The Beautiful Monster

Alyssa adjusted her dark blue scrubs as she walked through the hallways of Lake Haven General, a local hospital. She had been working here as a medical assistant for a little more than a year now.

She enjoyed the job because she learned a lot, but it was a bit stressful at times. It was her first introduction into actually doing medical tasks on people on her own.

She didn't want to mess up, even though she knew that she would. Everyone messed up.

She walked into one of the patient rooms and put on a big smile once the patient lying in bed saw her.

"Hi, Mrs. Grady. I'm Alyssa. I'm just going to draw some blood from you," she said as she pulled a tray full of her needed equipment closer to the hospital bed.

Mrs. Grady was a woman in her mid-forties. She arrived at the hospital a few days ago for a minor surgery and was scheduled to leave soon. She just needed to be checked over to make sure that everything was alright first.

Alyssa wished that she could work with more children, but it was easier to do small tasks, like draw blood, on adults who would sit still. The more experience she got, the more that she would be allowed to work on children. She couldn't wait to start.

"Aright," Mrs. Grady said warily. "Even after all this time in the hospital and getting cut open, needles still make me nervous."

Alyssa smiled sympathetically, understanding Mrs. Grady's concern. A lot of people were nervous of needles or blood. Alyssa didn't mind either, but she was always considerate of people who were.

"I'll be as gentle and quick as can be," Alyssa assured her as she slipped some gloves on. She grabbed the torniquet from the tray and wrapped it around Mrs. Grady's arm above her elbow before disinfecting the area.

She couldn't help but let her thoughts slip back to what happened last night at Elias' place. She felt like she was so close to being able to make plans for New York, but she also felt so far away from being able to do that. Elias had to figure things out. Whatever that meant.

He was always so weird when it came to his family. She didn't want it to continue being an issue. Hopefully, he would figure things out and get back to her soon because she couldn't wait around that much longer.

Waitlists were so long over in New York. She wanted to jump on things as soon as possible to make sure that they were ready.

"Ouch!" Mrs. Grady winced.

Alyssa focused back in on what she was actually doing. She completely missed the vein.

"Sorry about that," she apologized. She steadied her hands before trying again, feeling Mrs. Grady flinch again. She just couldn't get it for some reason! She was about to try one more time when Dr. Shields, her supervising physician, walked into the room.

"How's everything going in here?" Dr. Shields asked as he walked up to Mrs. Grady's bedside. He saw the irritation on her arm from her mistakes before looking at her. "I'll do it."

Alyssa could tell that he was irritated. He was constantly busy, and making him do petty tasks like drawing blood wasted his time. She lowered her head and left the room, waiting out in the hallway.

She had a feeling that he would want to talk to her afterwards.

She usually didn't mess up that bad. She was always concentrated and precise when she worked. Usually, drawing blood was simple for her because she had done it numerous times.

Today, everything felt nearly impossible. Her mind was so overloaded with thoughts that it was hard to concentrate.

A few minutes later, Dr. Shields walked out of the room and crossed his arms as he stood in front of her. He was a tall man with thinning, dark hair.

He had been doing his job for years, and he had trained countless students. He even wrote her a glowing recommendation letter for medical school.

"What's going on? Were you trying to poke her to death?" Dr. Shields asked, looking disappointed.

Alyssa swallowed hard, trying to breathe steadily as he stared down at her. She hated getting in trouble.

She knew that it was going to happen a lot when she was in medical school, but it was still a tough pill to swallow. She tried to do everything right, even if that was impossible.

"I'm sorry. I was having trouble finding her vein," she said.

"I know that. You seem distracted today," Dr. Shields said as he put his hands on his waist. "It's hard enough keeping an eye on focused students and making sure they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. I can't deal with distracted students."

Alyssa nodded, feeling her eyes sting slightly. She felt so embarrassed, especially since she admired him.

He thought that she had potential, but she was really dropping the ball right now.

She couldn't do this so much in medical school. She would only have so many chances, so she needed to learn a lot now.

"It won't happen again," she assured him.

"Yeah, it won't. Go see if the receptionist needs some help," Dr. Shields said before walking off.

Alyssa lowered her head, gathering herself so that she didn't break down right there in the hallway.

She heard snickering down the hall, prompting her to look to the right to see another medical assistant from her school smirking at her.

She believed his name was Jackson, and he thought he was some hotshot.

She didn't deal with bullies anymore. She had dealt with Kayleigh enough in her sophomore year.

After that whole ordeal, she swore that she wouldn't let anyone else walk all over her, unless they were professors or mentors.

They kind of had the right to do that, as long as they were teaching her something in the process.

Alyssa rolled her eyes at him before whipping back around and heading to where the receptionist was. Some of her work was dealing with paperwork.

It was a good skill to have, and she supposed that she didn't need to be around many patients or needles today. It just wasn't her day.

"Dr. Shields said to come help," she said once she reached the receptionist's desk.

The receptionist, an older woman named Gina, looked up at Alyssa with a small smile.

"What did you do?" she asked as she handed Alyssa some paperwork. "Help me organize some paperwork."

"I didn't do all that well drawing a patient's blood," Alyssa sighed as she walked behind the desk to sit down and get to work. She didn't want to be trapped behind the receptionist's desk.

She wanted to be with patients, doing actual medical work. She felt like she was being grounded, but she supposed that was the point of Dr. Shields sending her here.

"You'll get it. Everyone starts out a little rough. Even Dr. Shields," Gina pointed out as she patted Alyssa's back in a comforting manner.

Alyssa gave Gina a grateful smile, feeling a little better. She knew that she would never be perfect. No matter how much studying or learning she did, she would make mistakes. She was only human. She could only try her best.

She got to work on the paperwork, determined to try to focus enough to at least do the paperwork correctly. She couldn't let her entire day be derailed.

Things were only going to get harder. She had to learn how to bounce back. She had to learn how to handle defeats because plenty were coming her way.

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