New Life (Book 4)

Chapter 6

St. Bernard's Hospital, Gibraltar

Monday, 8 September

13.05hrs

Work had never felt so busy before since I got transferred to the A&E department. I swore they did more record and files handling down here than on the surgery levels, and those required the most paperwork when it came to patient's record updates and medical profiles.

I sat at my desk, bored as hell with a cup of coffee and half eaten sandwich Fatima wrapped up for me for lunch, going over the records for a patient who had come in last week for a sprained ankle.

As it turned out, what looked like a normal sprain was actually the result of a previous injury he had suffered but refused to get looked at thoroughly, it was now coming back to haunt him and I had to be the unlucky bastard to dig through all his previous records which had been handled by the person I exchanged departments with.

So far... this Monday was off to a good start.

I put down the file and leaned back in my chair. I stretched out my arms and ran my hands through my hair, holding my head up I stared at the ceiling.

There was a slight twitch from my right eye. It wasn't painful thankfully but it did annoy me – just not as much as the cause behind it. I gritted my teeth thinking back to last Friday at the strip club in Spain.

It's happened now Kyle, just forget about it and move on, I reminded myself.

Although Fatima did apply some of her makeup over the bruise, along with the help of Lucy yesterday, it was still fairly visible but only if you looked close enough to see it.

One of my colleagues partnered up with me here I swear must have noticed it. She didn't say anything about it but the way she was staring at my forehead this morning when I walked in certainly proved my theory.

'Not feeling hungry, noh?' asked a woman's voice on my right sporting that strong Gibraltarian accent.

I lowered my arms from my head and looked up to see the source of the voice, only to find a pair of kind looking green eyes from a lovely woman in her mid-thirties with dark brown hair.

It was Lauren Garcia, my colleague and partner in this department and the first to notice my covered up black eye.

She stood by my desk, holding a freshly poured cup of black coffee in her left hand, along with her right hand buried in her white shirt pocket.

I shrugged my shoulders folding my arms in my chair.

'Been too busy to eat,' I replied. 'The team leaders are giving us por culo about the disorganized records, and on top of that I've had to handle the front desk for incoming patients alone, so...' I paused mid way to yawn as I covered my mouth.

'No tienes ganas, right?' she said with a sly smile.

I pursed my lips and nodded my head very slowly, still keeping my arms folded.

Lauren's expression was a sympathetic one which she knew very well, from experience too, how all that felt. She had only recently returned from her maternity leave last month and on top of having the stress of a newborn, she also had to cover the entire department with just two other people due to a serious understaffed issue – bottom line... the department is shit at management, I thought.

'How's the baby anyways?' I asked.

'Bien, he's doing good,' Lauren replied sitting herself down on the edge of my desk. 'Still keeps his father and I awake most nights, but he's sleeping better than he did in the first week.'