Infected

Chapter 4

I barely slept for the next two days, tossing and turning at the thought of what Liv could be doing with Rucker. She hadn't answered my phone calls or texts and by the second night I'd thought she was never going to speak to me again. Even when things had become heated between us, she would at least reach out to me to ease some of my worry, no matter if I was in the wrong or not. 

"Are you okay? You been really quiet today" Mel asks me after sending away a few students, bringing to light that my mood had been less than cheerful for it being the last day of the semester.

"Yeah, just had a rough night is all. Nothing to worry about" I give her a strained smile hoping that it was enough to ease her conscious. Unlike my cousin, I could easily keep my private matters a secret no matter who tried to coax them out of me.

She stacks up a pile of folders and places them in their designated boxes. We'd be spending the rest of the day storing away anything that the summer nurses wouldn't need to use having already scanned the past patient's files into the school's software the day prior. Galen promised us that we could leave early once it was done as a reward for doing clerical work that we hadn't signed on to.

"I saw Mr. Dreamy walking around this morning, he was holding some kind of seminar with the over achievers. I think it was about medieval torture methods, or something like that." Mel chimes while scrawling notes with a permanent marker on a new lid.

"Any opportunity to get a look at him. Do you think they were paying attention?" I smirk, slightly envious that there were people getting more time with him than I was.

"Hell no. I swear I saw all of them with their faces like this," she demonstrates a perfect impression of someone staring at a cosmic anomaly, which in this case was the young and handsome professor.

"I think he does it on purpose, there's no way someone could look like that and not find a way to abuse their power."

"Who's abusing power?" 

I yelp at Galen's voice, caught red handed in the gossip I was participating and leading with Mel. He'd appeared out of thin air, leaning against the wall as he read through a red folder, his face only slightly curious about who we'd been gossiping about.

Mel saves the day by sending a smart aleck response to him, "You are by making us sort through these files."

He closes the folder with a quick snap and saunters over to our station.

"Now now Mel" Galen says in a light tone, "think about the beautiful vacation you're about to have. It's not healthy to be so upset when you'll be basking in the sun by this time tomorrow."

"I am, but that doesn't mean I can't be annoying while I do it."

Mel purses her lips and gives him a confident wink. I pull out the cloud of family misery to engage in the change of subject.

"What vacation?"

"I'm going to Florida for a few weeks." She answers, excited about my interest in her activities,

"Oh, that sounds fun."

"What are you going to do Elle?" Galen asks me, leaning into the counter to stare at me with his kind hazel eyes.

I shrug, giving off an aloof attitude for my lack of plans.

"Same thing I always do, read and sleep."

"Elle doesn't have a social life Dr. Galen." Mel interjects while giving a pout to my mediocre lifestyle.

"That's right. Who needs to party when you can get high on books" I wiggle my eyebrows and Dr. Galen, who'd always enjoyed my sense of humor, lets out a short laugh.