lemme know if you try it!
•anyways idk how i feel about this chap, it was rushed but also took so long so lmk if i should edit it
•as always the support means so much plz vote, comment what you think, and add to your libraries
•and don't forget to follow me here and on tik tok
•love you all and thank you for the support
•buy yourself that thing you wanted, sing your heart on in the car, dance in the mirror, you're doing great
xoxo
-kels <3