Chapter Six
Silas was right, I should have called out. This shift is a dumpster fire.
I would hate to have left Tristan alone, though. I mean, they would have replaced me, but it’s not the same as someone you work with all the time. You need to be able to work without speaking sometimes, and predict each other’s moves.
I could be at home right now. I could be sulking in the darkness of my own miserable bedroom, contemplating its history of attempted infanticide and possibly day drinking until these things mattered less.
Instead, here I am, less than six hours into a twenty-four hour goddamn shift—because mandatory overtime is a thing, and I have foolishly said before that I like the long shifts and the pay bonuses they include—and I’m already fucking exhausted.
At least it’s a Friday, and Jaz agreed to take the girls for the weekend so they’re not stuck at the house while me and Silas are working.
I’ll be here until noon tomorrow at least, and he does a stupid early and stupid long shift at the garage on Saturdays, so they’d be unattended and bored for most of the day.
We’ve had four—FOUR—overdoses already, which means there’s probably a bad batch of fentanyl doing the rounds.
We’ve also been called to a bar fight at 11 a.m., and seen multiple frequent flyers.
They’ve all been short runs so far, but that just means the mountain of paperwork for the shift is getting higher and higher and I’m already losing track of how many patients we’ve seen.
Just when we were thinking about eating, we got another call, so I’m going into it cranky and hungry. Which isn’t ideal.
I’m aware of it, though, so that’s better than nothing.
Although once we pull up at the address, I realize it’s not even close to enough.
My irritation is already bristling right beneath the surface, begging to be unleashed in the most unprofessional way possible, and I haven’t even seen what’s happening yet.
“You alright there, killer?” Tristan says as we’re getting out of the ambulance and unloading our shit.
His tone is half-mocking, half-real concern, so I must be giving off some terrible fucking vibes already. I pause for a second, taking a breath and attempting to let my muscles unclench.
“Yeah,” I say with a shake of my head. “Just… Y’know. This.”
Tossing my head in the direction of the house as I say it, Tristan nods back.
He gets it. This is an incredibly frustrating family that we’ve been called out to again and again.
Their son Jaden is eleven years old and has a history of mysterious neurological symptoms, including seizures.
Probably childhood epilepsy that will resolve on its own, but possibly not.
The worst part of cases like this is that there are different kinds of seizures, and that throws people sometimes when it doesn’t look like what they’ve always been told what a “seizure” looks like.
Which means he could be having seizures a lot more frequently than his parents—and therefore his doctors—are aware of.
His parents are trying. Kind of. Mom cares; Dad seems unconvinced because he’s not having full-on grand mals all the time. They do take him to the doctor, but money is tight. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We all know the story. Hell, I’ve lived the story.
Which should probably make me more empathetic, but instead it just makes me fucking pissed.
Every time his dad shrugs at me like I’m making too big a deal over something because he can’t see what’s going on, or every time we have a conversation about follow up that I know they can’t afford to do, or just won’t, it chips away at another little piece of my patience.
Apparently I’m not doing a good enough job of relaxing, because Tristan walks past me, taking over as lead into the house, and manages to smack me unnecessarily hard with his jump bag in the process.
Point taken.
The scene inside is the same as usual. Jaden is on the couch, lying flat. His mom is next to him; Dad hovering nearby. Everyone looks sort of gray and drained, and it’s something I feel acutely as well. Tristan immediately takes over, which I’m grateful for, because his voice is a blur of sound.
The scene seems to run into all the other ones we’ve had here.
I do my part; taking vitals and following directions, but apart from that, I’m checked out.
I also do everything I can to avoid looking at Jaden’s dad, because whenever I do, the level of fury that rises up to choke me is completely disproportionate to the situation.
Jaden has dark hair and pale skin, making him look even more washed out when he’s not feeling well.
He accepts all our poking and prodding with a practiced kind of stoicism.
His brown eyes and set expression is serious, even while his parents seem more focused on bickering with us and each other than actually giving him any support.
