Chapter 9 Nate
nine
nate
The ER was a controlled hum, the usual Tuesday afternoon rhythm. I was halfway through documenting a sepsis workup when I heard it. The tone first—condescending, hostile—then the words, slithering across the bay like poison.
"Don't you people ever listen? I said I need a real nurse."
My shoulders tensed automatically. Nothing good ever followed "you people." My gaze lifted from the computer, shifting to Bay 4 where Tasha was checking vitals on a middle-aged white guy with an expensive watch and a face twisted in contempt.
"Sir," Tasha responded, her voice controlled with a practiced neutrality I recognized from my time in the service, "I'm administering your medication as ordered by the doctor. If you have concerns about your treatment plan, I'd be happy to page Dr. Lee."
I should have gone back to my charting. Not my patient, not my problem. But something about the set of Tasha's shoulders held my attention. The careful way she kept her face composed despite the hard glitter in her eyes.
"I don't want your kind touching me," the man—Jensen, according to the board—sneered. "Get me someone competent. Someone who actually earned their position instead of filling a quota."
My fingers stilled on my keyboard, a red haze at the edges of my vision.
Tasha's expression never faltered, her professional mask firmly in place. "Sir, I'll be monitoring your pain levels, but please use the call button if you need anything else. Dr. Lee will be in shortly."
She turned to leave, and I should have looked away then. Would have, if Jensen hadn't muttered the slur under his breath—just loud enough to be heard, just soft enough to maintain plausible deniability.
A single word, ugly and deliberate.
Tasha's step faltered, almost imperceptible. Her spine straightened, shoulders squaring. But she kept walking, kept her composure, kept her dignity.
Something hot and dangerous uncoiled in my chest.
The anger wasn't new. It’s always there, banked low like embers, waiting for oxygen. What was new was its sudden, overwhelming intensity. The roaring in my ears. The taste of metal in my mouth.
Before I registered moving, I was across the room, my pen clattering forgotten on the counter. All I could see was Jensen’s smug, hateful face and Tasha, standing there, taking it, because that’s what she had to do.
But I wasn’t going to.
My voice, when it came, wasn’t my own. It was deeper, harder, a sound dredged up from a place I kept locked down tight. The voice that had called cadence for miles on the tarmac of Naval Training Center Great Lakes. The one that could make recruits piss their pants at fifty yards.
“YOU WILL NOT SPEAK TO HER LIKE THAT!"
The ER went dead silent. I felt, more than saw, heads turn. Jensen, startled, actually recoiled. Then his pasty face mottled with anger. "Who the hell do you think you are? You can't talk to me like that! I'm a patient! I'll have your job! I'll sue this whole damn hospital!"
I was moving before I realized it, a straight line from the nurse's station to Bay 4.
The rage was a living thing now, coiling in my gut, demanding release.
My voice dropped, but it was the low growl of a cornered animal.
I almost threw my arm, finger pointed angrily, towards the doors marked EXIT at the far end of the hallway.
"YOU GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT!"
"I'll have you arrested! Assault! You're threatening me!" Jensen shrieked, scrambling back on the gurney.
A cold calm settled over me then, the kind that always came before the storm in the sandbox.
My vision narrowed. "Try me," I said, and the words were flat, devoid of heat, which somehow made them more dangerous.
"I would love to explain to the District Attorney exactly why I felt the need to remove a threat from this ER.
I'd relish detailing every single word, you—"
"ENOUGH!"
Sophia's voice. Sharp. Absolute. It sliced through my rage like a scalpel. I froze, my retort dying on my lips. She was standing at the entrance to the bay, and her eyes weren't on Jensen. They were on me. And they were radiating an authority that even in my current state, I couldn't ignore.
"OUT! Nate, hallway. Now!"
The command was a physical blow. Me? Out? Confusion warred with the receding tide of adrenaline. I wanted to argue, to explain, but one look at her face—the unwavering steel in her eyes—and I knew. I was seconds from crossing a line. A very bright, very final line.
She didn't wait. She turned to Jensen, who was looking smug. "And you. You will leave." Her voice was ice. "Dr. Lee," she called, her tone sharp, "is Mr. Jensen medically stable for discharge?"
Dr. Lee, bless his usually oblivious soul, was already at the bedside.
His face was granite, all traces of his usual charm gone.
"Patient presented with a minor abrasion, received irrigation and a dressing.
Vitals stable. No indication for further acute medical intervention. He's clear for discharge."
