Status: I'll update when I get a chance!
Skyfall
en
One night can change everything.
The tiny little human was finally asleep. After many attempts to soothe, rock and sing to sleep, Elle had finally allowed mothering instincts to take over, and she placed the small little pink package into her crib, gave her a bottle, and left the room; after fifteen minutes—and a couple of tears from both parties—she was out like a light.
She stared down at the blonde-haired baby that had changed so much in her life. It hadn’t been all negatives, or positives for that matter; but she had fought the good fight and was winning the race. The end prize was a teething seven-month old who had a knack for biting people’s fingers with her new fangled teeth and was wrapped around her poor mother’s fingers like yarn.
“Is she finally asleep?” Tara called from the living room as Elle walked past her roommate and towards the kitchen. Walking back out from the food center (sans the empty baby bottle), she plopped down on the couch next to her best friend and gave her an exhausted shush.
“Yes, and please don’t wake her up. I don’t want to be up until midnight again trying to get her back to bed.” Tara rolled her eyes and threw a Cheetos from the bag she was eating out of at Elle. She shrieked in response, not loud enough for the baby to hear, and then proceeded to shove the processed cheese puff into her mouth. Tara wrinkled her nose at her friend in disgust.
“That my friend is gross, and you also have baby puke on your shoulder.” Elle laughed and looked at her shoulder. Sure enough there was a dried splatter of the little terrors dinner. After eight months of pregnancy and seven months of being used as a portable milk station, puke no longer bothered Elle, even when it was on her clothes.
“Baby puke, the cutest kind of puke.” She giggled in half delirium. It had been a long day already and it was only going to be getting longer with a late night of jam pack studying between the two.
“I don’t know about that one, Ellie,” Tara mumbled as she pulled her Fundamentals textbook out of her backpack.
In the past year, (or so) that they had both been in school, living in the same apartment, and took care of the little baby, evenings had become a studying sanctuary. From the moment Ava was fast asleep in her crib, up until the wee hours of the morning, they spent countless hours with their nose in the books studying to finish up nursing school, and so far the hard work had paid off. Both of the girls had finished a good portion of their clinicals, and had thus been offered positions by nurse managers (contingent upon graduation and passing of the National Exam) at renowned hospitals throughout greater Toronto. Elle had been more than grateful for the opportunities she had and was only wishing on the days when she was able to afford a nicer apartment with a cushy job in order to pay for more things for her daughter.
“Obstetric and Neonatal medicine, huh, you should know a lot about this one, Ellie.” Tara commented with a joking tone, Elle rolled her eyes and began pacing over the pages of her chapters. “What is IVH and how are they classified?” Elle put down her book, closed her eyes, and thought for a moment about what she was being quizzed on.
“IVH is Intraventricular Hemorrhage and it is most common in premature babies less than three pounds. It occurs in the first four days post birth, with bleeding happening between the ventricles of the brain. They are classified as ranging from 1 to 4, with 4 being the most severe. Unless ultra-serious, most bleeds are not treated, but are monitored over infancy and development for issues. If ultra-serious, patients are monitored for a longer period of time in the NICU for signs of digression, if digression occurs, patients are taken in for emergency surgery to prevent and relieve bleeding. Survival rate from that surgery is 15%.” It would be an underestimated lie to say that Elle knew her nursing stuff. Besides taking care of her daughter she lived, breathed, and ate nursing. Since she was a little girl her passion was always to help people in the medical field; a future doctor aspiration was cut short when she found out she was pregnant, so she took up the next best thing—nursing.
Tara rolled her eyes and scoured the book for something else that her colleague might not know about, “Okay smart ass, what does ECMO stand for?” Tara knew right away that she would get the answer.
“Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation. Too easy, T.” Again Tara rolled her brown eyes. “What does ECMO do and why is it important for newborns?” This was how typical banter of the evening went. One asked the question, the other answered, and vice versa until the whole chapter was covered and they were ready (or at least they thought to be ready) for the next test that was coming up.
~~~~~
It wasn’t until nearly two in the morning when they had finally finished studying and at that point delirium had really hit, and things that may have needed to be left unsaid were being spewed from tongues.
“When was the last time you spoke with Gabriel?” Tara, a little bit tipsy from the post-Cheetos wine glass she drank, asked with a hiccup. Elle picked at her nails nervously and tried to avoid the question. “Does that mean lately?” She pushed only to have hit a sore spot with Elle.
“I haven’t talked to him, okay? You of all people know the last day I spoke with him.” Tara, a cheap drunk, didn’t know when to stop.
“I saw him today. He’s back in the K. Lookin’ real good too. Rookie year was good for him. He asked if I had seen you recently, but I told him to shove his balls up his ass.” Elle’s face dropped at the mere reminder that he would visit Kitchener for the summer but let out a throaty laugh at her best friends response.
“God I love you, Tara.” She mumbled trying to regain lung function again and breath properly.
“I thought his eyes were going to explode. He asked again and again, but I didn’t tell him anything.” Just like that Elle was back in that place again. She hadn’t seen him since July, besides a couple of games she had caught on TV (a mistake on her part), but he seemed to be the talk of he town. In between catching her breath and having a minor panic attack, she wondered deep down why exactly Gabe was wondering those questions. “Maybe you should go and talk to him, y’know?” she had suggested, though Elle’s mind was already screaming that there was no way in hell that would ever happen.
“I don’t think so.” And just like that the conversation was dropped.
There was no room to play with fire. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. Elle had been fooled already once before and she was damn sure she wasn’t going to make a fool of herself again. School and Ava took up a major part of her life, and any free time she was going to make sure that it wasn’t spent anywhere near where Gabe could have been.
