Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
NYLA
Four more hours until I see Jaden again. Today he’ll be with me in the ER for my entire shift. He’ll be by my side the whole time.
The whole time.
Will he sense how tightly wound I am? Will he try to distract me from the thing that dominates my thoughts just as much as the memory of our almost-kiss in the ambulance yesterday?
‘What do you think of this?’ June holds a photograph of New York at night right in front of my nose. ‘That would look good above my bed, wouldn’t it?’
When I promised June last night that I’d go shopping with her today, I’d hoped it would distract me from the carousel in my head. Now we’ve been roaming around the furniture store for an hour and I can barely manage to concentrate.
‘Nyla?’ June’s blue eyes look at me brightly, her blonde hair falling into her face.
Once again I do my best at least to forget what almost happened yesterday. It’s silly anyway to brood over what it means, what I feel or what he does.
At the very least I don’t want to think about Jaden anymore, because erasing the other thing that rules me from my mind is impossible: the blood they’re taking from me today will decide my future tomorrow.
Oh God, I just hope everything is all right.
‘Hey.’ My roommate nudges me gently and lifts the picture a little higher. ‘I thought this would look nice above my bed.’
I study the photo. ‘It’s pretty, but maybe a bit too dark,’ I reply, look around for an alternative picture and promptly land on a moody image of a couple kissing in the rain.
‘This one’s better, don’t you think?’
Out of the corner of my eye I see June pointing at the picture I’m staring at because I don’t have the willpower to stop. ‘No.’
‘Is something wrong?’ My friend steps between the picture and me. ‘You were kind of weird last night …’
That’s possible. When I was cooking with June and she told me about this patient who is turning her life upside down more than she ever could have imagined, I was briefly distracted. But it didn’t last long.
‘Yeah,’ I admit.
Her hands touch my shoulders. ‘What’s going on?’
‘There’s a lot piling up right now.’ Jaden, the fear of getting sick again, the worry that I’m a bad doctor.
She steers me toward one of the sofas. ‘Is it about the follow-up exam?’
The exam that, thanks to Jaden, I even managed to forget for a moment yesterday. I forgot everything.
Just us.
Just here.
Just right now.
And for one breath it was as if the twenty-five-percent Nyla didn’t exist.
Incredible how effortlessly Jaden managed something I’ve been trying to do in vain for months. How did he pull that off? I shake my head—at him and even more at myself—which June probably interprets as an answer to her question.
As if we were at home here, she slips off her shoes and settles into a comfortable cross-legged position. ‘This is about that paramedic, right?’
‘How do you know…?’
‘Sonora mentioned something.’ A broad grin takes over her face.
Sonora. Of course, I should have guessed. In our shared flat, nothing that has to do with men stays secret for long.
‘Well?’ June grabs a cushion. Behind her, a young couple strolls past. ‘What’s going on between you two?’
‘Nothing that makes any kind of sense.’ With a sigh, I sink back against the sofa.
‘You like him,’ June states happily.
Liking isn’t the right word, I’m afraid. ‘But that’s not the point.’
‘Does he like you?’ She raises her eyebrows.
‘No.’ I feel my cheeks start to burn and automatically reach for my earrings. June clicks her tongue. ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’
Now she leans toward me and takes my hands in hers. ‘That’s wonderful.’
‘It’s a disaster,’ I reply.
June gently squeezes my hands. ‘You’re afraid.’
Afraid? That is far from what I feel. Panic is more like it. I look at her, seeking help. ‘What if I get sick again?’ Maybe I already am.
‘And what if you don’t?’ she asks gently. ‘What if, out of fear of something that has a low probability, you miss out on something that would pretty certainly make you happy?’
A twenty to fifty percent risk of falling ill again. A thirty to fifty percent risk of dying from this second illness. That is anything but low.
I take a deep breath. ‘This isn’t just about me.’
In her expression I can see that she’s finally beginning to realize what I’ve been thinking about this whole time. ‘You think it would end the same way it did with your ex.’
My chest tightens painfully at the memory of the day he told me he wasn’t strong enough to walk the path through the illness with me.
‘He was a cowardly asshole.’ June strokes my upper arm. ‘Be glad you got rid of him, he didn’t deserve you.’
‘No, that’s not it.’ If it did end the way it did with him, then so be it. My heart would break, again, but at least I wouldn’t have to live with the knowledge of burdening another person with the weight of my illness.
All that desperate hoping, the crushing fear, the anxious questions, the naked panic.
If my ex hadn’t pulled the ripcord in time back then, my illness would have destroyed him too. Him leaving was the right thing. At least that way he could go on living his life.
‘Then what is it?’ A crease forms between June’s brows.
‘Jaden is anything but a cowardly asshole.’ Images of him flicker through my mind.
The way he climbs into the car hanging over the cliff.
The way he holds the heart attack patient’s hand and jokes with him.
The way he gives everything, no matter how much the situation demands of him.
The way he pretends that nothing and no one can touch him, even though by now I’m sure the exact opposite is true.
Confused, June brushes her hair back. ‘Then everything’s fine.’
I pluck a piece of lint from the sofa fabric and watch it float to the floor. ‘Jaden is a hero.’
He would stay, walk with me through the darkest night, put back together the individual pieces I would fall apart into—and, with a smile on his face, break a little more with every piece.
A tear steals out of the corner of my eye. Here, in the middle of the furniture store, it crawls down my cheek.
‘All the better.’ June’s questioning look finds me, and it hits me that she doesn’t understand the slightest thing.
She is one of those lucky people who have never had to think about things like that. Who have never experienced what it’s like to inflict more pain on others than they can bear and feel so fucking helpless while doing it.
