I Do...

Chapter 33

“Hey are you alright?” Halley said grabbing me into protective hug almost as soon as I stepped through the surgery doors.

“Yes I will be, unless you decide to not let me go and I die of suffocation.” I said choking out a joke.

She released me immediately and held me at arm’s length. “I couldn’t believe it. When Carmen told me this morning I wanted to march round there and kill the fu-“She stopped realising that we were standing the waiting room with at least three other owners and their pets. One woman in particular looked practically  struck dumb in astonishment. Her mouth hung open in the most unladylike fashion. I flashed her a small apologetic smile and her bottom jaw slowly rose to meet the other.

“Come, well talk in the back.” Halley said gripping my arm and practically tearing it off as she dragged me to the part of the office which none of the people in the waiting area could hear or see us. I rolled my eyes in anticipation of the Halley men-are- all- utter-pigs rant. “Men they’re all the same! Evil selfish scum bags the lot of them!” She said her face flushing pink with fury. 

At this point our new vet, Lewis just walked into the same room. Halley stopped in her tracks.

“Not you Lewis. You’re fine!” She said and then continued in her angry outburst. By now I had completely switched off and was occasionally nodding, pretending to be interested in what she was saying. Truth is I had no idea now; I had caught the odd word about what she wanted to do to Freddie, something about mutilation and burying under floorboards. Lewis was looking at her with a somewhat scared gaze. I caught his eye and he gave me a sympathetic smile. He hadn’t been working here long enough to realise that Halley was all talk and she very rarely carried out what she threatened to do to men that crossed her. Although she did run a key along the side of her ex’s red Mazda, leaving a rather unsightly scratch mark which needless to say he wasn’t too happy about.

After Halley had stopped in her mad fury she left me to take my coat off whilst she attended  to some of the patient’s owners who she had offended. I hung my navy mackintosh on the peg in the office.

“Don’t worry about her, you’ll get used to her.” I said trying to reassure Lewis. He smiled briefly. I rolled my eyes. “Actually tolerate is probably a better word” He laughed showing his perfect white smile. Truth is Lewis was rather attractive but he was completely gay. For his sake that was probably a good thing as Halley would probably have made some kind of move on him by now if he hadn’t have been. No doubt leaving him in a even more anxious disposition.

Although saying that I hadn’t heard of her getting with anyone for a while and the thought provoked me to query whether or not she was still into Jake or not. I made a mental note to ask her about it later on and followed Lewis into one of the treatment rooms to begin my days work.

~*~

Halley was still ranting on about men at break time to me and Carmen. Lewis continued to work as he said he’d rather “crack on” than stop then. Secretly I think he was scared off by Halley and wanted to be as far as he could away from her.

Me and Carmen sat amused by the entertainment Halley was providing, whilst eating our lunches. Somehow despite talking almost nonstop Halley managed to eat two chocolate bars and a packet of chicken and thyme crisps. Seriously for the amount that she ate she deserved to be at least twice the size she was. I stared down at my scrumptious carrot sticks with disgust thinking back to when I had been able to do the same. Now I was forced to eat healthily because the pounds were going on. I thought back to when I was a teenager and when people had told me that there would come a day when this would happen and I hadn’t fully believed them. How wrong was I? At least now I actually had someone to keep my figure for unlike back then. I returned from being momentarily zoned out to listen once again to my enthusiastic friend.