The tiny little human was finally asleep. After many attempts to soothe, rock and sing to sleep, Elle had finally allowed mothering instincts to take over, and she placed the small little pink package into her crib, gave her a bottle, and left the room; after fifteen minutes—and a couple of tears from both parties—she was out like a light.
She stared down at the blonde-haired baby that had changed so much in her life. It hadn’t been all negatives, or positives for that matter; but she had fought the good fight and was winning the race. The end prize was a teething seven-month old who had a knack for biting people’s fingers with her new fangled teeth and was wrapped around her poor mother’s fingers like yarn.
“Is she finally asleep?” Tara called from the living room as Elle walked past her roommate and towards the kitchen. Walking back out from the food center (sans the empty baby bottle), she plopped down on the couch next to her best friend and gave her an exhausted shush.
“Yes, and please don’t wake her up. I don’t want to be up until midnight again trying to get her back to bed.” Tara rolled her eyes and threw a Cheetos from the bag she was eating out of at Elle. She shrieked in response, not loud enough for the baby to hear, and then proceeded to shove the processed cheese puff into her mouth. Tara wrinkled her nose at her friend in disgust.
“That my friend is gross, and you also have baby puke on your shoulder.” Elle laughed and looked at her shoulder. Sure enough there was a dried splatter of the little terrors dinner. After eight months of pregnancy and seven months of being used as a portable milk station, puke no longer bothered Elle, even when it was on her clothes.
“Baby puke, the cutest kind of puke.” She giggled in half delirium. It had been a long day already and it was only going to be getting longer with a late night of jam pack studying between the two.
“I don’t know about that one, Ellie,” Tara mumbled as she pulled her Fundamentals textbook out of her backpack.
In the past year, (or so) that they had both been in school, living in the same apartment, and took care of the little baby, evenings had become a studying sanctuary. From the moment Ava was fast asleep in her crib, up until the wee hours of the morning, they spent countless hours with their nose in the books studying to finish up nursing school, and so far the hard work had paid off. Both of the girls had finished a good portion of their clinicals, and had thus been offered positions by nurse managers (contingent upon graduation and passing of the National Exam) at renowned hospitals throughout greater Toronto. Elle had been more than grateful for the opportunities she had and was only wishing on the days when she was able to afford a nicer apartment with a cushy job in order to pay for more things for her daughter.
“Obstetric and Neonatal medicine, huh, you should know a lot about this one, Ellie.” Tara commented with a joking tone, Elle rolled her eyes and began pacing over the pages of her chapters. “What is IVH and how are they classified?” Elle put down her book, closed her eyes, and thought for a moment about what she was being quizzed on.
“IVH is Intraventricular Hemorrhage and it is most common in premature babies less than three pounds. It occurs in the first four days post birth, with bleeding happening between the ventricles of the brain. They are classified as ranging from 1 to 4, with 4 being the most severe. Unless ultra-serious, most bleeds are not treated, but are monitored over infancy and development for issues. If ultra-serious, patients are monitored for a longer period of time in the NICU for signs of digression, if digression occurs, patients are taken in for emergency surgery to prevent and relieve bleeding. Survival rate from that surgery is 15%.” It would be an underestimated lie to say that Elle knew her nursing stuff. Besides taking care of her daughter she lived, breathed, and ate nursing. Since she was a little girl her passion was always to help people in the medical field; a future doctor aspiration was cut short when she found out she was pregnant, so she took up the next best thing—nursing.
Tara rolled her eyes and scoured the book for something else that her colleague might not know about, “Okay smart ass, what does ECMO stand for?” Tara knew right away that she would get the answer.
“Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation. Too easy, T.” Again Tara rolled her brown eyes. “What does ECMO do and why is it important for newborns?” This was how typical banter of the evening went. One asked the question, the other answered, and vice versa until the whole chapter was covered and they were ready (or at least they thought to be ready) for the next test that was coming up.
~~~~~
It wasn’t until nearly two in the morning when they had finally finished studying and at that point delirium had really hit, and things that may have needed to be left unsaid were being spewed from tongues.
“When was the last time you spoke with Gabriel?” Tara, a little bit tipsy from the post-Cheetos wine glass she drank, asked with a hiccup. Elle picked at her nails nervously and tried to avoid the question. “Does that mean lately?” She pushed only to have hit a sore spot with Elle.
“I haven’t talked to him, okay? You of all people know the last day I spoke with him.” Tara, a cheap drunk, didn’t know when to stop.
“I saw him today. He’s back in the K. Lookin’ real good too. Rookie year was good for him. He asked if I had seen you recently, but I told him to shove his balls up his ass.” Elle’s face dropped at the mere reminder that he would visit Kitchener for the summer but let out a throaty laugh at her best friends response.
“God I love you, Tara.” She mumbled trying to regain lung function again and breath properly.
“I thought his eyes were going to explode. He asked again and again, but I didn’t tell him anything.” Just like that Elle was back in that place again. She hadn’t seen him since July, besides a couple of games she had caught on TV (a mistake on her part), but he seemed to be the talk of he town. In between catching her breath and having a minor panic attack, she wondered deep down why exactly Gabe was wondering those questions. “Maybe you should go and talk to him, y’know?” she had suggested, though Elle’s mind was already screaming that there was no way in hell that would ever happen.
“I don’t think so.” And just like that the conversation was dropped.
There was no room to play with fire. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. Elle had been fooled already once before and she was damn sure she wasn’t going to make a fool of herself again. School and Ava took up a major part of her life, and any free time she was going to make sure that it wasn’t spent anywhere near where Gabe could have been.
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:)Let me know what you think of it!!! Comments would be greatly appreciated.