My converse feet shake so much I nearly stumble down the hall to find Brock, our security guy. Finally, I’m stopped in front of his office door. Rapidly, my knuckles knock on the large wooden door, when it opens I find large, husky Brock in his tight uniform top and plaid pajama bottoms.
“Have I caught you at a bad time Brock?” My lips can’t help up let out a breathy laugh.
“Mari? You should have left by now. What are you doing still hear kiddo?” Brock was like a big brother to me, always looking out for me and getting me out of trouble. “Did someone offer you pot again and you didn’t want to hurt his feeling so you said yes?” He smirked as he leaned up against the doorframe.
“What? No. Look Brock there’s-”
“Another drunk outside? Go out back Mari, they leave eventually. Only sobers are allowed in during night we all know that. That helps them stop drinking-“
“Shut up Brock! I know that but we’ve got a serious situation on our hands!” My fingernails find their way to my hair as I run it through my bangs and loosen hairs to fly away from my ponytail, a habit I do when I’m stressed. The boy could be dying and I can’t get Brock to move an inch.
“What do you mean Mari? Something wrong?” All of sudden I have his full attention, I mean finally!
“Follow me,” running I lead him to the front doors where the boy remains, his arms loosely wrap around his own body as to protect and comfort himself. Poor thing.
“Jesus! What happen?” Bewildered Brock gently picks up the guy who’s probably my age and twice my size, considering my short height. With ease, Brock hangs him off his shoulder bringing him into the nursing department. I stand there, holding the door open while trembling in my boots. The nursing section of the shelter usually smells like the rest of building. Expect instead of alcohol and cigarettes it’s the smell of alcohol and more alcohol.
Pale white walls cover the large room, various cabinets scattered across the siding and many carts and tables loaded with different remedies. In a special section sits all of these interesting mixes of natural ingredients, some old remedies our nurse is for sure works for anything the doctors can’t create a cure for.
“Come on kid! You can badge his wounds while I call Mel, she’ll instruct us through what to do,” I stare at this teenage boy’s lifeless body being laid across the nearest bed. Cautiously poking it with my index finger and jumping back once I do as if it would attack if awoke it.
“Mari, he’s not a zombie. He isn’t going to kill you. Stop being so skittish,” I try to steady my shaking body so I took a seat at beside the bed. Forcing deep breaths in and out of my lungs. Brock is on the phone with Mel, our nurse, explaining how to deal with the boy’s injuries.
“Kiddo, I need you to take off his shirt.” Brock’s voice tries to hide an escaped snicker but barely catch because I’m too busy starring at Brock in complete shock.
“What the hell man? Why can’t you?” I’ve very taken anyone’s shirt off except to help my younger sibling when they were kids. This guy’s not a six year old, he’s practically sixteen!
“Come on girl! You can do it! I can’t, cause I got my hands full with alcohol and disinfectant stuff,” my eyes squint into the deadliest glare I could come up with in this strange situation.
“Fine! Just hurry it up!” Carefully I lift up the hem of this mysterious guy’s shirt revealing a very bruised but toned body. His body wasn’t skin and bones but it wasn’t a full on eight pack, it was faintly defined. Large purple and red spots designed his body, there was no blood seen on his torso, but his arms and legs had huge gashes.
“Brock he’s bleeding!” In mere seconds Brock was back with gauze in one hand, and a bottle of vodka in the other.
“Seriously dude? This is no time to have drink! We have this guy in critical condition,” did he really like vodka? Brock always seemed like the type of guy to take a beer.
“No idiot! Mel said that she was going to restock the rubbing alcohol tomorrow morning so there was none tonight. I went to find Don’s vodka stash and found him cuddling with this bottle,” I could feel my eyebrows scrunch as Brock explained our current problem. Everyone in the building knew Don was trying to give up drinking but he was having huge troubles, they let him keep the bottles but people would check every day to make sure the contents were still present.
