Behind The Mask (Nurses Book 2) (4 page)

The only thing I have lost is control of my life and a leg. I’m a dead man walking, well I guess not walking, yet. But I’m a dead man who is still breathing. I have nothing to live for. My momma died when I was young, sending me to live with my grandparents’. Of course, they are gone now, too. I never knew my dick of a dad, I dunno what he even looks like. I may have passed him on the street many times and never known. Fuck him. I never had any brothers or sisters, so nobody came to my bedside when I fought for my life. Many times I gave up and just wanted it all to be over, but I guess a higher power wanted me to stay on this shit hole earth for something.

In this place, I’m known as the pissed off sullen one. A bunch of old-timers and sympathetic nurses are all that’s here. I sit here in my darkened room day in and day out, never leaving  unless they make me. Everyone has their rooms all decorated because they come from this area, but I didn’t come from here. My little town in Kentucky was all I knew before I joined the Army. I got stuck here after it all went wrong. I wasn’t even stationed here. This is supposed to be the best rehab facility that the military has to offer, but shit, even best can’t make me care anymore. So I sit here day in and day out listening to music. It is the only thing that I have to get me through the day.

Moving to the edge of my bed and grabbing my crutches, I sigh because I cannot believe this is how my life has turned out. A peg-legged freak. In my mind, I know I’m not a freak. I know that losing a leg is not something that makes me that way. I know it’s nothing to be ashamed about. But I just can’t get over feeling like it’s actually that way. I use my crutches as if it is another leg. It’s my form of balance, the pinch in my armpits is a constant reminder of the leg that I lost and nothing will ever be the same. Callouses on my hands are a show of what once was and what will never be again.

Because of losing my leg, I’m being medically discharged from the Army. So it’s not my choice to leave, they just don’t want me anymore. Some have been able to go back to work without a limb, but they end up with the desk jobs and that certainly ain’t me. I’m trained to shoot to kill, I’m trained to be a badass, not some pencil pusher. Some have been able to go back to the war without certain limbs but it depends on the type of amputation, of course mine is one that doesn’t fit the criteria. I have no education to get me far, and I barely made it through high school, because I was dumb and liked to fight. So I’m left with nothing: no career, no friends because we all got blown up, no family, and one hell of a pity party.

In the Army, I was a diesel mechanic. Wasn’t much but I knew what I was doing. I would go out into the field to fix whatever broke down on the side of the dirt road. That’s how I lost my brothers, it’s how I lost my leg. One of our convoys was broke down and when we went to go fix it some fuck ass suicide bomber detonated the car that was close to the downed truck. I lost three of my boys that day, and I came back without all of my parts. Three families buried their loved ones, three funerals I never went to. Three brothers gone in an instant, no goodbyes were said, they were just gone.

Making my way to the bathroom that sits off to the side of my room, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Short brown hair and grass green eyes stare back at me. I have lost weight and muscle mass from being in this shitbox, but I still have some bulk to me. Tattoos line my arms, chest, and back. Different quotes and pictures spread out in vivid colors and details. Mercy is tattooed across my knuckles because if I have to use my fists you will be begging me for mercy. Troublemaker used to be my nickname because I fought all through high school. Stupid is what it should say because now, I regret it all.

I should have went to college and made something of myself, that way I wouldn’t be in this situation. But hell let’s be honest, I probably would have been in jail or dead. Beaten to death by some pissed off husband because I banged his wife in some dingy bar. Or in prison for beating some pissed off husband for banging his wife, either way, it wouldn’t have been good. The military saved me, I guess. Showed me some discipline that I was lacking in my younger years. Gave me an opportunity, and I took it and ran with it. Ran all the way to a war that cost some the ultimate sacrifice.

A knock at my door startles me, but I tell whoever to just leave me the fuck alone. This place needs to leave me the hell alone and let me be. I can’t stand this place, I’m just ready to get the fuck out of here. I need a piece of pussy, a beer, and probably something stronger than that. They don’t let us have alcohol in this place, and I don’t know any bitches to give me the pussy. None of these nurses are worth hitting on except that one Samantha, but she is too fucking perky for my tastes. Fake as the tits on her chest.

Taking off my pants and skivvies I can’t help but look down and see the empty space where my leg was. I have my thigh and knee but my calf and foot is gone, rotting somewhere I’m sure. Reaching over, I cut on the shower, and the sound of the water groans through the pipes before it finally sprays out in a sad and pathetic flow. This place is so old and the water pressure sucks balls. Getting into my shower chair just pisses me off even more, because shit, I am a twenty-seven-year-old man who shouldn’t be having to sit his ass down to take a shower. Hell, I used to fuck women standing up in the shower. None of that now I guess. The therapists say that eventually I will have the balance to shower myself without sitting down. I can’t wait for that fucking day, seems like it will never get here.

As the bathroom heats up, I get situated on my shower chair and let the water and heat cascade over me hoping that it might take the anger away. Being angry though seems to be all that I have left that is mine. No job, no house, no woman, and no leg. All the no’s are lined right up for me to sit and stew over. But I have to shake this funk, I can’t let this ruin me. It’s so easy to fall down the rabbit hole of the no’s when really I need to pull myself out of it, because what happens when I don’t? I’m just going to become some homeless guy on the side of the road and dying with nothing but full of hate and anger. I can’t let myself go out that way.

