(Esmee) Head nurse, oure fearless leader revealed (Mi's side)

Hands up any one who wants to smack crystal in the face after reading this? ;-)



Head nurse

Esmee

The first thing I did was to go down and tell the people waiting in the dinning room to start there meal because Mi wasn’t going to be joining them which involved me beckoning Crystal into the hall way as she was the closes to have a word with her. To be honest I think I would have much preferred to have been upstairs dealing with a very sicky Mi, meaning my opinion of Crystal had gone from her just being a mere annoyance to me to me preferring to spend my time with a bowl of sick.

“Mi won’t be coming to breakfast.” I said using my head nurse voice to it’s full. In all honestly I knew crystal hated it for many reasons. The first one being that because I was head nurse I was actually the one to choice weather a patient was too physically ill to get out of bed and not her. Second was the fact that she had been here a whole 8 years and wasn’t even known as a senior nurse yet where as I had been here just five years along with Emmet and we had been both awarded positions of head nurse. Third was the fact that are pay packet at the end of each moth was considerably higher then hers because of this and last but not least was the fact that she had to do what I said like it or not or face getting reported which as she new would give me no greater pleasure after what she had done to me about a year ago.

Our fearless leader Revealed.

Hand over’s where usually boring to be honest nothing more then a brief and meaningless account of what had happened during the shift was given including obervation changes, canges in condition, nre symptoms and accounts on paitents that where acting out of th ordinary and the head nurse or whoever was running the shift was the one who did most of the talking. Yet today there had bee a disturbance, that had come in the form of one of the clients (that was usually as harmless as a pet hamster) kicking off and lashing out at a member of staff and giving her a pretty convincing bruise on the shin and an unattractive comb over as she escaped with a hand full of hair. I had dealt with the situation in a good and positive way in my eyes that included using the hold restraint, which basically meant giving the patient a big cuddle until they calmed rather then the use of a strong sedative and a week locked up in the ECA which considering the fact that the perpetrator was only 11 and completely terrified seemed a better option however Crystal was not happy and felt that justice had not been done. If it had been her that poor old Emma had bruised I would have tried to understand, the fact that it was not and I was actually the one supporting the bruise and comb over meant that it was just rather annoying.

“Look Crystal I understand that it isn’t the conventional way of dealing with a staff attack but it has been dealt with, I have received an apology off of Emma and she is much calmer and happier now. So can we just say that it’s been dealt with and leave it at that I really want to go home.” I sighed

“But I still think that there was grounds for a…”

“OK Crystal I hate pulling rank but here we go Emmet and my self where head nurses this shift and Peter was senior nurse and we have all agreed that we dealt with it in the best possible way and we are happy, you are welcome to take this further if you want but considering I am the one with the giant bruise and head ach I can’t see them being too interested. Now I am calling this had over to a close, have a good…”

“So how the hell did you get to head nurse any way?” Crystal snapped getting to her feet and pointing at me her voice raised angry something I said sparking of a far more unattractive side of her then there all ready was on show.

“In fact how the hell did you get a job full stop?” She snapped

“Ohy leave her alone!” I heard Emmet growled from the Corner just before Jean and Ava grabbed an arm each and restrained Emmet to his seat so he couldn’t also get to his feet.

“No it’s OK Emmet,” I said gently also getting to my feet and puffing my self up to my full size which was still very short compared to Crystals five eight height. “Crystal can have her opinions on weather I am good at my job or not and she can ask me about them in private if she wants to or Of course she has also got the right to go higher and complain if she wants to like I said.” I moaned, “I am sure she would also agree having a go at me in front of every one here is unprofessional and is keeping people behind who want to go home.” I said defiantly trying to end the confrontation and as a visual prompt that I had done arguing with her I turned my back and started fiddling with the combination on my locker, however before I could even start to write in the date of birth from are last foster daughter I got grabbed by the shoulder and fully turned back round by crystal who was now standing inches from me.

“Don’t you fucking touch my wife you vile little…”

“Emmet!” I snapped fearing that he might currently be on the way to come over and smash Crystals smug face in before grinding it into the carpet. She was not worth him losing his job over or worse going to prison.

“Fuck, you even have your guard dog thinking that your perfect but I know your secret,” Crystal snarled, “Who thinks we should find out why little miss sunshine is sweating her tits off in July by wearing a long sleeve jumper!” Crystal yelled and before I knew what was happening she grabbed hold of my arm held it above my head and yanked the sleeve down reviling all the scars underneath that until that point I had kept hidden.

