Translucent

Garden

Rhiannon only realised that she'd been working at this restaurant for a year when she went to see Laurel for her monthly check-up. Laurel's hair was beginning to grey from the long days in the surgery and her son was going to the upper school already.

It was a strange thought that little Jonathan that Rhiannon would have playdates with as a young girl and teamed up with on game night was going to be preparing for university now. Time was becoming so nebulous in her 'old' age, she wasn't exactly sure how to deal with the idea of time passing.

She wasn't old. She was 25. But her condition left her a little behind the curve in life.

Laurel pressed the stethoscope to Rhiannon's chest, the metal cold against her warm skin. It was starting to get warmer outside, the temperature surely climbing day by day and the skies getting clearer. Rhiannon imagined that the kitchen at work would be just as hot this summer as it was last summer. She could already feel the slick of sweat on her brow from the cookers and the beating sun in the beer garden. 

She was then reminded of how the summer was always the busiest time of the year, with punters of all kinds will arrive during the peak shift and she would feel like she was drowning in orders and plates and glasses and-

"Your pulse is a little high" Laurel drew Rhiannon back into the moment from her mind "What are you thinking about?"

"Oh, I was just a little nervous about coming in today" Rhiannon smiled with a weak chuckle that didn't cover her blatant lying.

"Really?" She pursed her lips in suspicious "So, it's not anything to do with the event at Tony's today?". She pulled the stethoscope from her skin and placed the ear-piece around her neck, she upright in her seat.

"Oh God, I totally forgot about the show" Rhiannon sighed. 

"Don't worry yourself, darling, you should be very proud of yourself" she tried to reassure the girl with a firm pat on the leg "You've gone a whole year without incident".

"Yeah, that's great" Rhiannon smiled again, this time slightly more genuinely.

"Did you even hear what I said?"Laurel asked, a slight amusement lingering on the annoyance of her tone.

"Of course I did" the young girl's focus centred on the doctor and her face was steely "I suppose that I'm just a little... involved, right now".

"Involved?" Laurel's tone chirped up at the word "The last time you said you were 'involved' was during the whole thing with Duncan and the watch-"

"It's not like that, Laurel" Rhiannon killed her thoughtful meandering in its tracks, her tone now as steely as her face. She immediately rose from her seat, pulling her coat on her arm from its resting place on the back of the chair.

"Okay, I won't ask" Laurel raised her hands as a gesture of surrender.

"Thanks" Rhiannon sighed, lifting her bag onto her shoulder and turning towards the door "See you next week?"

"Always" Laurel replied, a chuckle sitting under her reply somewhere "Take care of yourself, Rhiannon".

The sound of her name being said by Laurel made her hand seize up around the door handle, losing her grip as her hand dropped straight through it. She recovered quickly, immediately re-gripping the handle and opening the door.

"Will do" she muttered before leaving at a break-neck pace, curls brushing against her cheeks with the momentum.

Laurel's voice was too close to home sometimes. She remembered it in every episode she'd ever had. Too close. Too personal. Too sick.