“Call me Alice,” she crossed her face and turned her back on him. Her mind raced back to their conversation. What did he mean by Almax was the distraction? Why were men so complicated, she questioned herself.
She couldn’t ponder this any further. She had other things to do, better things to do. She had to get ready. He had been running on her mind since she left work. Their petty fights had finally lead to something. It had been a long time coming, in her eyes. Every day, she thought about him. All day long, maybe half the day.
Even when she wasn’t thinking about him, she was thinking about him. She flung her bag onto her bed, grabbed her phone from her back pocket and stared at it for a while. Her messages came flooding in, one after the other. She wasn’t interested. Michael’s text popped up. She closed her phone and fell backward gruntled.
“Nico, Nico, Nico,” then she smiled uncontrollably.
“Nicholas, Nicholas…Nicholas,” the smile turned into a blush. She found herself on her side, facing her dressing mirror. At this point, she couldn’t even finish saying his name without smiling.
“Nico… Nichol… Ey why is his name Nicholas. Am I going crazy?” Cynthia, I mean Alice pondered. She had slipped into a trance. Her mind went back to when Michael showed up at the hospital that day.
[Alice’s trance]
There he stood, looking through his files. It didn’t bother her that she was staring. Nicholas began dropping his face mask, instinctively, Cynthia’s mouth started dropping. She was startled by a young man almost yelling in her ears. What made things worse was he was blocking her view. She couldn’t see Nicholas anymore. She tried her best not to sound irritated.
“I’m here for E’ness. The girl who had an accident,” she listened to Michael speak past his trembling voice.
“Nurse, Nurse!” Cynthia shouted after half-acknowledging what he said.
“This is Mr. Michael, he’s here for the lady that was brought in earlier.” She turned to him and uttered.
“This is Nurse Almax, she will lead you to the ward.” He half turned slowly, at the same time, Almax removed her face mask, slowly and their eyes met.
“Hi, this way please,” she ordered, turned and walked away swiftly. Michael began staring at Almax. At the same time, Nicholas began moving. Cynthia’s eyes followed him until he was out of sight. She finally regained herself and found Michael still motionless.
“Sir, can you please go,” Cynthia spoke. The receptionist half startled him. Michael paced off and she remained brainstorming, plotting. When next she could see him, possibly even gather the courage to talk to him.
It was half an hour later that she saw him emerge from one of the wards across the long hallway. He stopped suddenly like he sensed someone staring at him. Cynthia thought he had seen her. She quickly looked away and her heart sunk. She slowly turned her head and tried to act normal. He had stopped like he had left something. He stood there, trying to recall what he had left behind. She was safe with her secret, she thought. She couldn’t help but stare at Nicholas.
From opposite Nicholas, Michael emerged out of a door, in shock from the news of the impending death of E’ness. He calmly shut the door behind him and looked up. He saw Nicholas, checking his pockets. He checked his pockets to see if he had left something too. Satisfied, he took the first step and his eyes beamed across the hallway, towards Cynthia. Cynthia was still staring at Nicholas.
He swiftly crossed the hall, while still looking at Cynthia. He stood just before the flight of stairs. He stood there motionless, staring, hoping Cynthia would just look at him. Nicholas wasn’t in his sight anymore, he was behind Michael. Like a scene out of a movie, Nicholas didn’t notice Cynthia staring at him and Cynthia didn’t notice Michael staring at her.
[End of Alice’s trance]
Suddenly she felt a knock on her head. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes. The knock was actually coming from the door despite it seeming like it was in her head. Slowly, she got up and then jumped to her feet. It dawned to her that Nicholas was coming over. She was still in her scrubs when she jumped out of bed. She opened the door and was relieved to see her roommate stood in front of her. A little disappointed too.
“There’s a guy asking for you, should I let him in?” Her roommate, Natasha spoke.
“Tell him I need to freshen up first. Ask him to come back after 20 minutes.” She then shut the door quickly, stood behind it and listened for any voices.
“He will be back in 30 minutes,” Natasha said and bolted to go gossip about it.
“But I said 20, why 30?” Alice spoke with her voice reducing drastically after every word.
Boography 