Excerpt: a novel

this is for molly, because i really don't want this up.
for you, love.

I drove down the road. I had driven down that road so many times. I stopped at the light and breathed in. It was the beautiful smell of fall. I love fall. The leaves were blowing from the trees across the dark street. I pulled into the parking lot. I opened my door and looked up at the hospital. It was going to be another long shift. I was working for the next forty-eight hours. I am a doctor. I walked across the parking lot, enjoying my last few seconds of peace. I knew that as I entered the building, chaos would envelop me instantly. I walked through the door and I heard, “Goodmorning, Dr. Reynolds.” I looked up and saw Laura, the receptionist. I smiled and waved. I walked to the stairs and started climbing them. I never take the elevator. I reached the third floor and heard a relieved voice. “Sarah. Thank God you’re here.” It was Dave, my nurse. Without saying anything else, he handed me some paperwork. “We need to go into surgery now,” I said. He nodded.
“Sarah. Sarah, wake up.” I looked up. “Come on. Let’s go get something to eat. You need a break. Get up.” I glared at him and said, “Why are you waking me up? This is my break, sleeping.” Dave just laughed and put my coat over my shoulders. “What I mean by break is that you need to leave the hospital.” I smiled and nodded. It was true. I needed to leave. As we walked out into the cold wind, he told me of a time when he was a little boy and he was sure he was going to be blown away by the wind. He was so convinced that whenever he went outside he would put his hood on. “What?! You would put your hood on? What the hell does that mean?” I asked, laughing. He laughed and said, “I thought that my hood was so heavy and dense that there was no way that I would blow away with it on. I never put it on unless it was windy.” I just looked at him and shook my head. “You never fail to amaze me, Dave.” He grinned and shrugged.

excerpt #2
I finished my painting. I looked at the time. It was five. I left everything where it was and walked back inside. I grabbed my coat and my keys. I walked out the door. I walked down the sidewalk. As I walked, I began to laugh. It had been the strangest day. I arrived at the hospital and looked up. The windows were lit and it looked so cozy. Most people don’t know that hospitals can be cozy or warm. But they are. There is sadness in hospitals, but there is also much life. The people inside of hospitals are beautiful people. They have overcome so much. They are strong. They are more extraordinary than I will ever be.
I waited outside. Dave came out, looking down at his phone. He looked up for a brief second and stopped. He smiled. He closed his phone and came towards me. I waited for him. He walked up to me and said, “Hi.”
“Hello,” I replied.
“Did you walk here?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He rolled his eyes and said, “Sarah, it’s practically winter. You have to start taking your car.”
“Maybe. I like walking in the cold. It is my favorite weather to walk in. It’s so beautiful.”
“I know.”
He looked at me and smiled.
We started to walk together. I looked up at the sky and pointed. “It’s the big dipper.”
“Where?” he asked.
We stopped walking and I pointed up to the sky. “Right there.”
“Sarah, you can’t just point to the sky. The amazing group of stars you are seeing is just a whole mess of stars to me, most of them blurry,” he said.
I giggled, “Dave, see that star? That’s the tip of the handle.”
As he looked up, I looked down at his face. He scrunched up his face and squinted his eyes. I burst out laughing and pulled on his coat. He looked down at me, disappointed. “I don’t see it.”
“That’s ok,” I replied.
I continued walking and he just sat there for a few moments. I stopped and turned around. He looked up at the sky one more time and looked down at me. He shrugged his shoulders and walked towards me. He came up to me and I slid my hand into his. He held it tight, and we continued to walk.