Not Quite Enough(81)

She was quite happy to have Goldstein on her side.
Monica staged with off-duty employees, nurses, doctors, union reps, and more members of the fire and even police department, in a park across from the hospital. As four o’clock rolled around, they took the short walk down the street like a flash mob.
Katie held Monica’s hand as they approached the sidewalk in front of the hospital. Media vans were already there and Monica noticed the cameras swing their way as they approached. They no sooner touched the public sidewalk than the union reps began marching with Monica’s friends and colleagues and shouting through their bullhorns about wanting justice. About unfair practices. It grew loud in a heartbeat.
Katie pulled Monica over to a reporter and facilitated the interviews. Even if the hospital made the call, the damage would have been done. None of which bothered Monica in the least. They wanted to make an example out of her, and instead she’d make an example out of them. Pick on someone your own size was the theme of the day. The posters were heartbreaking and the media was all over the story.
Monica told the reporters what she could, all practiced words Goldstein had told her to say. All true, but nothing that would keep her from countersuing the hospital.
The crowd grew with faces Monica didn’t even recognize. Between interviews, she thanked people for coming and often found tears on her face as they offered their support. Katie’s husband, Dean, had shown up with Savannah in a stroller. On the stroller was a picture of Monica holding Savannah as an infant. The picture had been taken right before Monica had gone to work so she was wearing her scrubs. A thought bubble above Savannah’s head said, LEAVE MY AUNTIE ALONE, BULLY!
Cars drove by honking in support, there were discussions of hospital politics, and there were many nurses who mentioned that it could very well have been them that had fallen prey to the hospital’s actions.
It was all so very overwhelming. Monica thought of calling Trent, to share the moment with him, and was pulling her phone from her back pocket when a man approached her from behind.
“Nurse Mann?”
Monica turned around and smiled. The stout clean-cut man was terribly familiar, but recognition didn’t come instantly. “Hello.”
“I wanted to say thank you.” As he spoke shock rolled over every inch of her.
“Oh, my God. Gary? Gary Owens?” How was that possible? He looked sober, healthy. Even a little attractive maybe. What he didn’t look like was the man she’d read the riot act the last day she’d worked in the ER.
A coy smile passed over his mouth and he nodded confirming his identity. “Almost four months sober.” He held up his wrist, which had some kind of charm bracelet denoting his sobriety. “I wouldn’t have tried if you hadn’t pushed me.”
There was no stopping the tears in Monica’s eyes. In her peripheral vision she noticed a camera on the two of them.
“You look great.” And he did.
“I feel good. When I saw this on TV, I had to come.”
“Wow, Gary. I’m not sure what to say.”
He shook his head, had tears of his own he was brushing away. “You don’t have to say anything. Sometimes it only takes one person to make you realize what’s important. You did that, and I’ll always be grateful.”
“I’m so happy for you.”
He shuffled for a bit, then asked, “Can I hug you?”
Monica opened her arms and hugged a man she once thought she never wanted to see again. “Best of luck to you,” she said before he walked away and picked up a picket sign.
Another voice interrupted her thoughts. “Was that Gary Owens?” John asked.
“Yes. Can you believe it?”
“Some people do change,” he said.
She turned toward her ex and grinned.
“I heard you were with the guy from Jamaica.”
They hadn’t really talked about the two of them since she returned. He’d called a few times, tried to get her to go out with him, but she never said yes.
“I am.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I don’t stand a chance, do I?”
Now there were tears in her eyes for other reasons. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“And I wish I was the guy who made you happy.”
“I really do mean it when I say I’d like to still be friends, John.”
He opened his arms and Monica had no problem going to them. When he pulled away, he kissed her cheek. “Take care.”
She twisted around to watch him walk away and her eyes collided with Trent’s.
His face was stone-cold.
Her heart did a hard kick in her chest and she waited for him to move. The excitement of seeing him was mixed with the fear that he’d misinterpret what he’d just seen between her and John. But if they were ever going to move forward, he needed to trust her, and she needed to trust that he wasn’t running off without explanations.
She fisted her hands at her sides and waited for the cold stare to melt, and just when she thought he’d turn and run, he opened his arms.
Those movies where the woman ran into the arms of her guy had always seemed contrived until that moment. Trent lifted her into his arms and whirled her around. “I missed you,” he said, his voice tight.
He set her on her feet and kissed her, and not a little peck but a full-on tongue-to-tongue bedroom kiss that wasn’t suitable for television. She was a little breathless and pink cheeked when he let her go and found some of the staff staring and catcalling.
“Looks like Queenie is thawing,” she heard someone yell.
Monica waved off their comments. “I didn’t know you were coming.”