Hopes POV 🥀
I wanted to stay at home today after the two horrible nightmares I had, but I knew I needed to be at work to keep Michael, James and all the rest safe.
I had a shower, washing the nightmare sweat off my body and out of my hair. I rubbed shampoo and curl conditioner in, dried myself and got into my nurses scrubs, spraying my coconut perfume on.
I applied eyeliner, mascara and violet lipgloss, then put silver earrings in. I wasn't supposed to wear them to work, but they were only studs and I'd never gotten into trouble for it before.
There was a photograph on my bedroom wall of my childhood snake, Alison. Which is a slightly weird name for a snake, but it was my grandmas middle name and I named Alison after her, she died when I was 8, and the snake died a couple years after I turned 18.
I headed to work, resting my head on the bus window, watching all the houses go by and trying not to fall asleep.
My eyes slowly closed but luckily we jerked to a stop and I was shocked back into being awake. I peered out the window but it wasn't my stop, there were 2 more until mine.
I put my earphones in and found myself blasting Michael Jackson. I'd downloaded a lot of his songs since meeting him, amazed at his talent.
He'd sung for me once, only a few days after we met - sitting in his room. He looked beautiful, exotic, with long raven black curls and skin as pale as snow. His big brown eyes looked right at me as he sung, the bedroom light making them shine.
He sung part of one of his songs, "Who is it". I was smiling the whole way through it, and I clapped when he was done.
"That was amazing!"
I was now his main nurse, so if he ever needed a chat I would always be available - unless dealing with a crisis with one of the other men.
Sometimes when there were multiple patients kicking off on other wards the nurses there would radio us for help, and several of us would go over to the ward that needed help.
That rarely happened though.
When Michael told me about his python, Muscles, I told him all about Alison. She was beautiful, a white and orange corn snake, small in size but with huge, sharp hazel eyes.
He told me about his chimp, Bubbles - and I admitted I'd never had a pet chimp - I was a little scared of them.
Mike laughed. "Bubbles is the most gentle creature you could ever imagine."
"I'm sure he is!" I replied. "Maybe I can meet him one day!"
I froze after that, realising it was inappropriate for a nurse to talk about meeting a patient out of work hours, but Michael nodded his head, big brown eyes shining.
When I got to work today it seemed like a normal day, nothing had happened over night except Mikey had been awake most of the night and took a shower in the early hours of the morning.
This was nothing unusual, several of the patients would stay up all night now and again - if he had even stayed up all night.
I'd called last night after my nightmare and asked for both Michael and James to be checked on, Tyler had called back 5 minutes later and assured me they were both fine.
Relieved, I had finally got back to sleep.
I knew in my head they were fine, but I couldn't relax until I'd checked on them both. James was fine, lying in bed on his phone, tongue poking out as he typed aggressively.
Michael was awake, sitting on the bed staring at the wall, completely zoned out. I knocked softly on the door and pushed it open.
Michael looked up at me, and smiled. His smile warmed my heart - usually the only patients that liked me were the horny ones who liked my breasts. But Michael smiled straight at me, his eyes meeting mine, not on my body.
"Heya, Mike!" I came into the room and sat next to him, he immediately leant against me.
"You okay?" I lifted his chin with my fingers and looked into his eyes.
"No." Then he dissolved into tears and fell into my arms. I held him and rocked him like a baby until he sat up, sniffed and aggressively wiped his eyes.
"Hey, let me help you with that." I pulled a tissue out of the box on his bedside desk and wiped his face. His face crumpled and his eyes started flowing again, and I cradled him in my arms as he sobbed on my chest.