Wyatt had experienced loss plenty of times. But it never, ever got easier.
Trauma was still fucking trauma, even when it happened to doctors. Her dark brown eyes reminded him of his horses, of how they would sometimes look at him for the last time, knowing…
Something in Wyatt broke. He fisted his hand and pushed into her chest, sweat trickling down his back and panic setting in.
“Hold compressions,” John’s voice came through, and Wyatt stilled, trying not to notice how fragile she felt beneath his hands.
“Reyes, take over for Lawson,” John said.
“No!” He nearly shouted, “No. I can keep going.”
He glanced up, seeing the concern tighten around the corners of John’s lips, his stance rigid, and yet he nodded. “All right. Resume compressions.”
Relieved that his captain trusted him, Wyatt continued.
One more minute.
“Hold compressions,” John said, once more breaking through Wyatt’s motion.
He kept his hands over her chest, ready to start again, ears tuned solely to the monitors, but he still heard it.
The telling sound of a flatline. No change. The chest compressions weren’t working because she was…
Wyatt sucked in a breath, arms shaking.
“Lawson,” John murmured, a slight edge to his tone, yet gentle. So fucking gentle. “You’ve done enough.”
No, I haven’t.
A nurse stated the time of death. The finality of it didn’t register in his mind.
This isn’t real.
This can’t be happening.
He felt Reyes’s hand on his shoulder, indicating to let go. Wyatt swallowed the thick lump forming in his throat, legs shaking beneath him as he stared down at the little girl in the pink dress, her face etched like a sizzling brand in his mind. He’d never lost a child patient before. This felt different than the others.
It felt wrong.
“Are her parents here yet?” John asked.
“Yeah,” Steph rushed in, “they just got here—” she stilled, seeing the girl and cursed under her breath, shaking her head. “Want me to send them in?”
“Yeah,” John nodded. “Any word on the aunt and uncle she came in with?”
“Aunt’s in surgery and uncle is stable. Smoke inhalation did some respiratory damage. It’s gonna be a long recovery.”
“For everyone,” John finished and nodded to the team of nurses and doctors in the room. “We’ll take a moment of silence.”
Wyatt’s spine shivered with the sudden weight of her death as he stumbled backward against the wall, barely holding himself up. He was transported back to his father’s ranch, looking at his childhood horse gasp her last breaths, feeling the hole opening in his heart like a dagger.
Unable to look at his patient anymore, Wyatt braced himself against the wall, fighting the urge to flee. The moment of silence felt like an eternity and somehow, despite the ravaging pain inside him, he was still alive.
He was still fucking standing. And he didn’t understand how.
“Okay, thank you, go ahead and bring her parents in,” John said softly.
Wyatt, unable and unwilling to see this child’s parents' grief, raced out of the room and was surprised to feel the comforting hand of Reyes on his back, leading him to the staff break room. “C’mon, man.”
