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“Why don’t you tell me about Sean?” I urged, squeezing her arm. I felt her head turn and glanced down to catch her reddened eyes. If that didn’t break my heart, I must’ve lost that organ long ago. Her timid gaze flickered between my eyes, her lips parting to her silence. I recognized the jargon echoing in the hall.
“Breath sounds,” Nina shouted. “Ben, prepare the defibrillator and get the door open.”
“Avery,” I whispered to her. “We shouldn’t be here. They’re going to bring Sean through, and you don’t want to see that.” Her raw blue eyes finally met mine, her expression beyond despair. I whispered her name three more times, but Avery’s gaze froze on mine and the poor girl couldn’t move. The hum of my partners’ jargon increased, and I knew the only thing I could do to help Avery was to pick her up and move her.
She was a thin woman, but curled into an anxious lump, Avery weighed a ton. I knew it was fear; that shit weighed more than any scale allowed. I had her, though, locked in my arms as we fell into her kitchen. She trembled under me, clutching the collar of my shirt as she began to break down. I held Avery’s head to my chest as they whizzed through the hall with Sean attached to a stretcher. I wanted to tell her he would be okay and that they knew what they were doing, but I didn’t. They didn’t say anything to me on their way out, which worried me.
The condo was quiet, and I guided Avery to sit on the floor while I knelt before her, her rigid hands still clinging to my shirt. Her rocking subsided as I circled my palm around her back, and I joined her on the floor. Her head hung, auburn hair wild around her face. I knew my clothes were saturated with a stranger’s tears but, as I held her head to my chest, I was doing the most important part of my job in that moment.
“Who can I call for you?” I whispered once her heaves regulated, my words slow and soft. I watched her eyes flick back and forth, coming to. Avery shrugged as she lifted the hem of her shirt to wipe her nose. I’d seen a lot on the job, but a traumatized woman wiping her nose always got me right in the chest.
“Jesse. He’s our friend. Sean’s best friend.” Avery’s words were barely coherent.
“Jesse,” I repeated. “Okay. I’ll call Jesse for you. What’s his phone number?” Using my free hand, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed the number Avery uttered. It started to ring, and I glanced at Avery, her eyes lifting to meet mine. I smiled at her, knowing her heart was breaking, but it only made her cry even more.
Jesse answered, and I told him who I was and why I was calling. I knew repeating those words validated Avery’s fears. I didn’t know their story, but it took one look at Avery’s shattered heart to know their love was true. I finished talking with her friend and dropped the phone into my pocket.
“Jesse’s on his way. I’m going to stay with you until he comes. All right?” She nodded meekly in response. I tried to whisper to her, hoping to keep her calm, but she just froze, and I held my arm around her until Jesse burst into the condo in a panic. My role was finished the second Jesse’s arms went around Avery while he knelt on the floor, kissing her forehead and straightening her hair.
“Bean,” he cooed, pulling Avery into his lap, “let’s go to the hospital. The ambulance is gone. That means they have Sean and they’re working on him.”
Avery’s eyes tracked Jesse’s mouth as he moved more hair from her face, revealing a darkening bump above her left eyebrow. I was too focused on keeping her together while her man was handled that I didn’t think to check her over.
“I’ll meet you there, Avery,” I stated, rising to help Jesse lift Avery to her feet. “The doctors will want to check you over too. I want to look at that bruise…” I softly stroked the bump above her eyebrow, causing her to wince. Avery was silent, and I didn’t know what else I could do to help now that her friend took over. I wanted to do more, and maybe that meant sticking to my word and meeting her there, waiting to see the case through.
I thought of my chief’s tactless comments during our meeting last week when Ben and I delivered a baby at the park. Don’t get attached. Don’t get too close. He called me a heartbreaker, breaking my own and a patient’s when I couldn’t pursue their case with them. Something about helping a panicked mom stay calm while giving birth under a tree made me feel I should have been more personable, supportive, rather than formal, but my supervisor begged to differ. Probably why he can’t keep a girlfriend and his kid hates him.
I watched Jesse guide Avery into his car, neither worried about getting her into something other than Sean’s shirt and underwear. Jesse gave me a nod before he climbed in and drove off. I exhaled like I hadn’t had a chance to breathe in an hour and looked up at their condo. It seemed so perfect, and yet there she went in her boyfriend’s underwear as she and her friend trailed the ambulance carrying his dying body.
As I walked to the bus stop one block away, I grew more pissed at the world than when my day began. Life wasn’t fair, and that really burned my balls. I didn’t know Avery or Sean, but to watch her trauma…Damn. I guess accepting that life was an unforgiving bitch, even to me, was the only way I lasted in this job. In my life.
