Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
A va rubbed her eyes, pressing the heels of her hands against them as if she could push back the headache forming at the base of her skull. Eight hours into her shift, and exhaustion clung to her like a second skin. The emergency department had thrown everything at her today—a nail gun accident, a suspected stroke, a drunk who wouldn’t stop singing Christmas carols in October. She glanced at the digital board—two patients waiting for labs, one for a psych consult. Manageable.
She reached for her Diet Coke, lifting it to her lips, only to grimace when the lukewarm liquid hit her tongue. With a sigh, she tossed the cup into the trash. The taste lingered, bitter and unsatisfying, much like the past few days.
Reed barely spoke to her. When he brought patients in, his words were clipped, his expression unreadable beneath the weight of whatever resentment he still carried. At home, he moved through their shared space like a ghost—eating in silence, avoiding her gaze, disappearing into his room before she could even think about crossing that fragile distance between them. The one time she’d tried, the door had shut in her face with a finality that had left her staring at the wood, hand still raised, throat tight.
She was losing him. Maybe she already had.
The overhead speaker crackled, jolting her from her thoughts. “Trauma team to ED bay one. ETA two minutes. Multiple critical from MVA.”
The world sharpened. Adrenaline surged; exhaustion momentarily forgotten. Ava pushed off the counter and strode toward the trauma bay, glancing at the charge nurse. “What do we have?”
“Two critical from a highway collision. Car versus pickup. Husband and wife, mid-thirties,” the nurse relayed, already moving to prepare the trauma bay. “Their daughter was in the back seat. Minor injuries.”
Something cold and leaden settled in Ava’s gut. She pushed it down, let her training take over.
“I want two trauma bays prepped. Full imaging ready. Call surgery and tell them to have an OR standing by.”
The ambulance bay doors slammed open, chaos pouring in with the scent of burnt rubber and blood. The first gurney came through fast, paramedics moving with urgency. And there, just behind them, was Reed.
Ava’s breath stilled for a second. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He must have been about to leave when the call came in. His EMT uniform was rumpled, his jaw tight, his hands steady as he maneuvered the stretcher.
“Female, thirty, passenger side impact,” the lead paramedic called, pushing the gurney through the doors. “Blunt force trauma to the head, possible internal bleeding. BP dropping en route, 90 over 60 and falling.”
Ava moved alongside them, taking in the woman’s waxen complexion, the blood drying in a jagged trail from her temple to her jaw. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths.
“Trauma bay one,” Ava directed. “Where’s the husband?”
“Coming in now,” Reed said, his voice taut. He was pushing the second gurney, his knuckles white on the rail. “Male, thirty-two, driver. Multiple fractures, pneumothorax, GCS 9 and dropping.”
Ava barely spared Reed a glance, already focused on her patient. “Get me a head CT and full trauma panel,” she ordered. “Push another unit of O-neg.”
The woman’s vitals were slipping fast. Monitors beeped in rapid succession, each one a warning. Ava leaned over, shining a penlight into her pupils.
The woman’s lashes fluttered. A whisper, barely audible. “Emma…my baby…”
Ava’s heart clenched. “Your daughter is okay,” she assured her automatically, even as dread coiled in her stomach. “We’re taking care of you now.”
The woman’s eyes slipped closed. Then, the monitor flatlined.
“She’s crashing!” a nurse called.
Ava’s world narrowed. No room for hesitation. No room for fear. “Start compressions,” she ordered. “Epi, now.”
A blur of movement. Hands pressing rhythmically on the woman’s chest. The shock of the defibrillator against skin. The sterile bite of adrenaline in the air.
Come on. Come on.
After an eternity—seconds that stretched like hours—a weak, faltering rhythm returned.
“Get her to CT,” Ava said, her own pulse hammering as the team rushed to move the gurney.
She turned, intending to check on the husband, but then?—
She saw her.
A little girl, no older than six, sat near the nurses’ station, a social worker kneeling in front of her. Dark hair pulled into two braids, wide brown eyes that held too much understanding for someone so small. She clutched a stuffed rabbit to her chest, fingers curled so tightly around its matted fur that her knuckles were white.
Ava’s breath hitched. The beeping monitors faded. The fluorescent lights dimmed. She wasn’t in the emergency room anymore.
She was twelve. Sitting in a waiting room that smelled like antiseptic and old coffee. Her cheeks damp with tears.
The air was thick with the scent of burning rubber, of coppery blood. She heard the distant wail of sirens. The metallic screech of crushed metal.
And her own voice, raw and desperate.
“ Mom? Dad? Wake up! ”
Ava swayed.
“Dr. Spencer-Campbell?” Someone called her name, but the voice was distant, muffled, as if she were underwater.
The little girl met Ava’s gaze, and in that moment, she knew. She understood what was happening in a way only another child who had lost everything could. The weight of it was suffocating. Ava’s hands trembled. Her chest tightened, her throat closing around air that refused to come.
“Dr. Spencer-Campbell!” The voice was sharper now.
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. She was frozen in that in-between place, trapped between past and present, between the girl she had been and the doctor she had become.
Then a firm, steady hand gripped her shoulder. Warm. Solid.
Reed.
“Ava.” His voice cut through the fog, grounding her. “We need you here.”
She turned toward him. The coldness from the past few days was gone. His eyes held none of the resentment, none of the anger. Just quiet steadiness. A tether pulling her back to the now.
Ava swallowed hard, gave a single nod, and turned back to the trauma bay.
The husband’s monitors were spiking erratically. He was circling the edge of something irreversible.
“I need to intubate,” she said, forcing her voice to steady. “And get me the ultrasound.”
