Kyra left the room and wandered down the hall. She thought she had seen a sign pointing which way the cafeteria was. She wondered if Edward was actually allowed to eat yet. Maybe she should ask the nurse before bringing him anything.

Stopping at the nurse’s station would only take a few seconds anyway.

“Good evening, I was just wondering if Edward is allowed to eat anything yet?”

The nurse looked through his patient file. “Yes, he is allowed to eat a small amount of soft food such as jello, pudding, or ice cream. Nothing warm, so no soup or stew yet. Definitely nothing crunchy, it will harm his stitches.”

“Thank you so much, I’m going to go grab him something really quick then.”

“Here’s a voucher for his food so you don’t have to pay for it.” Kyra looked surprised, “Patients get free food then?”

“Yes, they do, wouldn’t make sense to charge them for food when we’re already charging so much per day for just staying in the hospital”, the nurse replied.

“That’s amazing. I know other hospitals still charge.” Kira left with that last remark and headed down the hall to the cafeteria. Luckily for Edward there were a lot of soft foods that he could eat. She grabbed him a cup of applesauce, jello, and some chocolate pudding and return to his room.

“Here you go!” Kira set the food down by him and fished the spoon she had stashed in her pocket out and handed it to him. “I hope you like at least one of these things.”

“No worries, I like all of it, especially the chocolate pudding.” Edward started consuming the food and spoke with his mouth full, “I was starving, thanks so much for bringing me food. So, tell me more about yourself, I think I would like to get to know you better. You seem pretty cool so far.”

“Well, I’m a veterinary assistant at Poulsbo Animal Hospital here in the city. I love all sorts of animals, especially scaly ones. I like to read, swim, hike and being outdoors in general. One of my passions is riding horses even though I don’t have my own horse yet. I don’t actually have any pets right now, but I’ve had a couple different lizards in the past. My favorite color is green, I have Irish ancestry and I don’t have a favorite food. How’s that? What about you?”

Edward finished off his applesauce. “Well, I go by Eddy for starts. I’m originally from Belfair but I moved to Poulsbo a few years ago when I was transferred up here for work. I work as a state trooper by the way. I graduated 3 years ago and got transferred here right away almost but I’m originally from Wenatchee. I have a dog and a cat named Milo and Otis. Yes, after the movie, but Milo is a German Shepherd, not a cat and Otis is a Main coon, not a pug. I got them together from a shelter and thought it’d be funny to reverse the names.” Eddy, as Kyra now knew him, looked a little embarrassed. She thought it was kind of cute. “I think it’s funny too. I would totally do something like that too.” Kyra looked at the time, “Oh! It’s after 10, I should probably get going. I have work at 8 tomorrow morning and it takes me forever to wake up in the morning.”

Eddy looked a little sad. “Aww, I was having such a good time though. It’s a bummer you have to leave.” He was feeling pretty exhausted though and it was probably a good thing that Kyra needed to leave. He should probably get some sleep. He had been through a lot in the last 24 hours and resting well was not one of them. “It was really nice to meet you Kyra. Thanks for saving my life. I really appreciate it.”

Kyra got up to leave. “It was nice to meet you too. If I have time tomorrow, is it okay if I stop by again to see how you’re doing?”

Eddy smiled, “Sure, I’ll probably be here for another couple days. The doctor wants to keep me to make sure that my throat doesn’t get too inflamed. Good night, see you tomorrow maybe.”

“Bye”, Kyra waved as she left his room. He seemed really nice she thought to herself. Maybe we can become friends. She had been short on friends since switching to 10-hour days, it was hard to keep in touch when you were working all the time. She felt bad that she hadn’t been spending more time with friends. But then again, she mused as she waited for the bus, communication is a two-way street. They hadn’t been trying to spend as much time with her either. With that, she boarded the bus and went home.