And If there was a tomorrow

Chapter 3

The remainder of the on-call shift was very calm, for Linda's sakes. She could even have rested more, to prepare for the full day ahead of her, but her thoughts didn't allow that. In addition, she was still startled from the last dream she had and wasn't sure if she wanted to go back to that scene. She noticed that in the haste of returning to the hospital, she had forgotten her phone in her purse, and hadn't checked it for many hours. She went back to the place where she put her belongings and noticed many unread messages. From all senders, one of them was terribly angry at her for not replying: her boyfriend. There was a clear change in his mood as time passed by without a reply from her. She kept reading all the messages.

"Hi. How are you? Are you home yet? I'm coming over. Will see you soon. Xoxo."

"You haven't replied yet. I'm not sure if I should go or not. Have you left the hospital?"

"I'm not even sure if you're reading my messages. Can you at least reply? I don't know if something happened, I'm worried."

"I called the hospital and found out you're still working. Weren't we going out tonight? You could have told me!"

"You are just ignoring me, aren't you?"

"Never mind. I'm used to be traded by your patients. Forget about it. Talk soon."

She took a deep breath. The combination of all those messages and the letter she received earlier, she didn't even know if she still wanted to be in that relationship. They had a great start: they had common interests, many similar tastes and thoughts. As years went by, their differences came alive: he was more extroverted, enjoyed partying, social life, hanging out with friends, while she had the feeling that he used her more like a trophy than an actual companion. He demanded that she wore stylish clothes and to put on makeup, which were not that important to her. In addition, he constantly complained about her commitment to her profession and, lately, he had been trying to convince her to leave the hospital and the on-call shifts. She didn't want that. In the last week, he came up with a conversation about an opportunity to move to Paris, which would be great for them, but she didn't share the same desire. She noticed that he tried to control her in many ways, which she hated and made her wonder whether she was doing the right thing. In addition, she started to feel that he was egocentric and, if things didn't go his way, they were no good. This array of facts was making her impatient and unhappy. She had deep thoughts about everything she had given up for him, about everything she had agreed to do even when not on board, and a voice, deep inside, guided her to impose limits to that relationship, and despite her great desire to help everyone, she had to be less submissive and help herself first.

She put her phone away. She wouldn't reply at that moment. She was upset, angry. Any word she writes could not sound appropriate. She continued with her day as usual and prepared to go home (finally).

The same traffic from the past day was waiting for her, but she was too tired to care for it. She sat there, without moving, it wasn't as bad as before. She gave up on the radio and played one of her classical music playlists, and only accepted the delay. A little over one hour later, she was parking her car at her usual spot and went up to her apartment. She opened the door and jumped scared. She saw a person sitting in her living room chair and it took her a few moments to recognize her boyfriend, who stood up immediately upon seeing her.

─ Finally. Where have you been?

─ Good night to you too. You know very well where I was.

─ At the hospital, as always. Would it be too hard to let me know? I was worried.

─ Were you, really? Or were you most anger because I was at work? ─ She had no patience for that conversation and still tried to figure out how he had entered the apartment.