I had no idea what to do right then. I knew every one of the people in that room would know exactly what it was at first glance and I also knew that every one of them would have all ready made there judgment on my case. They of course where all used to seeing clients with bandages on there arms from recent self harm or clients with big scars from past self harm but they where expected of clients. Clients where ill or hurt or abused and at rock bottom making a little self harm seam almost normal. In fairness there had been such a huge rise in the number of people being admitted with Eating disorders or self harming behaviour it was a breath of fresh air not to see it, however the same scars where not expected from Head nurse Esmee and even though I had been honest with the panel of people that had conducted my interview and they didn’t have a problem with it, it was on the condition that it was kept covered and not mentioned almost like a don’t ask, don’t tell policy. It worked and so far I had not been confronted so I assumed they didn’t know. Now I had been “outed” in front of nearly thirty nurses.”

“You see people it looks are fearless leader is more little miss cut up then little miss sunshine.” Crystal jibbed sneering into my face as I tried rather unsuccessfully to stop the tears that had gathered in my eyes from rolling down over my face. My tears were lapped up by crystal, like all bullies she survived on them and by crying in front of her I was rewarding her for the hurt she had caused but there was no way I could stop them. I had been bullied at school for being to clever and had a baby sitter who abused me in every way there was so there wasn’t much she could have done to provoke these tears however she had found my week point. I was not proud of who I was back then and being forced to face her head on in a room full of people that used to look up to hurt more then she could ever know.

“You foul evil bitch from hell!” Emmet growled and before my self or any one else could stop him he had grabbed her wrist yanked it off of my arm and had twirled her around to look at him his eyes glinting in there fury, his hands strained into fist that he tried heard to keep by his side. She wanted to hit her more then anything he would have gladly served time for it but he wasn’t sure he could lose his soul to her.

“Unhand me Emmet or I will get you done for assault!” Crystal spat

“You want me to fucking assault you I will fucking knock your…”

“Emmet Enough!” Jean shouted getting to her feet just at the same time as Ava and Edward who each gently seized a part of Emmet’s rock like body and tried to toe him away from her,

“Go home Crystal.” Jean said sullenly turning back to Crystal.

“But he just assau….”

“You just assaulted Esmee! If anyone gets disciplinary action it is you now get lost!”

Crystal stormed out of the room in a huff which left me to look at all the shocked faces of the room and all at once I wish she was back, at least when she was standing it front of me I could not see all the damage she had done. I knew she hated me and my methods and I could cope with that but all of a sudden there was now a room full of nurses that where no longer sure of who I was or what I did and through it all instead of defending my self all I could do was stand there with tears rolling down over my face and hope the ground would do me a kindness and swallow me whole.

After what felt like a long time and in having no luck in the ground swallowing me whole I did the next best thing and ran away towards the door of the office not stopping to get any of my things, the only goal then was my car, home and maybe even a few hours sobbing under the duvet cover like a five year old.

As I left the room I heard the Office brake into commotion behind me and before I could get very far the door burst open behind me and a few of the nurses spilled out including Emmet and Jean who told me to stop and come back. More due to the fact that Jean had a frightening authority about here even then I stopped turned around and prepared my self for the onslaught that I knew at some point I was going to have to face any way. When I was younger my mother had always told me that one day my Self harm scars where going to come back and haunt me, she also told me that I would regret them and this had proven her right. My self harm had just publicly humiliated me and I regretted them so much. Ironically though I would have gladly swiped a blade across my wrist right then if it promised to make me feel better.

“A group of others and myself are going to the pub,” Jean said gently “We where wondering if you wanted to come.” I stared at her like an idiot.

“What? Did you think we where going to get our lyich mob gear out and try to burn you at the stake? Jean smiled coming closer to me and putting her hand on my shoulder. “We where more thinking of going to the pub with you having a couple of pints and writing up a kick ass letter that is sure to get Mrs Spears’s ass out of here before she can mention another Mr men character.” Jean smiled gently the corner of her puckered mouth turning into a smile.

“I self harmed.” I babbled not quite sure if I was quite hearing her properly. It seemed impossible that the gathering of nurses seemed to be excepting the fact that I was not as Composed as I tried to make my self out to be. Nurses on a psyc unit with venerable teens did not self harm; ever.”

“And? I think you’ll find we are all pretty immune to a few scars here and to be honest I have had my suspicions for a while as have the others, We all know why Nick wears long sleeves even though we aren’t meant to and well we can all put two and two together like Crystal did but we just aren’t bullies like Crystal is. So how about you sop those tears and you get your stuff together? Our “Fearless leader” buys first round of drinks.”