Read Pretty Ugly: A Novel for Free Online

Let’s get two of O neg, and move her to Trauma 3!”
    In their expensive words, Ray could hear the interest accruing on their student loans, and he allowed himself a fleeting moment of gratitude for his failure in Detroit.
    Commencing CPR on a thirty-year-old Asian man who probably wasn’t going to make it, Ray realized he’d tied his scrubs too tight, cutting off circulation to his rapidly growing erection. He also realized that the head of his penis was visible over the top of his scrubs. Unfortunately, another nurse noticed first.
    “Oh, my God, Ray! I can’t believe I just saw that! Why is it purple?”
    “It’s fine, Christie.” Ray deadpanned, embarrassed. “If I try really hard I can make it any color I want.” He tucked his penis back into his pants without missing a single compression.
    Christie was Ray’s only real work friend, and like most of his other friends, he didn’t like her very much. An insufferable do-gooder who spent every weekend volunteering at the county animal shelter, Christie was the kind of person who made you feel terrible about yourself for not doing more to help save the world but was so immensely off-putting about it that you wanted to hasten the end of the world just so she would shut up. The thought of an animal being put down for any reason was too much for Christie’s fragile critter-loving heart to bear, so every weekend she would “rescue” some two-legged dog or cat with AIDS, then spend the next week trying to convince someone at the hospital to adopt it. The fresh claw marks across her face, arms, and neck made this increasingly difficult to pull off.
    “I thought your shift was over.”
    “It was. It is,” Ray answered.
    “So why are you still here?” Christie asked, as if talking to a stupid person.
    “I got paged.”
    “Ah. You working hospice tonight?”
    “Soon as I’m done with him.”
    Ray looked down and noticed that with every compression, the erection now tenting the front of his scrubs was rubbing across his patient’s unconscious face.
    “Jesus,” Ray screamed, and turned around.
    Christie looked at the patient, mistaking Ray’s shame for grief. “Is he dead?”
    Ray turned back around. “Yep.”
    Sighing, he peeled off his latex gloves, loosened the strings on his waistband, and adjusted his throbbing penis.
    Christie gave a good-natured chuckle. “The Angel of Death strikes again. How many is that now?”
    Ray just shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. But he knew. Since those first seven in Detroit, Ray had kept a running total of how many people he’d been physically touching when they died. This was number three hundred sixty-five. I’ve killed a whole year of people, he thought. Ray stood silently for a moment, reflecting on his newest milestone.
    “He your first Asian?”
    “Hm? No. I don’t know. What’s Filipino?”
    Christie shrugged and looked at the clock on the wall. “Time of death six oh nine P.M. ”
    “Shit,” Ray said, “I gotta get to work.”
    “Try not to kill this one, will you?” Christie laughed.
    “It’s hospice,” Ray said, forcing a smile. “Those ones are supposed to die.” But it’s still early, he thought. Maybe I’ll get a leap year before sundown.
    Heading toward the parking lot, Ray passed the nurses’ station and spied two unattended pills in a tiny paper cup waiting to be delivered. A rack on the nearby wall was filled with informational pamphlets left by various pharma reps: “Stop Suffering from Depression,” “How to Cope with Stress,” “Why Be Anxious About Your Anxiety?” They looked trustworthy, like they’d been lifted from the pages of the New England Journal of Medicine or The Lancet . Informative, in that everyone who read them could easily diagnose themselves as having that particular disorder; and comforting, in that they could recommend an effective new medication that could help! None of them suggested exercise, or a change in diet, or turning off the TV. Just