i’m a heart made of wax

You, the darling sweetheart of the ER, with your stupid twin French braids, tied off with pink rubber bands like a preschooler. Your soft, pink t-shirt under your grey scrubs, and the cutesy, cartoon bandaid charm on the end of your badge. An anthropomorphic bandaid, no less, sporting a hair bow and a toothy smile, all varying shades of —no surprise here— pink. 

Trinity keeps her back to you once she clears the threshold, busying herself with cracking the ice tray from the freezer. The very second her first cube clunks to the bottom of her stainless steel water bottle, you sniffle. 

"What's wrong," says Trinity flatly, making the effort to turn on the faucet the moment you start speaking. 

"I'm fine," you mumble, nearly drowned out by the running water. She snaps her bottle shut, then turns to face you, leaning back against the sink. 

"Sure you are," Trinity scoffs. 

The countertop bites into the small of her back as she crosses her arms over her chest, black nylon stretching taut across her slender arms. 

You notice. 

You always notice when it comes to her. 

Two years you've been a nurse at this ER, and you've never met anyone quite like Dr. Santos. She came in hot, a seismic shift in your day-to-day, in a place you'd finally gotten the hang of. She's self-assured and ambitious, she reeks of a superiority complex, and bares her teeth when you get too close. 

She does not like you, and you can't quite figure out why. You think it's because you're impervious to her bad moods, when she comes skulking in to the ER and barks at anybody who offers support. 

You always shrug your shoulders when she attacks, tells you that you're too perky to be in this hellhole, why don't you go up to Pedes, what kind of self-respecting woman actually comes in to work with a smile on her face. Then masks it as a joke when you call her out on it. Oh, come on, I pick on everybody. It's how I show affection! You should count yourself lucky.

You think she sees weakness in your softness and wants to squash it.

You think it has more to do with her than it actually does with you. 

But today you can't be sanctimonious about Hurricane Santos, because you're too encapsulated in your own rotten mood. 

"You don't actually care," you challenge, arching a perfectly sculpted brow in her direction. Something fizzles beneath Trinity's ribs at this newfound brattiness coming out of you. 

Usually you're so… amenable. Affable. Utterly unflappable. Other Austenian words that describe the demure older sister from Pride & Prejudice who, quite frankly, Trinity found fucking nauseating.

"Try me," Trinity bites back, sidling over and perching herself on the chair opposite you. 

You lower your feet to the ground, then square up to the round table separating her feline frame from yours. 

Seriously, she always has that look of a cat about to tip over a glass of water. She just needs to hear one more 'don't!' to knock it over the edge. 

"Dana says I can't care for our male patients without somebody else present," your voice drops, and so too do your round, doe eyes. 

Trinity doesn't think she's ever seen a more humanoid Bambi in her life.

God, that'd make Huckleberry Thumper, wouldn't it?

She rattles the image out of her head. "Excuse me?" 

"I keep getting, like, harassed, or whatever, so she isn't letting me treat male patients by myself anymore," you explain. You run your fingers down the vertebrae of your left braid, gaze still fixed on the tabletop. 

Trinity's throat bobs. "Who's been harassing you?" She asks, her voice taking on a different kind of edge. 

"Just, like, patients," you shrug, leaning back in the chair, caving in on yourself. 

"No," Trinity says your name, and splays her palm across the table. "Hey, this isn't a just or a whatever situation. I haven't heard about any of this." 

Scuttlebutt usually finds its way around this ER in minutes —one singular hour, max— but she truly hasn't heard any rumblings of anyone harassing you. 

Embarrassment crushes into you, flushing your whole face a pink brighter than… well, your whole ensemble, save for the grey scrubs. 

"It's nothing," you insist, taken back to the several times you told Dana the exact same thing. 

"It's not nothing," Trinity softens, the angles of her jaw and her chin rounding out. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but it's not nothing. You deserve to work here and feel comfortable doing so," she pauses and reconsiders, "well, as comfortable as someone could be in the seventh ring of hell." 

You flick your eyes up to find the makings of a smile you've seen before, but never been on the receiving end of. 

Her joke coaxes you with its outstretched arms, easing you back into the conversation at hand. 

