Welcome to Moongate

One: It All Falls Apart

This girl had the longest legs I’d ever seen. Even as she crossed them over each other, lounging back on the hospital stretcher, I was fairly certain they ran for miles. She was stunning, one hand resting on her pregnant belly as she rambled on about her boyfriend. She barely even looked pregnant, the smallest bump showing on her tiny frame. “I mean he is beyond perfect,” she enthused, and I nodded my head.

The way she let out a dramatic high-pitched squeal the second the needle punctured her skin gave me a small bit of satisfaction. I’d used so much lidocaine she’d likely barely felt that, but that annoying noise was the first thing to indicate this girl might not be so perfect after all. “What’s your boyfriend’s name?” I asked, trying to distract her so she’d sit still for me again.

“Will you be careful please? I don’t want a scar,” she rolled her eyes at me and I had to resist the urge to roll mine right back at her. A scar this small? How dramatic could this girl be? The gash was barely an inch long, and the driver of the other car she’d hit was in much worse condition in the room across the hall.

“Being as careful as I can,” I mumbled back to her in my usual fake nice voice I’d reserved for patients that got on my last nerve just like she did.

“His names Leo, it’s short for Leonardo,” my eyes snapped up to her, this catching my attention. “You know, like the movie star? He even looks a bit like him. God, you should see him, he is so hot. Our baby is going to be a model,” She patted her pregnant tummy.

“Leo?” I repeated it back to her. What a weird coincidence: my boyfriend had the same name. Only, it didn’t feel all that much like a coincidence because on our first date he had made the same comment to me. Leo, like Leonardo DiCaprio. She nodded her head excitedly, and I’d frozen halfway through a stitch. The needle stuck under her skin, but I couldn’t make myself move.

“You have a picture?” I asked, that strangely bad feeling settling right into my gut now. No, I was being hysterical, looking for problems when everything in my life had just finally fallen into place. What were the chances? There had to be a hundred Leo’s in California, all claiming the same pick-up line to impress women.

Yet, something told me I had to ask, as if deep down I knew all those late nights he’d been working lately seemed just a little bit suspicious. My heart slammed against my rib cage when she turned around her phone. The lockscreen was holding an obnoxious picture of my charming boyfriend, with his arm wrapped around Ms.perfection.

It was suddenly unbearably hard to swallow, all the oxygen was sucked out of the room. I found myself stumbling backwards, knocking over the suture tray on the way. There was no regard for my surroundings anymore, and certainly no regard for professionalism as I stuttered out my unfiltered response. “Like hell, that’s my boyfriend.”

Like a child, I pointed my finger aggressively at my own chest, almost falling into a state of deny. Her lit up phone screen on the table between us kept me here in reality though. It wasn't possible. He wouldn’t do this to me. We lived together, we’d planned our lives together. Our life was perfect. Only it wasn’t, because second by second it was falling apart in my mind. He wouldn’t do this to me, but he did. The proof was right in front of me, the Barbie-like woman clutching her swollen belly and staring back at me in a state of shock, herself.

“Excuse me?” She finally yelled, her voice loud enough to catch the attention of several other patients and staff around us, but I didn’t care. My ears were ringing, my anger climbing up my spine notch by notch. “This is my fiancé, we’re getting married next summer!” She screamed, her voice climbing another few octaves. “What kind of jealous b***h are you to accuse my man of something like that? Jeez with the men you must meet around here, I guess you have no way of getting yourself a good man like this so you try and steal them? Or what? You take some sick pleasure out of ruin a perfectly good couple’s life?” The girl was running on a tangent now, her arms flailing in the air and the blood I’d only just cleaned up, now trickling down her arm again.

I forced a deep breath in through my nose and out through pursed lips. Calm down Tally. Calm the hell down. I was pleading myself, suddenly all too aware of the amount of eyes that were suddenly focusing on us. Everyone in the ER could probably hear her screaming by now, several nurses stopping what they were doing and turning to watch the drama unfold.

Under any other circumstance, I would have run away in embarrassment by now. I hated the attention on me, I hated being the fuel behind the next few weeks gossip, but I wasn’t thinking about that now. All I could think about was my boyfriend. My loving, so-called perfect boyfriend, and our beautiful apartment downtown. My own perfect life was falling to pieces, crumbling at the feet of this perfect Barbie doll that had come strolling so casually into the ER tonight.

“This isn’t some sort of sick game or sly maneouver. He is my boyfriend-“ I tried to reiterate the statement again, hoping she might hear me more clearly this time, but I couldn’t even make it through the sentence without her going off again.