Ugh, another night of no sleep. The nightmares are plaguing me, causing me to cry out, to relive every tortured memory. My therapist says it’s because I haven’t dealt with the emotions that the situation made me feel. That and some shit about not being able to say the R word. Why would I want to say that word? That word is so vulgar, so wrong that just thinking it makes my body feel like poison is coursing through my veins. It’s a word nobody should even know, let alone know how to say.

The drive to work reflects my mood, gray skies, and raining. Walking up the steps, I run into Allyn. Oh boy, I can’t take him today, but I find myself slowing down to talk to the old man, hoping that he has a joke for me or something.

“Mornin’ Allyn.”

“Good morning, Cori, did I ever tell you that my buddies in the service had a nickname for me?” He has a lopsided mischievous smile on his face, so I know this ought to be good.

“Nope, you sure didn’t, but I bet you are going to now.” He told me, but Allyn doesn’t seem like the type to care about whether I’ve heard it or not. It’s ok, he seems to be a nice guy.

“You are damn right I am, they used to call me the Flounder Pounder! Because by the time I was done giving it to a girl she just laid there like a flounder!” He cackles which triggers him to start coughing. He told me yesterday, but he didn’t tell me any details.

I can’t help it, I burst out laughing, full on belly laughing. I mean this guy is a trip! Who comes up with shit like that? If he was ever married, his wife must have been a saint.

“Ok, FP, you need to get inside, you’re going to catch a cold out here and won’t be able to do no pounding.”  I still have a smile on my face as I walk inside. Maybe today won’t be as bad as I thought.

Four hours later I’m covered in sweat, and I’m sure that I smell like a men’s locker room, but one of Allyn’s buddy’s went down with no pulse right in his chair in the hallway. Getting a grown man onto the floor and performing CPR for 20 minutes is taxing on a person. Every muscle in my body is sore and I smell so rank, but I was able to get his pulse back before the EMTs arrive. I have no idea where Sam went to, she seems to like to leave the floor when I clock in.

A feeling of euphoria passes over me. The high that you get when your adrenaline kicks in and you do what has to be done. I haven’t done that in a long flipping time. I can only imagine that this is what addicts feel when they are high. The adrenaline coursing through my veins makes me feel as if I’m ten feet tall and bulletproof. Every time I bring someone back from the brink of death is an almost out of body experience. Makes me feel like I have thumbed my nose at the higher ups with a ‘you’re not taking this guy today’ kind of feeling.

After the guy is loaded on the stretcher and taken out to the ambulance, I exhale a pent up breath and take in my surroundings. People are milling about the chaos, but it’s someone standing way in the back that catches my eye. Looking down the hallway I see a man on crutches standing by the door I was knocking on yesterday. For some reason, I can’t look away from him even though he has a look of disgust on his face, a look of some unknown hatred. I am utterly mesmerized, drawn into the sight of a man who seems to hate what he sees. This must be Knight. Not until he goes back to his room and slams the door does the spell break. A feeling of sadness and emptiness washes over my skin from an unknown stranger walking away. Like I am missing something that once was and never will be again. I don’t get it, how can I feel like that over someone I’ve never met or even someone who obviously hates me so much.

The rest of the day goes off without another glimpse of the man that Samantha confirmed and said was named Knight. I have no idea if that is a good thing or a bad thing since I have only glimpsed his face from afar, I feel the need to see him up close. Since he walked away, the great feeling of saving someone’s life has become an afterthought. The scars on my face, the scars on my heart and on my body have been temporarily forgotten. In place of the save and scars is a feeling of loneliness. I don’t know why, though. It has taken four months to feel lonely, when before all this happened I would just call Olivia up and we would hang out and watch movies, so I was never alone.

Is it because what used to be, before the riot and scars, was a fun girl who could get a man wrapped around her with one smile? The woman who had lots of friends and plans every night of the week. The woman who could make a person feel good just by her sunny disposition. I feel like two people; like that sunny girl has been put in a box way down deep in me and she’s just waiting to burst out again. Then the way I am now, closed off, shut in, and wounded. It’s two people fighting each other in a constant battle of who is going to be Cori today. The one who dwells on the past seems to be the winner all the time.

Today has been for lack of a better word, different. One of the old timers went down and some nurse was on the floor trying to save his life. The commotion caused the curiosity in me to actually open my door. Not a big deal around here with all the old people, but for the first time since being in this crap shoot I wanted to venture out of my room to see the nurse who saved his life. She was a siren call that pulled me in. Of course I wouldn’t get too close, but I had to see what all the commotion was about and man am I glad I did.

I have never seen her before so she must be new. Or not, it’s not like I’m the friendliest person in this place. But there was something about her that made it so I couldn’t look away from her. She didn’t know the crowd of patients that she drew in as she worked tirelessly on the old man. She had a presence about her, an aura that drew me in. I didn’t leave my doorway, but I could feel this pull to be near her. Plus her ass in those tight scrubs didn’t hurt much either. So much so that I found myself adjusting myself in my shorts with the way her ass jiggled. My cock was straining to be released from the confines of the fabric. First time my dick has gotten hard since I lost my leg. Information I will think about later, I guess.