Chapter 1
Mandy
Not only do I love Oakside, but I love helping the people here. I've been here from the beginning, and helping Lexi and Noah set it all up and, watching it grow from what it was to what it is now is something I was so happy to see.
What I don't like are the late nights when we're having budget problems and trying to figure out how to expand and help even more people. I guess I should clarify when I say we're having budget problems. It's not that we don't have enough money. It’s that we just got a pretty big donation, and we're not quite sure the best way to allocate it just yet.
I've spent several late nights budgeting it out only to go back to work in the morning and everyone's decided to go a different way, and I have to redo it all over again. That's still on top of lining up all the events and doing my other daytime work of setting up events, and bringing in not only a steady stream of income but awareness.
As I don't have anything to go home to I don't mind, so having dinner in my office is no big deal to me. When Lexi and Noah built Oakside, they did this place up right, especially where the office is. Even though we are technically in the basement, it doesn't feel like it with as much natural light as they were able to bring in.
Sitting back in my chair, I stretch as my neck pops back into alignment. Then I turn in my leather chair and look at my bookshelves. These were the one thing that Lexi splurged on just for me, an entire wall of bookshelves. They're all in white, which makes the place even more beautiful, and while at the moment there aren't enough books to fill the shelves, I filled it up with pictures of my family and friends.
There are also a lot of pictures of different events that I’ve hosted here as well, like the Halloween haunted house we did a few months ago, and the huge Christmas celebration, Oakside's first Christmas event.
I'm so lost in thought, I don't notice anyone else is down here.
"Mandy?" I hear a voice call my name from the door.
I glance quickly at the door, realizing it's a patient. If they needed anything they should have gotten it from their nurse upstairs. This man is in a wheelchair, so that means he took the elevator and knew that he was coming down here where we don't allow patients, especially this time of night. Turning back to my computer, I don't pay attention to who it is.
"Patients aren't allowed down here," I say.
It's a general rule of thumb. Even though their offices are down here, Lexi and Noah are always upstairs. There are a few other offices down here, like the kitchen, an employee lounge and a locker room with a changing area. But in general, it's all staff and we don't allow patients down here.
"I know, but I was trying to sneak down for a midnight snack," he chuckles.
I glance up from the computer to tell him to go back upstairs and ask his nurse for a midnight snack. It's not that we don't want them to eat or allow them to; it's that for insurance purposes we don't let patients down here in the kitchen where they could hurt themselves. Especially patients who might be unsteady due to their injuries.
When I finally look at his face, I realize that I know him and not just because he's a patient here.
"Levi?" I ask.
There is no way that this is the same Levi that I went to school with. The one that my best friend dated and went to prom with only to break up because he was going into the military, and she was going away to college. We also shared a lot of the same friends growing up because we’re from a small town.
"Yeah, I was starting to think you didn't recognize me." He chuckles and wheels himself into my office. "Why are you here so late?"
"Budgets. We keep changing them and it takes work to balance it on top of everything else I do. It's quietest after dinner and the best time to work with numbers," I shrug.
"You work here?" he asks.
"Yeah. I'm the charity coordinator, but being we are still pretty small, I take on a few other jobs as needed too."
Those jobs include budgeting, accounting, event planning, or whatever else Lexi and Noah need me to do.
Looking him over, I can see he's lost part of his leg from just below the knee down. I'm guessing that's why he's here, to learn to walk again with a prosthetic.
"After you and Rebecca broke up, I had heard you joined the military, but I hadn't heard anything about you since."
"Yeah, I was set to go to college after graduation, but I realized that wasn't the life I wanted. So, I joined up and was off to boot camp just over a week later, so very few people knew."
"What branch?" I ask.
"Army. Got this while on patrol one day and now here I am." He says, tapping his knee where he lost part of his leg.
I start to hear people stirring around downstairs, but still wanting to talk to Levi, I make a quick decision.
"Why don't you come in, close the door and keep me company?"
With a smile on his face, he comes in, closing the door with ease. He seems to have mastered being in the wheelchair, which means he's been here longer than just a few days. I normally know all the patients, but being so busy I haven't been upstairs mingling as much as I should.
"How long have you been here?" I ask, trying to remember the last time I was even upstairs.
"They transferred me here just a few days before Christmas."
"That was over two months ago." I say more to myself than to him.
"Yeah, I'm surprised I haven't seen you before."
"Normally I try to get upstairs and mingle and talk to patients at least once a day. But closing out the year, having to file all of our company paperwork, and with this budget, I just lost track of time. I hadn't realized it's been that long since I've been upstairs."