“No damn way, I ain’t no mistress,” her southern accent suddenly peaked through her voice, a steady stream of tears now pouring down her cheeks. I wasn’t so sure why I was so determined to get through to her, but I wanted to hear her acknowledge that she was mine. That she had done wrong, that it wasn’t his fault. No matter how hysterical that thought was, I wanted this to be some sort of wild misunderstanding. I was desperate to cling to my perfect life, the same way she was desperate to cling to hers.

“You’re the mistress here, I’m having his baby, we’re getting married!” Those terrible accusations came out again and I clenched my jaw. Hold it together. You need to hold it together. I gritted my teeth, another forced deep breath came through my nose.

“Leo and I have been together for 3 years, I moved into his apartment 6 months ago. You, honey, are the mistress here,” I tried to correct her. My arms folded over her chest in defence, my hip c*****g to the side as if I could have any sort of confidence here.

“We’ve been together for 2 years and I think our baby is a little more serious than some old apartment,” she argued, and before I could even process the fact that Leo had been cheating on me for the past two years, the woman was flying towards me. Her hands in the air, catching fistfuls of my hair and yanking me until my back arched backwards.

“You b***h!” I screamed, returning the favour as I knotting my own fist in her hair and tugged until she loosened her own grip on me. The situation quickly unravelled from there, the room turning to shambles as the two of us shoved each other around. Neither of us had the advantage, each tugging at each other’s hair like children. I had more upper body strength then she did, giving me the ability to shove her back against the hospital bed. Yet, that guilty conscious in my head held me back, her pregnant belly between us a vivid reminder that she was just as hurt as I was here.

“Tally stop!” My best friend Bianca was screaming from behind me, suddenly joining us. Her hand reached for my arm, but she was quickly shoved off. My distraction gave Barbie the upper hand for a single second. Just long enough for her to send me backwards. The two of us shoved throuhg the curtain, her foot catching the edge and sending me backwards onto the tile floor, her falling on top of me.

“Ahh, you made me fall! My baby!” The woman was suddenly screaming, as if I were the one who forced the two of us onto the floor. Her eyes came narrowed on me next, as if I were the one who’d attacked her. A hand swung back, preparing for a slap, as if I were the one that stole her boyfriend. I was frozen in place, thankfully Bianca grabbed the woman’s hand before she could follow through with that swing.

“Ma’am!” Doctor Gerard came rushing in, tucking his stethoscope around his neck as he reached the two of us. Behind him, our floor manager Sheila, with a look of pure panic stricken across her face.

“We are so sorry!” Sheila was shouting, her gaze turning to me and her face suddenly turning incredibly cold. She shook her head at me, “we will get this nurse out of here right away and find someone else who can take care of you.” She was speaking to Barbie, but her anger filled eyes never left mine. I swallowed, finally taking a pause and realizing what I’d done. My fists unclenched, the anger suddenly flushing right out of my system. I’d attacked a patient, I’d destroyed the room. I’m going to get fired.

In the moments that followed, Barbie was rushed into another room while the housekeepers took over the space behind curtain three. They attempted to put the room back together, but I knew I’d done far more damage than even I knew I was capable of. I did my best to hide myself, burying my burning face behind the charts of my other patients. What have I done? My cheating boyfriend was far from my mind now, my only focus on my now at risk job. Yet another crack to my life that had been perfect only a few hours ago.

“You sure you’re okay?” Bianca asked me for what must have been the fifth time since the incident. We were tucked away behind the nurses station now, eyes fully focused on the computer screen in front of me. I couldn’t bare to look anywhere else, knowing I’d find those watchful eyes, or catch yet another person whispering about me.

“I’m fine B, just want to focus on work,” I assured her.

“What do you think they’re going to do about this? Managements gotta be pissed. Did you see the look on Sheila’s face?” She asked me and a shiver ran down my spine. I absolutely had seen that look, and it had the word fired written all over it. What could I do to stop her though? I’d lost my cool, attacked a patient, and broken half the equipment behind curtain 3.

“Hopefully nothing, I’m good at my job, and she started it. Maybe they’ll just let it go,” I said, trying to reassure myself in the process. We both knew I was being far too optimistic, Bianca rolling her eyes at me in disbelief. The hospital had to do something about it, there was no way they could just let something like this go. And as if on cue, my punishment was on it’s way.

“Talia Atonis, please report to HR immediately,” came the haunting voice overhead. My head hung forwards and I let out a heavy sigh. Bianca’s palm found my back, rubbing small circles, but even she couldn’t reassure me now. I was in deep trouble.