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If it wasn’t one vampire, it was another … in a manner of speaking. I waited until I was sure she was gone, then went into Javier’s room for his hourly feeling check.
“Can you feel this?” I poked the cap of my pen against the side of his ribs.
“No. ”
“This?” I asked, trying higher.
“No. ”
I looked up at his face and saw his jaw clench, between answers.
“This?”
“Sí. ”
I marked it. Another half a centimeter of feeling, gone. It was like he was slowly drowning, no way to turn around, walking farther and farther out into an inexorable sea.
“Is there anything—” I began, because I had to.
“Just go,” his girlfriend said, then added, “Please. ”
I nodded, and did so.
* * *
I noted his new loss of feeling in his chart. The charge nurse came by, I thought to break me early, but she handed me a printout from a news website instead. Two Injured in Drug Deal Gone Bad, said the headline, and beneath it, One died en route, and one went to County, in critical condition. I folded it in half, and stuck it under the chart, realizing how easily their problems could have been Jake’s. Thank God that at his worst, he was always a user, not a dealer, at least not that I knew. Okay, so maybe I did look at our shared cell phone bill some—but only to see if he’d been dumb enough to use it to make too many calls to strange numbers.
An hour is a long time, sitting outside of someone’s room. On Y4, I could have made myself useful, restocking things, making bedrolls, reading charts, but here I didn’t know the flow, and didn’t want to get in anyone’s way. I doodled some in the margin of my non-official report sheet, sketching a flaming heart. When I heard a strange beep from inside the room, I looked up. Luz was texting on her phone, and she walked toward the door.
“I have to answer this. ”
“Just pull the curtain. You can talk in the room. ” There were NO CELL PHONE signs up all over, but nurses and doctors talked on them all the time—I hadn’t seen an iPhone make anyone’s pacemaker give out yet.
“No. I have to go. ”
I stood in her way. My break was starting in fifteen minutes. Sike needed me, for some likely unpleasant reason, and I needed Sike for some guidance. But if Luz left now and there was a break relief nurse sitting out here when she tried to come back who wasn’t a softie like me, chances were she wouldn’t get to come back at all.
She must have read my thoughts on my face. “You know what it’s like to have obligations?” she said, the last word like it was an anchor.
I inhaled and exhaled. “I do. You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I do. ”
She nodded. “Then you understand. I’ll be back. ” She chugged the last of her coffee, and walked out.
* * *
I spent five minutes leaning on the doorjamb. Javier couldn’t see me from the bed. He was my only patient, which was something of a miracle for a trauma float shift. He shouldn’t be alone, and I didn’t have any honest excuses to leave. I took Luz’s spot by the head of t
he bed, hauling up a chair.
“Anything you want to talk about?” I asked him.
“Not with you. ” A pause. “Nothing personal. ”
There was a fine line between joyriding someone else’s pain, and trying to maintain an open channel of communication. Even I wasn’t always sure which side of it I was on. But I sat there to show I cared, just in case it mattered to him.
The second hand clicked away. Sike would come looking for me soon. I hoped she stayed tactful, or her definition thereof.
I could use this time here to read the article the charge nurse had given me. Would it change anything, knowing who else had gotten hurt, or why they’d died? Not really. I had a job to do here, no matter the circumstances beyond. But sometimes I did wonder where that job ended. Did I ever really throw my scrubs into the linen cart and get to just go home?
I hunched over and set my elbows on my knees, deep in thought, as Javier dozed beside me.
Luz’s return startled us both. She eyed me with suspicion as she entered the room, coming to stand by my side.
“Did anything change?” she asked.
“No. I’m afraid whatever they already told you still stands. ” I looked up slowly and realized she was shaking. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she said.
I wondered if she was in denial, or if she was so used to being strong that she couldn’t stop, not even now.
“Tomorrow, he won’t be able to feel me?” she asked. I nodded.
“I’m so sorry. ” I couldn’t even begin to comprehend her loss. Her anger was so palpable, so strong, it was like I could feel her very atoms vibrating—if pushed wrong, there was a chance she might fly apart.
“It’s not fair,” she said.
“No, it isn’t,” I agreed, because she was right. I turned to walk out of the room.
I made it three steps before she caught my arm and pulled me back, toward the half of the room hidden by curtains, and I let her.
“What do you think will happen if I give him these?” she asked in a whisper, holding out her other hand. She held four small glass vials, with a clear fluid inside.
