Despite the texts, I didn’t see Jordan when I got home. I had too much work to do, especially after missing two days for the interview.
I moved back into an emergency medicine rotation, which was my specialty and also meant strange hours. We were supposed to get used to working all potential shifts, which meant all hours of the day. I’d apparently drawn the short straw and started with overnights, getting into the ER at midnight. It was a long night ahead of me, but emergencies never ceased, and the hours rushed by.
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.”
Then he released me tenderly, the look in his eyes one of absolute concern. I hadn’t seen him in over a week, and now I was here, acting like a crazy person. One who couldn’t sleep and was going back on everything I’d said to him. And still, he just stepped aside and found running clothes.
I changed out of my scrubs as quickly as possible, half-considering burning them. The thought of wearing them again made me sick to my stomach. I turned away, so I didn’t have to look at them again. I’d had training for this. Yet nothing could prepare a person to watch someone die especially with what I’d gone through. And every time I closed my eyes, I saw his heart stop and the doctor call it and the world close up.
“Ready?” Jordan asked.
“Sure.”
We took off with Jordan guiding us toward the golf course. Dark clouds loomed in front of us, and the course was empty. No golf carts rushing about the track or tiny balls flying through the air. Just the two of us trekking past the holes and their little flags. Jordan had clearly run this way often, probably got up early enough to miss the morning golfers. That seemed like a respectable thing he’d do.
The farther we ran, the deeper the burn in my legs and lungs and heart. I hadn’t run like this in years. Not unless you counted the occasional soccer game, which I didn’t. Everything hurt, and yet I welcomed it. At least I was feeling that instead of the pain from the hospital.
My breathing was ragged, and soon, I was panting. Jordan shot me a worried look. He wasn’t even breathing hard. In fact, it looked more like he was jogging next to me than running.
Whatever. I wasn’t going to stop. I was just going to keep going.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Arms pumping. Feet pounding the pavement.
Better than anything else. Better than trying to sleep when I was sure that I’d only see the flatline monitor, his chest stop moving, the sound of death.
See Mav falling and not getting up.
Nothing I could have done. Nothing I could do.
Nearly four years of medical school, and Mav would still have died. He still would have died on my table or in my arms or on the pavement.
I jogged to a stop. My heart pounded in my chest. I’d pushed it too far. Just like Mav had that day. I put my hands on my knees, gasping for breath. I could hardly breathe, hardly think. Just memories on repeat, over and over and over.
I was going to be sick.
Oh God.
I turned away from Jordan and threw up everything I’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours. I coughed and spat, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
“Gross,” I groaned.
Jordan reached out and touched my shoulder and then the other one. “You’re shaking.”
“Am I?”
Which was when I realized that I was in fact shaking like a leaf. My body responding involuntarily to the reminder that I’d seen someone die today. That I’d seen someone die…again.
And as that cruel thought split through my head, the universe listened to my mood and escalated the situation.
The skies opened, and suddenly, it was pouring.
Thick sheets of rain that had come completely out of nowhere. The skies had been dark, but it hadn’t even been misting or sprinkling or anything. And now, we were caught in a deluge, still a hundred yards or more from the nearest building.
I tilted my head up to the sky.
And then the tears finally came.
Deep, racking sobs.
And I couldn’t stop it.
I mourned.