Reed stayed back, letting her work, but he didn’t leave. He stood at the edge of the chaos, his presence an anchor she hadn’t known she needed.
“BP’s stabilizing,” a nurse reported, relief coloring her voice.
Ava exhaled, stepping back. “Get him to CT, then up to surgery.”
She pulled off her gloves, her fingers stiff. When she turned, Reed was still watching her.
“You don’t have to stay,” she said, voice quieter now. “Your shift’s over.”
His gaze flicked toward the little girl, then back to her.
“I’ll go when you tell me you’re okay.”
The words settled between them like something fragile, waiting to be broken.
Ava looked away.
“I’m fine,” she lied. Then she turned and walked toward the CT results, leaving Reed standing in the wreckage of a moment she wasn’t ready to face.
F our hours later, Ava stood in the dimly lit doctors’ lounge, hands braced against the cool porcelain of the sink, head bowed. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed faintly, casting a washed-out reflection of her in the mirror. The exhaustion on her face was almost shocking. Dark circles smudged the delicate skin beneath her eyes, and her usually warm complexion had faded to a sickly pallor. She looked hollowed out, like something vital inside her had been drained dry.
They had stabilized both parents. The husband had come out of surgery—multiple fractures, a collapsed lung—but the worst of the damage had been repaired. The wife’s brain bleed had been small enough to manage without surgical intervention. They were both in critical but stable condition in the ICU.
And Emma—her name was Emma—had been taken home by her grandmother. She had clutched her stuffed rabbit so tightly against her chest that her tiny fingers had trembled, her enormous brown eyes shadowed with the kind of grief a child should never have to carry.
Ava squeezed her own eyes shut, willing the image away, but it clung to the inside of her skull, pressing against old wounds she had spent a lifetime trying to seal.
The first sob came without warning, a jagged thing that tore from her throat before she could stop it. She clamped a hand over her mouth, as if she could force it back inside, but the dam had already cracked. A second sob followed, then another, the sound raw and broken as tears spilled hot and fast down her cheeks.
Her legs gave out beneath her, and she slid down to the floor, back pressed against the cold tile wall, knees drawn up to her chest. She was unraveling, piece by piece, the weight of the past and present crashing together in a storm she couldn't contain.
Images came in flashes, sharp and cruel. Her mother’s face, too still, too pale, her chest no longer rising.
Her father’s hand, fingers reaching toward his wife on a separate gurney, a final, desperate attempt to hold on.
The twisted metal of their car.
And now Emma. Sitting there, lost in the way only a child who had just had her world destroyed could be.
Ava didn’t hear the door open. She didn’t realize she wasn’t alone until a shadow fell across her.
She looked up, vision blurred by tears, and found Reed standing in front of her.
He had changed into street clothes, his EMT uniform folded over his arm, but there was something in his expression—something unreadable, something gentle—that made her chest constrict. For a long moment, he didn’t speak. Then, without a word, he lowered himself onto the floor beside her. He didn’t touch her. He didn’t try to force her out of it. He just sat; close enough that his warmth reached her in the cold, sterile room.
Ava swiped at her damp cheeks, breath still hitching. “I thought you left,” she managed, voice hoarse.
“I did.” His voice was quiet, steady. “I came back.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, another tear slipping free. “I couldn’t save them,” she whispered, the confession slicing her open. “My parents. I was right there, and I couldn’t?—”
“You were a child, Ava.”
Her breath came shaky, uneven. “And now I’m not. I’m a doctor. I’m supposed to be better than this.” She gestured vaguely at herself, at the mess of emotions she couldn’t seem to contain. The tears. The weakness.
Reed was silent for a moment, long enough that she almost regretted saying anything at all. Then, carefully, as if testing the waters, he reached out and took her hand.
Ava stiffened, but she didn’t pull away. She couldn’t.
“You saved those parents today,” he said, his fingers warm and solid against hers. “Emma won’t have the same story you did.”
Ava stared at their joined hands. It was the first time he had touched her—really touched her—since their fight. She should have pulled away. She should have told him she was fine, that she didn’t need comfort. But the truth was, she wasn’t fine. And she did need it.
“I nearly lost it out there,” she admitted, voice barely above a whisper. “If you hadn’t?—”
“But you didn’t lose it,” Reed interrupted. His grip on her hand tightened, the pressure grounding. “You pulled yourself back. You did what needed to be done.”
A fresh wave of tears burned in her throat, but this time, they weren’t from grief. They were from something else—something warmer. Something safe.
Ava swallowed hard, forcing herself to meet his gaze. “Why did you come back?”
The corner of his mouth lifted in the faintest ghost of a smile. “Because whatever’s happened between us, I know you.” His thumb brushed over the back of her hand, a touch so light she might have imagined it. “And I knew you’d be here, doing this.”
He hesitated, just for a second. Then, softer—gentler—he added, “And because I didn’t want you to be alone.”
Her breath caught.
It wasn’t forgiveness. It wasn’t an unraveling of the tension that had stretched between them for days. But it was something. A crack in the ice. A shift in the air between them.
Ava let her head tip back against the wall and closed her eyes, letting herself exist in the space of his presence. She had spent so many nights these past few weeks feeling like she was walking through a house that no longer felt like home. But here, with Reed beside her, his hand still wrapped around hers, the edges of that loneliness dulled just enough to breathe again.
Tomorrow, she would have to face everything that remained unresolved between them. Tomorrow, she would have to confront the ghosts that Emma’s wide, terrified eyes had awakened.
But for tonight, she wasn’t alone.
And somehow, that made all the difference.