Levi offers me a smile and shrugs it off.
"Are you still friends with Rebecca?" he asks.
Not quite sure how to respond, since Rebecca is now married and they are expecting their first kid. If he's hoping to reconnect, I want to let him down lightly. But just the fact that he's asking about Rebecca makes my gut churn, and I'm not quite sure why.
"Yeah, we lost contact while in college since we went to different places, but we reconnected recently on Facebook. I found out she lives only about an hour away, so we've met up several times. Though she’s married now with their first kid on the way, and she's really happy." I say, watching his reaction.
Either he's very good at covering his emotions or he really wasn't all that interested in her and was just trying to make small talk because I don't see an ounce of sadness or regret on his face. Honestly, he smiles more than I thought he would.
"I'm glad she's happy. I always felt bad about how we ended things because she wasn't overly thrilled with me going into the military and never wanted to be a military girlfriend. Can't blame her as I don't think she would have handled this whole thing very well if she was still my girl."
He's not wrong. Rebecca wasn't the type of person that did well in stressful situations, and she fainted at the sight of blood. She refused to step foot in a hospital, and she hated flying. So, if they were still together, getting the phone call that Levi was hurt would have gone pretty badly.
Not sure what to say and wanting to change the subject I pull out a Tupperware container of cookies that I have in my drawer for a snack. The sugar keeps me going when I don't want to drink coffee, but need a little bit of a boost to get me through the rest of the night. Taking the top off, I hold it out to him.
"Would you like a cookie? Though I can't allow you to go into the kitchen, I can offer you these. I made them myself."
He gives me another grin and wheels himself forward, taking a cookie. I notice he's smiling a lot in a place like this where everyone is working through their own injuries. One thing you don’t see is a lot of smiles. Mostly, you have a lot of angry people with a lot of cussing and even some crying, but smiles are few and far between.
We sit there for a few hours and chat, catching up on old friends that we used to hang out with. He talked about old times in school.
"Did you ever keep up with your prom date?" Levi asks, as he finishes off the last cookie.
"Who, Jeremy? No, prom was our first date, and he thought he was going to get lucky because it was prom. I ended up punching him in the face before the night was over and going home alone."
That has Levi laughing uproariously.
"If I have known, he would have had more than just a punch in the face. Heck, any of our friends that we hung out with would gladly have had your back. He would have ended up with a few broken bones."
"I know. Though I had told Rebecca and made her swear not to tell anybody for that reason."
I fight off a yawn and realize it is much later than I realized.
"Well, I need to get home and you need to get back to your room." I give him a pointed stare.
"I'm on my way." He backs out of the room and heads back upstairs as I gather up my stuff.
"Hey, Levi?" I say before he leaves. He stops and looks back over his shoulder.
"Yeah?"
"If you're interested, I’ll have more cookies tomorrow."
Another huge smile crosses Levi's face.
"I'll be here."
He goes up to his room while I gather my stuff, heading out to my car to go home. On the way, all I can think about is how happy he was and how he seems almost too happy. While he seems completely okay with what's happened to him, I knowing what other patients have gone through and I have to wonder if it's an act.
If it is, then it's going to be that much longer before he heals, not just physically, but mentally. He might be completely okay with losing his leg and having to learn to walk again on a prosthetic, but that doesn't mean that his mind is all right with what happened and how it happened. Both have to be healed before they release him and if he's just covering up what's going on mentally with a bunch of smiles, it's going to be that much longer that he's here.
Getting home, I walk into my empty two-bedroom cottage. It's my first home and the first place I was able to buy on my own. I got it at such a great price because it needed work done. Of course, Lexi volunteered her brother and her dad to help with the renovations on the house and they have been a godsend. Like when a pipe burst in the bathroom at two o’clock a.m., they didn't hesitate to send someone out to help fix it so that I could take a shower in the morning.
As I'm lying in bed, I’m still thinking about Levi. I remind myself to make a note to talk to Lexi. At the very least, she should be made aware that we know each other. The fact that we’re acquainted could either help or hinder his rehabilitation. We have seen it go both ways.
The thought of maybe calling Rebecca and telling her that Levi is at Oakside also runs through my mind. But Levi may not want to see her, and I know that if she knows he's here she would rush in to make sure he's okay. So, I decide to leave that out of the topics the next time that we talk.
Over the next week, Levi joins me downstairs for some cookies as well as keeping me company when I stay late. After a while it becomes a little routine and one that I'm looking forward to.
Too bad I couldn't keep it to just that and had to push the envelope.
