“When It’s Your Time” A Sapphic Short Story.

The nursing home had that usual smell of bleach and something else that lingered beneath it—something sterile but not quite clean. I felt out of place in my scrubs, new and starchy, as I stepped into the break room for my first shift. I stood there, fidgeting with my badge, when I heard footsteps.

“Bethany, right?”

I looked up to see Lisa, the head nurse, standing in the doorway. She was shorter than me, with a redbone complexion that glowed under the harsh fluorescent lights. Her long black hair cascaded down her back, wavy and perfect like something out of a commercial. I was immediately aware of how tight my curls were in comparison.

“Yes, that’s me,” I said, my voice cracking a little.

“Good to have you on board. Carmen will be showing you the ropes today,” Lisa said, her hazel eyes flicking toward the hall. There was something in the way she said it. Not cold, not exactly. Just...something.

Before I could reply, Carmen strode in. Taller than Lisa by a couple of inches, with a caramel complexion that looked like warm honey in the light, and curly green ombre hair pulled back in a loose bun. She had a straight nose and a smirk that played on her lips. There was an energy about her that was hard to ignore.

“Ready, newbie?” she asked, eyes meeting mine with a spark. Then, just as quickly, she glanced at Lisa. That’s when I felt it—the tension, thick enough to choke on. The air between them was electric. And I wasn’t imagining the way Carmen’s gaze lingered on Lisa for just a second too long, or how Lisa’s posture shifted, her back just a little too straight.

I shifted uncomfortably. The knot in my stomach wasn’t just from starting a new job. I recognized what I was seeing—the subtle dance, the unspoken exchange that made me feel like I was intruding on something private. The kind of thing I never let myself have.

“Yeah,” I managed to say, even though my throat felt dry.

“Come on, then,” Carmen said, brushing past me, her perfume a soft floral that contrasted with the stark smell of the nursing home. I followed her down the hall.

We started with getting the residents up for the day. Carmen moved quickly, efficient but warm, like she’d done this a thousand times. Me, I was still finding my rhythm, awkwardly shifting through the motions.

“That’s for night shift to handle,” Carmen grumbled under her breath as she adjusted Mrs. Mabel’s blanket. “But no one ever does it right.”

Mrs. Mabel was fifty-six, way too young to be here, but life doesn’t always play fair. She had this feisty energy, like she was always on the verge of cracking a joke. When she saw me, her eyes lit up.

“New girl, huh?” she asked, eyeing me up and down. “You better be faster than this one.” She pointed a thumb at Carmen, who rolled her eyes.

“I’ll do my best,” I said with a laugh. I liked Mabel immediately.

Then there was Rio, who used to be an investment banker, but the way he told it, he might as well have been a bank robber. He had this wild, mischievous smile that made me chuckle, and when he started in on some story about a heist that never was, I couldn’t help but be charmed.

“Tickles my goat,” I muttered to myself as I walked with Carmen to the next room, suppressing a grin.

Last, we saw Otis. He reminded me so much of my granddad that it hurt. His laugh was deep, like gravel, and his stories even deeper. He told me about a girl he admired when he was younger—how he used to follow her home just to see the way her dress swayed when she walked. “Light stalking,” I thought, but I didn’t say it aloud.

“You’ve got yourself some characters here,” I said to Carmen when we were alone in the hallway.

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” she replied, giving me a sideways glance. There was that smile again. She leaned a little closer, lowering her voice. “So... what do you think so far?”

“I like it,” I said, hesitating for a moment. “I like them.” It wasn’t a lie. The residents, the stories, they made the place feel alive in a way I hadn’t expected.

Carmen nodded, her expression softening for a moment before that smirk returned. “You’ll do just fine.”

I knew she was teasing, but something about the way her words curled made me feel warm. Too warm. The brush of her arm against mine as we walked down the hall was casual, but it lingered in my mind longer than it should have.

Then I thought of Lisa, her eyes on Carmen earlier. The way Carmen had looked back at her. Something twisted in my chest, an ache I didn’t want to name. I’d never allowed myself that kind of openness, that kind of desire. A quiet jealousy crept in, making me feel small and hidden in my own skin.

I wished, for a second, that I could be like them. That I could reach out, say something, do something. But I wasn’t ready for that. I’d never even touched that part of myself.

And Carmen? She probably wasn’t the person to start with, tangled up in whatever was going on with Lisa.

But damn, it was hard not to notice how good she looked in those scrubs.

As the week wore on, I found myself watching Carmen more closely. The way she moved around the residents, the way she laughed with them like she’d known them her whole life. There was a lightness to her that made the place feel less heavy, and I couldn’t help but be drawn in.

But then there was Lisa. Every time we passed her in the hall, that tension would thrum in the air again, a pulse between them that made my heart race for reasons I didn’t want to admit.

On my last day of training, I found myself alone in the break room, sipping coffee that had long since gone cold. Carmen walked in, looking more tired than usual.

“Long day?” I asked, though I knew the answer.

“Yeah, but it’s almost over,” she said, collapsing into the chair across from me. “How about you? Surviving the first week?”

“Barely,” I said, but we both knew I was doing fine.

There was a beat of silence. It wasn’t awkward, but it wasn’t comfortable either. It felt like something was hanging in the air between us, something unsaid.

“You know,” Carmen started, her voice low, “you don’t have to hold back around me.”

I blinked, unsure what she meant. “What do you mean?”

“I see the way you look at me.” Her words weren’t accusatory, just soft and matter-of-fact. “And Lisa.”

My throat went dry, and I opened my mouth to say anything, but the words wouldn’t come.

“It’s okay, you know,” she continued, her green ombre curls catching the light. “To feel things. To want things.”

I looked down at my hands, feeling my face burn. “It’s not that simple,” I mumbled.

“It never is,” she said, leaning forward. “But it’s a start.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded, the weight of her words sinking in. Carmen wasn’t asking anything of me. She wasn’t pushing me to make a move or declare something I wasn’t ready to say out loud. She was just... offering a space, a possibility. Something I hadn’t ever let myself imagine.

As she got up to leave, she paused in the doorway, glancing back at me. “Whenever you’re ready, Bethany. Don’t be afraid to take that first step.”

And then she was gone, leaving me alone with the quiet hum of the break room.

I sat there for a while, staring at the cup in front of me. I wasn’t ready for Carmen, wasn’t ready for Lisa, wasn’t ready for anything, really. But I could feel something stirring inside me, something that had been locked away for too long.

Maybe I didn’t need to figure it all out right now. Maybe it was enough to know that I could.

I stood up, glancing at my reflection in the break room window, and for the first time, I let myself smile.