"You heard the doctor," Sophia said to Jensen. "Your treatment here is complete. Security will escort you to the exit. I am personally filing a trespass order. If you ever set foot on hospital property again for anything less than a life-threatening emergency, you will be arrested. Am I clear?"
Jensen sputtered, but the fight was gone. Security, who'd materialized like ghosts, flanked him. I watched him go, then Sophia turned back to me. Tasha was a pale shadow behind her, her eyes wide, fixed on me.
"My office, Nate. Now."
I followed her, the walk down the hall feeling like a mile. The adrenaline had leached away, leaving a bone-deep weariness and the cold dread of what was coming.
In her office, the door closed, and the small space felt suffocating. I didn't know what to do with my hands, my body. Instinct took over. Heels together. Back straight. Arms locked, thumbs on the seams of my scrubs. Eyes front. The familiar brace of military attention.
Sophia’s voice was quiet, but it cut deeper than any shout. “Nate. You're not in the Navy anymore. You can't hide behind that bearing. Not here.”
I didn’t move. Couldn’t.
“Look at me.”
Slowly, I forced my gaze to meet hers. The disappointment in her eyes was worse than anger.
“They pay me an extra dollar an hour to kick out racists,” she said, her voice low.
“That’s my job. Yours is to take care of patients.
Even the assholes.” She took a step closer, almost in my face.
"You were seconds away from putting your hands on him, Nate.
Seconds. And then what? You go to jail? Maybe.
You lose your license? Possibly. You lose your job here?
Guaranteed." Her voice softened, but the words were like hammer blows.
"What about Paige? What happens to her when her father is in jail or can't work? "
Paige. The name was a punch to the gut. My carefully constructed world, the one I’d built to protect her, was teetering. Because of me. Because I’d lost control.
“When you blow up like that,” Sophia continued, her voice regaining its edge, “you become the story. The headline won’t be, ‘Racist Patient Verbally Abuses Nurse.’ It’ll be, ‘ER Nurse Assaults Patient.’ And we won’t get to say he was spewing vile hate.
Because we’re not allowed to. HIPAA doesn’t give a damn about justice; it cares about patient privacy, even for the ones who deserve none. ”
My gaze dropped to the scuffed linoleum. She was right. Of course, she was right.
“You’re off the floor for the day. Go home, Nate.” She paused, and I braced myself. “And I’m sorry, but I have to write you up for this. This is too big. Administration will be involved. I don’t have a choice.”
Her voice caught on the "I'm sorry," a tiny tremor that somehow made it worse.
There was nothing to say. No defense. I’d crossed a line. A big one. I nodded slowly, the movement feeling stiff, unfamiliar. My shoulders, which had been locked back, sagged.
“I understand, Sophia,” I said, my voice raspy, barely recognizable.
“I… I put you in an impossible position. I am sorry for that.” I met her eyes then, a flicker of the man I used to be, the one who’d faced down worse than Jensen.
"But I'm not sorry he knows he can't talk to her that way.
" The words were out before I could stop them.
A beat of silence. "I shouldn't have lost control," I added, the admission costing me. "It won't happen again."
I turned and walked out of her office, out of the ER, the weight of what I'd done settling over me like a shroud. I didn't look at Tasha, didn't look at anyone. Just walked.
But as I pushed through the doors into the corridor, the image of Tasha's face flickered in my mind—those wide eyes fixed on me, that expression I couldn't quite read.
Not the gratitude I'd half-expected, but something more complex. Concern? For me? After the way I’d just detonated?
Or was it just shock? Disappointment that the guy who fumbled through explaining periods to his daughter, who relied on her to rescue Paige from a school bathroom, could also lose his damn mind like this?
The Tasha who’d handled Paige’s period emergency with such unexpected kindness and humor…
what would she think of this? I shoved the thought away, a fresh wave of shame washing over me.
I had bigger problems. A write-up. Possibly a suspension.
A conversation with Paige about why Daddy was home early.
And somewhere beneath it all, the unsettling realization that the control I'd fought so hard to maintain since coming home, through therapy, through sobriety, through the rigid routines that structured our lives… it was more fragile than I'd allowed myself to believe.
All it had taken was one word, not even directed at me. One ugly word aimed at a colleague. A colleague who'd shown Paige, and me, a surprising amount of grace just a short while ago.
So why had it shattered my control so completely?
Each step felt heavy, the future uncertain. Paige. My job. Everything felt fragile, breakable. And it was all my own damn fault.