Page 8 of The Night Shift

“I honestly can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.”

“Go. Just text me about the wig, please?”

“Will do. Have fun.” I disconnect the call and accept the other one. “Hello?”

“Are you free?” says Camille. “Please, please,pleasesay yes. I could really use some company at the bar.”

I glance at the clock on the wall. “You’re still working?”

“Just killing time till you get here. Which, according to Google maps—” she pauses and I imagine her checking her phone — “should be in the next twenty minutes?”

My voice comes out weak and raspy. “Cami.”

“No. Nuh-uh. Don’t you dare ‘Cami’ me.”

“I’m really tired.”

“You’re a surgeon. You’re always tired.”

True. “I just got done with a six-hour surgery, Cam. I really don’t have the energy tonight.”

“You sure you can’t swing by? Just for a little bit? It’s been a really long day at work. I could use the company of my sweet, kind-hearted best friend.”

“Well, then maybe you should call her.”

She giggles and the sound somewhat eases the remaining tension in my chest from before.

I read somewhere once that you attract the kind of energy you put out. That if you stay focused on all the “good” and “positives” in your life, you will automatically attract more good and positive things into your life.

However, the terms “good” and “positive” are subjective. What might be “good” to one person, might not be the same to another. Three years ago, when I first met Cami, I was not in a “good” place. I don’t think I was in a bad place either, I just…was. I was breathing for the sake of breathing. Existing for the sake of existing. I had no interests. None. I didn’t care about anything at all. I craved to fade away. I became numb to everything “good” and “positive.” The only thing I felt was pain. Radiating all over like someone just forced me to take a chainsaw and cut off my own arm. Like someone had reached into my chest and ripped my heart right out.

My bed became my casket. All I wanted to do was sleep for five hundred years and never wake up. I was stuck in some sort of limbo, existing only in the space between where I wanted to be and where I actually was. Stuck between good and bad. Heaven and hell. Limbo. That in-between place where all the dead people who no one knows what to do with go. Dead babies go there too, I think.

Cami pulled me out of there. It takes a lot of strength to pull someone out of a place they don’t want to leave. She sawall the broken pieces and glued them back together to the best of her ability, even though at the time she barely even knew me. Nobody wants to be associated with a bad person, let alone be friends with one. But there are some who just can’t help themselves. Cami was one of them and I’ll never stop being grateful for that.

“So?” she asks. “Are you on your way yet or do I need to book you an Uber?”

“I really can’t tonight, Cam. It’ll be a miracle if I don’t pass out mid-conversation.” I bring my mug to my lips and take a sip of my now lukewarm coffee.

A long pause. An intense pause.

“Was it fun at least?” she finally asks.

“The surgery?”

“Yes, Sherlock, the surgery. Did you get to cut someone open? Was there a lot of blood? Did someone die? Give me all the gross, gory details!”

“It was fine. Barely any blood.”

I’m certain she senses my lie. “You sound weird. What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

“No, I’m just tired.”

“So you’ve said. Just come for like half an hour,” Cami insists. “I’ll make you that drink you like. The blue-red one? Or a gin martini? You’ll feel better.”

“I think I’m just gonna head home. I might be coming down with a migraine. But I’ll come over tomorrow. Promise.”

A heavy,heavysigh. “Fine, whatever. I gotta go too.”