Chapter 26 Sloane #2
That is the line I repeat when the memories start crowding in. The truth sits heavier than that. I did want to help. I did want to make things better. But somewhere along the way, the clipboards stopped making sense and the exam rooms started locking from the outside.
My father's. Not theirs.
The girls I saw in those back corridors weren't patients. They were inventory. And I was the quality control.
"You're doing great work, Sloane," my father had said once, hand heavy on my shoulder outside an exam room. "These girls are lucky to have someone who cares."
I'd believed him. For longer than I should have.
I believed I was helping. The medical clearances, the health screenings, the gentle voice all felt like mercy.
I called it mercy. It was packaging. I blink hard, forcing attention back to the security guard's burns.
The blisters are weeping through the first layer of gauze.
I peel it, repack, tape clean edges. I move faster.
"Hey." A paramedic I've seen at other scenes, tall, freckled, hair shoved under a beanie, nudges me with his elbow as we both reach for the same gauze. "You okay?"
"I'm fine." I soften it with a tired smile. "Just need more coffee."
"Preach," he mutters, handing me the gauze.
I finish wrapping the burn. My patient winces, then gives me a tight nod.
"You did good," I tell him. "You saved people."
His eyes fill. "Did I? Because I can't stop thinking… what if there were more?"
I squeeze his wrist. "There are always more," I say before I can catch the hardness in my tone. He flinches. I revise. "There will always be more people who need help. That's not on you. You did what you could with what you had. Today, that's enough." He breathes out. I move on.
Next patient. Move.
Somewhere between patients, my stomach growls loud enough that the nurse at the neighboring cot snorts.
"When's the last time you ate, Turner?"
"Define ate."
She rolls her eyes. "Of course."
I open my mouth to lie when the air shifts. The tent shifts. Conversation drops in a tiny radius. Boots on concrete. Steady, sure, familiar. I exhale. My posture drops an inch. I don't look up right away. Finishing vitals, I loop a blood pressure cuff back onto its hook.
"Sloane." His voice is low and close.
I turn. Knox stands just inside the entrance to my section, worn leather jacket half-zipped over a plain black shirt.
Hair damp, as though he showered in a rush and didn't bother drying it.
Beard is a little overgrown from the late night; fine lines fan from the corners of his eyes that I swear weren't that deep a year ago.
He's holding a paper bag in one hand and two steaming cups stacked in the other. My chest unlocks before I can stop it. Then my throat tightens.
"You found it," I say, hoarser than I intend.
He lifts one cup slightly. "Downtown's not that big. And the truck was gone, so." His eyes flick over my face, the braid, the too-bright tent around us. Cataloguing everything in that silent way of his. "I read your note," he adds quietly.
"Oh."
"Wasn't sure if showing up would piss you off or not." He stares at the bag, then back at me. "Decided I could live with that more than I could live with you not eating."
He says it the way he'd say the weather. Simple and steady. He holds the bag out. I take it, fingers brushing his. I feel it all the way up my wrist. Hate that I do.
"What is it?" Partly to fill the space, partly because my stomach complains again.
"Egg sandwich. The decent kind. From that spot Ruby loves."
"Ruby loves anything with extra cheese and carbs."
"Yeah, well. So do you." Ghost of a smile.
He sets one cup on the supply cart beside us, then holds the other out to me.
I look down. "I didn't want to wake you." Half an apology. The best I can manage standing up.
"I know. Still would've preferred pissed-off-and-woken to you sneaking out before dawn to patch up half the city without eating."
"I wasn't sneaking."
One brow lifts. "You walked into our room on bare feet, didn't turn on the light, and left a note instead of nudging me awake to say, 'hey, I'm about to go drown myself in other people's emergencies.'"
Okay. Maybe I was sneaking.
I clear my throat. "We're kind of busy," I deflect, gesturing at the flurry around us. "And you were exhausted. I didn't see the point in disrupting your sleep on top of everything else."
He looks as though he wants to say he'd have preferred the disruption. That's what he does. Lets things wreck him if it means he can show up. The thing I love most about him. It's also the thing that terrifies me.
He doesn't push it now. Nods toward the cup in my hand instead.
"Coffee. The good kind. Not whatever sludge they're brewing here."
I take a sip. Heat seeps into my fingers, up into my palms, loosening some of the chill that's settled in my bones.
"Thank you."
"Anytime." Soft. "I mean that."
We stand in the middle of organized chaos, facing each other as if we're alone instead of surrounded by moans and beeping and shouted orders.
"I know last night…" he starts, then stops. "I know I came at you hard."
I shake my head. "You didn't. You just… asked for things I didn't know how to give."
His eyes cloud. "I shouldn't have put you in that position right after the basement."
"I shouldn't have snapped at you. You were trying to help."
He huffs. "We can play blame ping-pong later, yeah?" His mouth twitches. "Right now I just wanted you to know… I'm still here. Even if you need space. Even if you're pissed at me. I'm not going anywhere."
"Why are you always kinder to me than I am to myself?" I mutter, more to the coffee lid than him.
"Hazard of the job. Husband. Vice president. Occasional emotional support bear."
A startled snort escapes me. Loud in this space. I let it happen. "I don't deserve you," I say before I can stop myself.
His jaw tightens. The muscle near his ear tics twice. "Don't do that. Don't decide what you deserve, then punish yourself preemptively. That's my job. I get to decide if I'm in this. And spoiler alert? I am."
My grip tightens on the cup. Before I can answer, a stretcher rolls by, bumping my elbow.
"Sorry!" the EMT calls. "Bleeding through again. Gotta move."
"It's okay," I call back.
I glance at Knox, torn. He sees it.
"Go," he says, nodding toward the cot being prepped. "I'll get out of the way. Just… eat when you can, yeah?"
"I will."
"And Sloane?" His voice drops. I look back. "We're not done. Not in the bad way. Just… I'm here when you're ready. Even if all you can manage is one sentence at a time."
I hold my breath until my chest aches. Let it go. "I'll… try."
He nods once, as though that's enough for now, and steps back out of the flow, melting into the edges of the tent where family members and off-duty volunteers hover.
The tightness behind my sternum gives, just barely. I press my palm flat against it and turn toward the next cot.