“Don’t worry, I switched it with a stuffed animal so he wouldn’t wake up. We’ve got an identical bottle but it’s filled with water from Carrie, we’ll swap it and he would never know a thing”
Hairs fell in front of my face as I shook my head laughing at Brock’s brilliant idea. Carrie moved out a couple months ago, she was an alcoholic too but to fix it they filled her bottles with half vodka and half water for her to drink. It reminded me of how my Dad poured half chocolate milk and half regular milk in my cup to stop my requests for chocolate goodness. In the end I stopped chocolate in total and Carrie stopped vodka the same way. Yeah, our shelter got some pretty unique tricks hidden up their sleeves.
I realize how long I’ve been thinking in my own little land, back to the action!
“I’ll hold him down in case he reacts, and you pour the vodka on the cuts,” reluctantly, my head nods as I pour the clear liquid on the gory, red limbs. My eyes squeeze shut as I hear a loud scream, quickly muffled by a clean cloth Brock holds to the kid’s mouth.
Over about 5 minutes, the muffled scream began to fade.
“Is he dead?” I ask, I’m no expert when it comes to this caregiving stuff.
Brock chuckles again and shakes his head, “he’s very much alive, just passed out,” understanding I look back at the boy, his breathing has become weak, but it’s still there.
“I’ll be on duty now, Mari. Who knows, his gang may come back for him,” although a little hesitant, Brock eventually leaves, before leaving though he asks me if I can handle myself to stay until the guy wakes up, in which case I give him an explanation of where he is, ask him some information about himself, and if he wants to live, to stay here. That shouldn’t be too hard.
At around 10:45 I’m getting bored of sketching and drawing random bottles of painkillers and medication I stare at the boy’s body. I’ve never actually drawn someone so close up before. I begin with outlining his body then I move on to fixing his hair the proper way and giving detail to his facial features. As my eyes glance up once more to try to sculpt his nose on my paper, I realize his long eyelashes are starting to flutter open.
Rising to my feet I find courage to walk by his bed. Slowly, his eyes adjust to the light and widen once seeing me beside him.
“Who the hell are you? The seducer? Do you plan on getting information out of by-”
“Whoa there, honey! I’m no ‘seducer’ did you expect me to be in some sexy nurse costume? Sorry, but as you can see I’m not the lady you think I am,” this guy was getting the wrong impression of me real fast.
“If you were trying to get something out of me, you would have dressed a little better I suppose. I just thought they were getting cheap and hiring crappy looking prosti-”
“I’m sorry to disappoint, if you expecting a lap dance or something, I wouldn’t think you’d like any sexual activity with me darling.” My cheeks were heating up with every word, pressing my sketchbook tighter against my chest.
For some reason this guy made me nervous. His eyes were finally open up into a gorgeous green that really contrasted with the rest of his dark hair and tanned skin. If this kid were just walking around my neighbourhood I would take the liberty to “admire from a distance” his beauty. And what I mean by “admire from a distance” I mean stalking. What? Everyone does it.
Unfortunately, he must have noticed my checking me out because his mouth formed a smirk and his deep voice came, “If you didn’t want any sexy time with me, can you please explain why I am currently shirtless?” Oh right about that…
“Well, long story short. You were dropped off by these people you refer to as ‘they’ and you were all cut up and I needed to see if you were hurt on your torso too so.... Yeah,” after my whole explanation an awkward air filled the room and it was practically suffocating my soul and social ability.
“I don’t need your help,” this boy’s voice cut through the air like a blade and I feel he did that just to stop this whole situation from being a 7 on the awkward scale to a 10. He tried to sit up, and as he did my eyes couldn’t help but wander the flexing muscles on his exposed chest. Catching myself I avert my eyes to a corner of the room where a lamp stands, I bet he was just showing them off. My eyes don’t stay in the corner for long because I hear a rather loud groan come from mystery boy.
