26. Matty
Chapter twenty-six
Matty
The emergency room was rarely quiet; but some days, the pace became so frenetic that we lost all sense of time and space. All we could do was remain calm and focus on whatever walked in next. Triage became a chokepoint, a bottleneck, a stubborn cog in the wheel that refused to turn and backed up all the other cogs—in this case, patients—from receiving the care they needed. Those days were usually punctuated by some sort of disaster: a major, multi-vehicle accident, an apartment fire, or some other form of craziness life had decided to toss our way.
Atlanta was a magnet for such events. I supposed, with over five million people crammed into a patch of land, that made an odd sort of cosmic sense.
Still, nurses needed a moment to breathe, damn it.
The fates or gods or whoever pulled the strings didn’t get that memo, because when noon rolled around, I was certain it was only nine o’clock. Three hours had passed in a bedazzled blur of broken limbs, heart palpitations, food poisonings, and two cases of patients who’d shoved foreign objects where they did not belong.
On any other day, we would’ve gathered in the break room to compare notes and laugh at what sort of vegetable, lightbulb, or other household oddity had made its way into an orifice. On that day, I barely remembered helping doc pull the plug on them, so to speak.
“Take ten.” Stephanie, our charge nurse, patted my shoulder. She looked as wrung out as I felt. “You should be able to make it to the cafeteria and back in that time. You’ll need to eat on the way, though. We’re still stacked up all the way to Peachtree Street.”
There were a thousand or so streets in Atlanta named Peachtree. None of them were remotely close to our hospital. She’d made a joke. Sort of.
“Thanks, Steph,” I said, giving her a weary smile as I stood. The other nurses raced from one room to another so quickly I could barely keep up. Hell, they could barely keep up, and they were the ones running.
I’d made it a few paces down the hallway when my phone buzzed.
Pharaoh : Matty, I need you.
My heart skipped a beat, and a smile split my exhausted face. Pharaoh was the nickname I’d plugged into my phone shortly after Omar told me he loved me. Or was that after he sucked out my entire youth and swallowed it whole? I couldn’t remember.
Either way, I thought it was cute.
And the fact he started a conversation with “I need you” sent my pulse pounding.
Me : I always need you, my luscious little biscuit.
I was pretty sure Brits called cookies biscuits. I was trying to be sweet and clever.
Pharaoh : No. Seriously. I need you. Now. I can’t breathe.
What the hell?
Me : I’m on my way. Sit down. You’re in a hospital, for fuck’s sake. Get a nurse’s attention. I’ll be there in three minutes.
Pharaoh : Oh, God, Matty. I’m bawling in the middle of my station.
I took off running down the hallway, shouting at everyone in my way to stand aside for an emergency. It was a routine occurrence in a hospital, so no one gave me a second glance as I streaked by. My mind was a jumble, and every emotion I had ever felt was lodged in my throat. What could’ve brought Omar, my contained, emotionally barricaded Brit, to crumble at work?
The badge reader at the NICU was stubborn. I swiped three times, almost banging the plate with my palm, before the light turned green and the doors swung open. A nurse I recognized, Carlie, shouted my name down the hallway and pointed to a closed door. I charged in to find Omar hunched over, his head in his hands and his shoulders heaving.
“Omar?” I said, dropping to my knees before him and gripping his shoulders. “Babe, I’m here.”
He fell forward, losing himself in my arms. I squeezed him to me, holding for dear life. The feel of his body shaking and the wetness soaking where his face pressed nearly brought me to tears. I hated seeing him in such obvious pain.
My phone buzzed. Stephanie was giving me a five-minute warning. They were drowning.
“Babe, I can’t stay. The ER is burning down. Talk to me.”
Slowly, he sat back and wiped his face.
“My father is dying.”
My heart sank. I didn’t think Omar and his father were close—at least, they didn’t seem to be—but watching him mourn before his dad had even passed, I wondered if there was more to their story than I knew.
“Mother called. They think he has months, but who knows? She told me . . . she said . . . this visit might be my last. God, Matty, this is my father. He is supposed to live forever. I mean . . . I know that’s stupid, but . . .”
I watched him wrestle with his feelings, struggling to gather himself amid the pain of loss to come. How many times had I seen that play out with the families of patients? How much more painful was it to watch someone I held so dear, so close to my heart? I wanted to scream and cry and punch something and run and . . . fuck.
I wanted to take his pain, but that was far beyond the skill of any doctor or nurse. It was greater, even, than any boyfriend could offer. I’d never felt so helpless.
“I’m all right,” he said, his voice strengthening as tears ebbed. “It just hit me hard this morning. I was holding a baby, and her father pressed his face and hands to the glass, and . . . Matty . . . I just lost it.”
I grabbed his face in my hands and pulled our foreheads together.
“When this day is over, you and I are spending the night on the couch. We’ll talk or not. I don’t care. I’m going to hold you, and you can tell me all about your dad and what’s going on, all right?”
He nodded against the pressure of my head but didn’t speak. I don’t think he trusted his voice yet.
“I love you, Omar. I’m going to be here for you, but I have to go before the ER implodes.”
He leaned back again. “You didn’t get to eat anything.”
And there was my Omar, thinking of me before himself. God, I loved that man.
He shuffled in his chair, reached into a pocket, and produced a protein bar.
“It isn’t much, but it will get you through the afternoon,” he said, holding the bar toward me. “I can’t have my hero go hungry.”
His hero.
Those words struck me harder than a slap across the cheek during a cat fight.
How on Earth could I be his hero? He was the strong one. He was the guy who knew what to do—always—no matter what. He might be a new nurse, but he learned faster than anyone I’d ever seen and had compassion oozing out every pore of his beautifully furry body. I couldn’t imagine anyone more hero-like than Omar.
But that was what he called me.
He leaned in and pressed his lips to mine, holding them together for a long moment. When he released me, his eyes had cleared, and he said, “Go save some lives. I love you.”
“Love you more,” I said, giving him another peck on the cheek before standing and smoothing out my scrubs. “Meet you at my place tonight?”
He nodded, blinking up at me, not really seeing anything.
“Your shift ends first. Just go there and make yourself comfortable. Have a drink. I’ll get home as fast as I can.”
“Okay,” he said. “Thank you for coming here. I know—”
I smothered his mouth with mine, then said in a stern voice, “Omar Gamal, I will always come for you. Always.”