The sound of their voices is a constant nagging hum in the background that I can’t get rid of, so I focus my attention on the child, trying to make him as comfortable as possible.
My heart squeezes, and I’m overcome by a wave of empathy. That doesn’t happen a lot while I’m working. I’m generally good at staying detached, even on the really sad cases like little kids, especially with Tristan’s experience and support behind me. But this one just fucking gets to me every time.
He reminds me a little of Maddi, so serious and calm.
Like a little adult in a tiny body. Except I can’t really picture her or Sky in his place, because no matter how little money we had, they always, always had some fucking emotional support and affection.
I made sure of it. If one of them were here, I would be sitting with them and comforting them, not arguing about it.
I’m lucky I was a healthy kid at that age, despite everything. Things could have been a lot different for me.
Time passes, and it’s when Tristan is explaining his recommendations to the parents—trying to get them to come in just to be safe, while we all know there’s just no way they can afford it and the money would probably be better spent on other things—I realize what it is that’s getting to me.
He doesn’t remind me of Maddi. He reminds me of Silas.
I don’t have that many memories of him at this age, because off the track he was pretty much a ghost anywhere he went, and I was already friends with all the other burnouts back in junior high.
But I do remember this aspect of him. He was quiet and soft, gravely serious and totally alone, always with this air of impermanence.
Like he was made out of paper and a strong wind could take him out.
I never really cared then. I guess I was too busy trying to survive, because that’s when my own wrecking ball of a father was still here, but the guilt eats at me on a daily basis.
How much better would his life have been if I’d become his friend back then, instead of waiting until it was almost too late? He probably never would have ended up at that quarry in the first place.
Now that question makes me angry, and I’m pushing it down when a deep, masculine voice breaks through my thoughts and startles me back to reality.
A flush of adrenaline hits me, and it takes a few seconds to remember that it’s not my dad getting angry, and I’m a mostly functioning adult at work right now.
He’s not even mad at me, he’s getting into it with Tristan.
Still, the bile at the back of my throat just from the sound of it is a weakness I don’t want to admit.
Why the fuck is everything hitting every button I have today? I’m not normally weak like this.
Get it together, Waters. Dad isn’t even here.
“Sir, you don’t need to raise your voice at me,” Tristan’s rumble breaks through my mental fog.
“I’m just here to tell you what I see. I recommend that you go to the ER for an EEG and monitoring.
I’m not forcing you to do anything. Jaden’s stable and not currently seizing.
If you want to save yourself the ambulance bill, I get that, but please consider going yourself, or at least following up with your primary tomorrow for a check up.
Do you have a neurologist yet? We talked about this. ”
It’s his even-toned talking-to-irrational-patients voice, and it seems to be making things worse.
“This is why I tell you not to fucking call them all the time,” Mr. Halloran snarls at his wife. “All we get is attitude. He’s fine. Look at him. He’s not hurt. There’s no goddamn need to do any of this.”
I’m waiting for Tristan to jump in, but instead he holds up his hands and starts to back away, packing up our equipment and nudging me to follow along.
I do the same thing, picking up gear mechanically and tapping in the last few notes in the iPad while my fingers have a death grip on the industrial rubber case, for some reason.
Why the fuck are we leaving? Why are we not having this fight?
“Your choice. Let me just get your signature here,” Tristan continues, thrusting his own iPad under the man’s nose as if he can’t sense the anger rolling off him.
Mr. Halloran signs, Tristan says the rest of his legally mandated spiel, and Jaden continues to stay silent, looking spaced out. His mom is just as bristled as her husband, but I get the feeling she’s waiting for us to leave so they can fight about it.
Exactly what their child needs. Another fucking fight to overhear and feel like he’s responsible for.
I’m still trying to find the words to stop all of this and make them see how neglectful they’re being when Tristan grabs my arm and drags me outside with him, all our gear in tow.
“Thank you for your time,” he calls back, like he’s a fucking waiter, or something.
“What the fuck are you doing?”