Just A Smile

Chapter 1 : An Unexpected Encounter

The weather was warm. Max worked all summer in hospital with her patients. She took only one week off to take some rest and find new exercises to do. She was a psychomotor therapist now, and she loved her job, she was actually very good at it. She was still young and just got her diploma, but as she was very involved, she learnt pretty quickly.

Every morning she was arriving two hours before her first group or patient to read the files about them to know what they liked, what they didn't, and other things like that to know how to deal with them. But today, they were having new patients with her colleagues. Twelve new patients that they would share in four groups. Max loved having new patients, it was always a new challenge.

Max discovered her three new patients: Harold, a man of forty years old who crashed in motorcycle, Justine, a young woman of twenty years old who fell from her roof, and Gary, a young man of her age, twenty-three years old, who fell in skateboard and hit his spine. As it was their first day, she met them one by one before introducing them to her group. She was pleasantly surprised by her meetings with them, they seemed to have had a good psychological follow, the three of them were very motivated for their reeducation, she couldn't wait to begin with them.

She was filling the files about her patients when Boris, her colleague, entered the staff room. The white man collapsed on the chair in front of her and sighed loudly with his mouth.

- "Long day?" Max asked without stopping what she was doing.

- "Two of my new patients are very great, but the third one will be a pain in my ass!"

- "Don't talk about patients like that! Have some respect!"

- "You should have seen her, she hadn't talked for the entire day, she barely looked at me!"

- "Some people struggle to accept their handicap, and your job is to help them with it, not to blame them for having emotions! Sometimes I wonder why you do this job!"

- "Yeah, sorry...But I'm not good with people like that," the man pouted.

- "Then you should find another job. What's the problem with her?"

- "Depression, she tried to kill herself two months ago, and now it's impossible to make her do something!"

- "What happened? Do they know why she did that?"

- "Her sister died in a car crash. She was her last family. She had already lost her parents in a car crash years ago, and she finished in a coma after that."

Max got dizzy by those words. She had already heard a story like that years ago. In fact, she just didn't hear the story, she was there. She stood, still a bit weak before asking:

- "What's her name?"

- "Um...I, I don't understand."

- "What's her name!?" Max asked with a firmer tone.

- "Jane, Jane Brown! What's wrong?"

- "Is she still here!?"

- "I think, she was with Dorian for her file. Hey! What's happening!?"

Max didn't answer, she was already far anyway. How many Jane Brown could have had a car crash years ago which stuck her in a coma!? She never thought she would see her again. Her heart was beating so fast that she thought it was going to leave her chest. She arrived in Dorian's office and froze when she saw her. Jane was sitting in a wheelchair, staring into space, exuding bad mood.

- "Is there a problem?" Dorian asked with a frown.

Max almost forgot that she wasn't alone. She turned to the others, looked at Dorian before looking at the blonde girl, her face drawn by fatigue, in front of the desk and Dorian again.