“Slow down tiger, you can’t really move. Here,” I place the painkillers and glass of water in his hands, “Take these, should help with your ouchies” I smile but receive as if I was as crazy as one of those One Direction fans. I’ve never really been into that kind of stuff, but I can be a little insane at times. But this was not a time where I felt my wild inners coming out; I seem completely normal to the human eye. Maybe he’s an alien…
After this alien boy finishes off the medication he just stares at me. Feeling incredibly uncomfortable I rush to the supply room I grab a large thick blanket and a few pillows. When I return I see Mr. Mysterious Alien taking a swig of the vodka bottle we used to disinfect his wounds. The bottle was half empty when we used it but now it was almost polished off. Laying the blankets and pillows on the bed I snatch the bottle and place it on a table far from the bed.
“Thanks, I was done with it anyway,” laughter fills his voice as he speaks. His laugh is both such an annoying yet wonderful sound it frightens me slightly. I notice he’s removed the bandages we placed on his forehead and lip. They seem have to done their job because his blood has stop its trickling ways.
Suddenly remembering the enrolment sheet I walk swiftly to one of the drawers and pull out a sheet, clipboard and pen. I sit on the bed because my butt was getting numb from the plastic chair so I decide the bed would be much better for it. Although my butt does relax under the puffy mattress I receive another crazy look from the guy sitting beside me.
“Sorry if I’m invading your bubble, but could I ask you a few questions, sugar?” I glance up to meet his eyes then remove the contact to look down toward the ‘fill in the blanks’ section. This guy starring at doesn’t really give me the best self-esteem, his green orbs are basically judging my every move and it seems my insecurities are growing by the second.
“What’s your name?” I ask
“Ryan.” He replies simply
“Got a last name?” I raise my eyebrow at him.
“Gosling.” His bleeding lip goes up into a smirk. This would seem disgusting to me but something made him work a bleeding lip if that sounded strange enough. It wasn’t gushing, it was starting to stop but the shape of his smile was crooked and broken almost.
“Seriously?” I roll my eyes and scoff. This joker sure acts cool for someone who was nearly dead on the street. “You can trust me, I’m not one to call people by their last name anyway. So what is it actually?” I try to make eye contact but he seems a very closed in.
“It’s Reynolds.”
“Liar.” I roll my eyes, tired equals grumpy, let’s put it that way.
“Gosling, Ryan Gosling,” right now, I would most likely slap his already beat up face, but he lifted one eyebrow and distracted me. Cursed eyebrow talent!
“I’m not as gullible as you think honey. I know those are very hot, sexy, actors. Plus Ryan Reynolds is my favourite actor right under Johnny Depp. You’re not messing with a fool boy. This is a movie gal you’re trying to trick. Just tell me your last name so I can go home.” I huffed starting to get really frustrated with this stranger.
“It’s Ryan Higa,” He looked up at me. His eyes didn’t hold honesty but instead were filled with extreme amusement.
“Come on! I’m a fan of Ryan Higa too, I mean who wouldn’t never not love a big bouncy inflatable green ball,” not realizing my words sped up as I went through the sentence. My gaze went back to him to see his widen eyes blink twice. A glaze look went over them and he seemed to be either shocked or in deep thought.
Snapping my fingers in front of him brought this mystery back to reality. Trying to identify if he was serious or not was like reading a book with giant complex words. They puzzle you because you don’t know well enough to understand what they mean
“Would you stop saying that?” the guy softly yells. My eyebrows scrunch together.
“Saying what?” I question, confused by his sudden outburst.
“Calling me couple names! I don’t even know you!” His cheeks start to redden, instead of letting my frustration get the best of me, I ask ever so politely.
“My name’s Mari Hart. What’s yours, sugar?”
“It’s Ryan Hills. Ryan f*cking Hills okay? There! God you’re so annoying!”
Seconds later, I rise and walk toward the door and open it saying, “at least I’m not stupid Ryan Hills,” I drag out his name as if to flaunt it, “you can sleep here and if you want to continue our conversation you’d stay until Mel, our nurse, comes in to help you with the rest of your injuries. Sleep well, good night.” I calmly shut the door and walk toward my awaiting ride.