"There was this guy a couple weeks ago who asked me to give him a sponge bath," you begin, crossing your arms over your chest, capping your own shoulders in a definitive x-shape. You don't look Santos in the eye. You don't think you can. "Then somebody called me Nurse Barbie, and that guy that was brought in all coked-out yesterday grabbed my butt." 

Trinity's pretty sure her blood could heat a tea kettle right now. 

Her leg shakes uncontrollably beneath her, but she manages an expression of understanding as you go on, listing two additional instances of patients treating you like some thing for them to play with rather than an instrumental piece of their healthcare. 

It's fucking infurating, thinking about someone degrading any nurse like that, let alone you. Sweet, abhorrently kind you, who brings in homemade cookies to work and stays late to help Dana with handoff rounds and asks Perlah and Princess to teach you phrases in Tagalog during the rare moments of downtime. Just the bad words, you'd giggled as Princess helped you sound them out.

Then Trinity realizes you're crying, and suddenly her reaction to what's happened to you doesn't feel as important. 

"Hey," she speaks clearly, firmly. "Hey," she says your name again and you finally look at her. She flips her arm palm-side up, and flexes her fingers toward herself. An invitation.

Apprehensively, you lay your hand on top of hers. It's clumsy, but she tangles her fingers with yours, creating an archway on the table. She squeezes gently. 

"That's not nothing," she says again. With your free hand, you stubbornly wipe a tear away. 

"It's so embarrassing," you insist. "I feel like nobody takes me seriously." 

Trinity's soft fingers shift, so she's cradling your hand in hers. The pad of her thumb swipes across the back of your knuckles, stars shooting up and down the veins in your arms. 

You're certain her own arm must be aching, stretched across the expanse of the table for this long. 

"Dana says she doesn't want me going in to male patients' rooms alone for a while." You continue. "Until the 'dumbass man pollen' clears from the air, were her exact words." 

God, you hate that you're crying right now, that even this squeezes at your tender heart. 

"When pigs fly," Santos jokes, garnering the softest amused hum from you. It's a small victory. 

"So then what am I supposed to do?" You ask after a beat, frustratedly tugging your hand back. "I can't go looking for Perlah or Kim or Princess to join me every time I need to change a bedpan or administer medicine. It's ridiculous! We're already short-staffed as it is." 

"Let me ask you this: what do you do when these dumbass men act like dumbasses?" Trinity slides her own arm back. 

"I tell Dana." 

"No, like, in the moment. After it happens, what do you do?" She asks. 

You huff. "I-I don't know," you drag your hand over your face. "I guess I, like, do a little awkward laugh, because I'm uncomfortable, and then leave the room as soon as possible." 

When Trinity nods, an errant strand of black-brown hair falls in her face. It takes everything in you not to reach across and tuck it behind the shell of her ear. Which you can only assume is just as soft as the rest of her is turning out to be.

"How about you turn it back on them?" She suggests. 

"Ew, like, do it back?" 

"No!" Trinity shakes her head, holding up her hands. "No, I mean, call them out on it! With the exception of the coked-out guy, all the patients you just listed off were fully coherent, right?" 

You give a meek nod. 

Trinity goes on. "Okayyyy, so ask them if they'd speak like that to their sister, or their mom, or ask if they were dropped on their head as a child. Tell them they're making you uncomfortable. Make them face their behaviors head-on rather than shirking back because of it." 

The side of your mouth twists up into a little smile. "That'll do wonders for the patient satisfaction scores Robby's been harping about." 

Santos laughs. "Oh, fuck Robby," she waves it off, then laughs again when she sees your eyes widen. It's not a graceful, birdsong lilt, but a real, honest-to-god bark of a laugh. "And fuck Dana, for not teaching you how to deal with it by yourself." 

"Hey, now," you warn, looking around the otherwise empty break room, as if your nurse leader will pop out from one of the cabinets. "Dana's trying her best."

"Well, somebody needs to teach you to stand up for yourself," she arches a brow, the fluorescent lighting glinting off her glassy, smooth skin. "You deserve better than what you're given." 

She moves to rise up, then jerks her chin towards the door. The din and hum of the ER on the other side of it suddenly seems louder than ever. "C'mon, I'm pretty sure your little poutfest has a fifteen-minute time limit." 

"I wasn't pouting!" You protest as you rise to your feet. As your step past Santos, her hand brushes your shoulder.