Timing Is Everything

Chapter Seven~ Hayden

CHAPTER SEVEN~ HAYDEN.

It's been two weeks and Cole is still his cold, lifeless self. Any hope I had built up over the past days have slowly shattered, as I receive his constant, one worded answers. Maybe it's just me, but Cole has been acting more distracted and distant than before. Before his iron walls had collapsed and he smiled at me. Before our single, heated discussion on books. Wow. Books. I wish I had talked to him more than just about books. But it had been so easy to talk to him, that I just did. I hadn't stopped to think about the questions I needed to ask, questions that would've been so helpful towards his recovery. No, I just let myself be distracted by his beautiful, intense, dark blue eyes, the polar opposite of my light sky blue ones, and now we are nowhere near the answers we need. All I have are memories of a distant conversation and a beautiful smile, not to mention a lifeless man. One who would be taken away from me soon if I did not find the reasons to his guarded mind and mood swings.

I tell all of this to Susan one afternoon during one of our breaks, when she asks me about my depressing expression and constant sighs.

I just spilled my heart out to her and she gives me the strangest look.

"Don't look at me like that," I say warily.

Susan clears her throat and asks, "Hayden, do you...erm, do you..."

"Well, that wasn't much of a question," I answer her, resting my tired head on the cold desk.

"Do you like Cole?"

I straighten up as if electrocuted.

"Pardon?" I manage to say.

"Do you like Cole?" Susan repeats, raising an eyebrow.

"No," I reply, my eyes widening. Why would she think that?

"Why would you think that?" I ask her.

Susan crosses her arms. "You seem pretty depressed about him," she says sketchily.

"Of course I am!" I say. "I'm the one who found him. I don't want Cole to be 'the one' that I couldn't help. You know how guilty I would feel for the rest of my life?"

"Oh," Susan says sheepishly.

I smile kindly at the older woman.

"I appreciate you trying to uh, match make for me," I say.

"Well, you deserve a nice, young man. I don't want you to spend the rest of your life alone, thinking men are evil creatures, just because of that jerk, Lu-"

"Ay," I interrupt her, raising my hand like a stop sign. "I refuse to acknowledge him in a conversation."

"Alright," Susan says, sighing.

I get up, grab my bag, and head towards the door.

"My next shift is in a few, so I'm gonna go," I tell her.

She waves her hand distractedly as she pulls out a file.

I am almost out of the office when she calls out, "By the way, it's not against the policy to engage in a romantic relationship with a patient."

I turn around and shoot her an annoyed look.

"Good to know," I say. "It'll come in handy if I ever like a patient."