Quickly, I wipe the tear from my cheek and get up from the sofa. ‘Come on, let’s find a nice picture for your room,’ I reply, because I simply have no idea how to explain it to her.
No matter what I say, she will keep insisting that I give whatever it is between Jaden and me a chance. She will ask me to believe in a future in which Jaden doesn’t have to play the hero he really isn’t.
A future that might no longer exist tomorrow.
Hesitantly, she puts the cushion aside and slips into her shoes. ‘You can’t be afraid of happiness for the rest of your life,’ she says then.
Nothing would please me more than if it were as simple as she imagines. ‘I know,’ I say anyway, because that’s the truth, too.
Just under four hours after my conversation with June, I walk into the emergency department of Halifax Harbor Hospital in a white coat. The bandage in the crook of my arm gives a slight pull as I loop the stethoscope around my neck.
My blood has been drawn and is probably on its way to the lab for analysis right now.
Basic blood panel, comprehensive blood panel, differential blood count, tumor markers, liver and kidney values, inflammatory markers, immunoglobulins.
If even one of the values is abnormal, it all starts over again from the beginning.
Inhale.
Hold.
Exhale.
Whatever happens tomorrow, for now the only thing that matters is getting through this shift.
Together with Jaden, whom I spot leaning against the triage coordinator’s desk.
Today he’s without his paramedic jacket, instead wearing his dark blue work pants and the matching T-shirt that gives me a view of his—unfortunately pretty hot—tattooed forearms.
Heat immediately crawls up inside me. He, on the other hand, doesn’t look as if my presence triggers anything in him at all.
‘Paramedic Jaden Reynolds at your service.’ A relaxed smile plays on his lips.
Those lips that had almost touched mine yesterday. Those lips that I’m probably staring at just a little too long right now.
‘Hi.’ I quickly turn to the triage coordinator. ‘What have you got for us?’
‘Treatment room one, 88-year-old male patient, arrived thirty minutes ago with shortness of breath and cyanosis. Heart attack five years ago.’ He hands me a medical chart, Jaden pushes himself away from the counter.
‘Blood pressure 100 over 65, heart rate 105, respiratory rate 22, oxygen saturation 92% despite 6 liters of oxygen.’
Immediately, the possible causes of his condition start racing through my mind.
Acute heart failure, 30 to 40 percent risk. Cardiogenic shock after myocardial infarction, 10 to 15 percent risk.
I take the chart and signal to Jaden to follow me. On the way I check all the details already noted, develop further suspected diagnoses, grow more uneasy.
Hypovolemic shock, 5 to 10 percent risk. Pulmonary embolism, 20 to 30 percent risk.
I hear my boss raging in my head, You have to leave your own story at home; it must not affect your work.
Is he right? Am I taking the risks too seriously again? I don’t know.
My steps grow ever faster, and a little later I push open the door to treatment room one. Next to the patient sits a woman who is presumably his partner. She is holding his hand in hers, her face lined with wrinkles is full of worry, her hair thinning.
Jaden immediately steps to her side. ‘Hi, I’m Jaden, may I sit with you?’
Out of the corner of my eye I see her nod, whereupon he pulls a chair over to him and shoots me a conspiratorial look.
‘I’ll take care of her,’ is what he wants to tell me, and I show him with a grateful smile that I’ve understood. Then I turn to the patient. Beads of sweat cover his pale face, his breathing is rapid.
While I examine him, I hear Jaden talking nonstop to his wife. Her voice is quiet; at times she sighs wistfully, at others fearfully.
I prescribe my patient painkillers and intravenous fluid therapy. In addition, I’m going to suggest an ECG, blood gas analysis, extensive lab work, X-rays, and a cardiac CT to Dr. Franks.
I hesitate briefly. Is the CT too much? Would an echocardiogram be enough for now?
What would a normal doctor do? I don’t know.
While my thoughts are racing like a roller coaster, Jaden and the old lady suddenly burst out laughing.
‘Wow, seriously? That’s insane.’ Jaden shakes his head in amusement. ‘That’s really special.’
He’s doing it again. He negates the gravity of the situation and focuses on something beautiful.
‘He was a pilot and I was a flight attendant, you know. For us, there was never any question of getting married anywhere but on a plane.’ Countless little wrinkles appear around her eyes as she smiles.
It’s good for her, this moment of happiness that Jaden has just sparked in her. As strange as his behavior sometimes is, in certain situations it somehow also seems to be the right thing.
The woman closes her hand more tightly around the patient’s, her expression softening.
The constant beeping of the monitoring equipment fills the room.
For a while she gazes at the face of the person she loves.
Watching her, imagining how many years they have shared, how they have laughed, loved, and lived together, makes my heart ache with longing.
‘We knew this day would come,’ she whispers now, as if she can sense that her husband is not doing well.
At once I see myself sitting in my oncologist’s office tomorrow. Fearfully I look into his light-blue eyes, searching in vain for a smile on his lips, but all I see are the wrinkles that cut across his forehead like deep trenches.
Then he shakes his head. I’m sorry.
‘Give me your hand.’ Jaden’s voice pulls me back to the here and now. The lady trustingly places her fingers in his, and he guides them to our patient’s chest. ‘Do you feel that?’ he asks.
She takes a deep breath. ‘His heart.’
Jaden nods. ‘It’s beating.’
There is no still in his sentence, no fear, no expectation.
His heart is beating, and that is enough.
‘Yes,’ the lady breathes, and I feel tears running down my cheeks.
My gaze fixed on Jaden, who in that moment lifts his lids and looks at me in a way I feel everywhere inside me, I reach for my own pulse at my wrist.
My heart is beating too.
Still.
And for a fraction of a second, I wonder if that couldn’t be enough for me as well.