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It was still two hours until eight, which was when I got off. I knew they were being generous, doing eight-hour shifts with four days on, two days off. In residency, I’d heard horror stories of working thirty-six hours straight and up to a hundred hours a week. But I’d take it for now even if my schedule was all whack with these overnight shifts.
As I finished off my last couple of charts, my mind was still on Jordan. I needed to decide what to do about us. He’d clearly said that he wanted more, and I just…couldn’t give him that. Could I? I’d been avoiding him and relationships more broadly since I started medical school. And with the prospect of leaving Lubbock looking more and more like a for-sure thing, it felt wrong to push forward.
I set my last chart aside just as a new patient was rushed into the hospital.
“Dr. Donoghue,” the attending physician, Dr. Lee, called as the man was wheeled off of the ambulance.
I rushed after him. My mind immediately went blank. Nothing mattered, except what was right in front of me. About saving lives.
Dr. Lee was calmly issuing instructions, and the nurses broke into emergency mode, moving us all in time. The patient was young. He was about my age, not even thirty if I had to guess. The next two words from Dr. Lee nearly stopped me in my tracks—heart attack.
He was too young for that.
But apparently, that didn’t matter.
The next half hour was a blur as we worked diligently to save this young man’s life. We did everything we could, but there was something else wrong with his heart. Even as we physically kept his heart beating, it wouldn’t do it on its own. And then the machine couldn’t do it either. It had all gone catastrophically wrong.
“Call it,” the doctor said, stepping backward.
“Time of death. Six thirty-seven a.m.,” one of the nurses said.
I was still standing over him, prepared to step in. Prepared to get his heart pumping. Prepared to fix it.
But there was no fixing this.
There was nothing to be done.
And he was dead.
Thirty years old, and he was dead.
Dr. Lee put his hand on my shoulder and guided me out of the room. I yanked off my mask with trembling hands, sucking air in deep, barely hearing the doctor say that we needed to speak with his family.
That was part of my job, of course. An essential part of my job. And I was frozen in place. I couldn’t do it. I’d had to tell Sutton. I couldn’t do it this time. Oh God.
“Dr. Donoghue.”
I didn’t respond.
“Annie,” he said more gently, forcing me to look at him. “Is this the first one you’ve lost?”
I nodded even though it felt like a lie. It was the first I’d lost in the ER.
He nodded and patted my shoulder. “I remember my first, too. I’ll speak with the family. You go home.”
“I have another hour and a half.”
“Not anymore you don’t. Go home. Get some sleep.”
“Sir—”
But he was already turning away. Going to tell someone’s family that they no longer had their husband, father, brother, son.
And I was here, still shaking so bad that I couldn’t get my gloves off. I yelled and yanked them off, throwing them in the trash. The shaking had moved from my hands to the rest of my body. I darted for the physicians’ lounge. A few other doctors were in there, but no one looked up when I walked in. I grabbed my stuff out of my locker, shrugged my jacket on, and headed out without a word.
I had no recollection of driving. No idea how I managed it with the way I was feeling. But somehow, I pulled up in front of Jordan’s house.
My bag was still in the back of my car, and I wrenched it out of the backseat before heading for the front door. I rang the doorbell and tried to twist the knob, but the door was locked.
A minute later, Jordan appeared in a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. He rubbed his eyes as he opened the door. I must have woken him.
He startled at the sight of me. “Annie?”
“Can we go for that run?”
He opened the door wider to let me inside. “What are you doing awake? It’s…” He checked his watch. “It’s not even seven in the morning.”
“I worked an overnight.”
“Shouldn’t you be sleeping then?”
“Can’t sleep,” I said as I headed for his room, intending to change.
He followed in my wake. “So, you want to run? I thought you didn’t want to run.”
“Changed my mind.”
“Slow down.” He pulled me toward him and looked me in the eyes. “Are you okay?”
I clenched my jaw and slowly shook my head. “Can we run…please?”
“It looks like a storm out there.”
“I don’t care.”
He nodded, seeing that I was telling the truth. “Okay. Okay, let’s run.”
