primum non nocere (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} nonnocere) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} silenstumulosus,@ 2015-07-19 15:54:00 |
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“Doctor McCauly?”
[Laura bites her lip to stifle a curse as the voice startles her into jerking her wrist so that the coffee she's pouring misses her styrofoam break room cup completely and sloshes onto her wrist instead. Luckily it was brewed about a decade ago, judging from the tepid temperature, and after the intial alarm she realizes she's not burned and shakes her wrist, groping around for a paper towel before realizing the dispenser is empty and sighing deeply in exasperation, a noise she knows is ugly and irritated before it even leaves her throat, like a car stuttering to start. Her mother always sighed that way when she was irritated but ever-so-nicely declining to comment and Laura hates it when she catches herself making the noise, but she's coming off a sixteen hour shift and it's all she can do to go through the motions of getting shitty break room coffee to make sure she doesn't crash her car on the way home, much less be polite to...right, she realizes, someone is talking to me.
She looks up and squints slightly at the nurse standing by the door, smiling at her, undeterred by her general crankiness. When he sees he has her attention he goes on,]
“If you were leaving now, I was wondering if you needed me to walk you to your car? I know they don't give residents good parking, and the shuttle to the other lot just stopped running, so-”
“No,” [Laura says quickly, automatically. She's thinking that this nurse seems to want to make small talk and that's the last thing she wants right now, or ever, really, though she likes to think she'd be capable of it normally, that she isn't completely awkward and remembers how to talk to other human beings outside of work. Plus she has no idea what this man's name is and she gets the distinct impression that she's worked with him before. Possibly frequently, if he's concerned for her safety. Or possibly not and he's just a nice person...who is now looking a little startled because she snapped that no, didn't she? This is awkward. She smiles at him and softens the answer.] “No, I'm fine, someone is going to pick me up. Thank you.”
[Which was a lie. One of those stupid lies she finds herself spitting out when she wants to be polite after realizing she's been too abrupt. “No, it's fine, I'm actually not drinking dairy,” after snapping at the barista at the coffee place by her condo for putting soy milk in her latte. So now she drinks soy milk. Forever.
It's also how she finds herself walking alone under an overpass at 2am in the area by the hospital where she frequently spots used needles on the ground. She gets the feeling they're not left over from impromptu emergency roadside care and she's really starting to regret not taking Unnamed Male Nurse up on his offer. She regrets it even more when she hears footsteps behind her and looks over her shoulder to see three men in hoodies with their hoods pulled up following her.
Okay, she thinks, digging into her purse for her pepper spray and instantly feeling a little guilty, they might just be walking home. You might be that rich bitch you read about on the internet who pulls out her pepper spray at kids walking home because she's scared of everyone not driving a BMW. They might- except before she can finish her thought or grab her pepper spray, even just to hold it inside her purse and feel guilty for doing it, they're right there behind her and one of them grabs her arm and slams her into the side of the overpass so hard her teeth click together with the impact.]
“Give us your purse!”
“Let me just get my car keys okay? You can have my wallet, let me just get my-”
[One of them hits her again and she falls, clinging to her purse as she goes down, trying to get her phone out as one of them moves to kick her]