Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
NYLA
When I came back to the ER yesterday, freshly showered and in dry clothes, I had a thousand theories about how Jaden would behave. None of them were right.
He behaved like he always does, wanted to know every possible and impossible thing, cracked jokes, and gave me a scientific explanation of why the brain can’t tell the difference between real and imagined danger.
It was as if he’d forgotten that a few minutes earlier he had almost kissed me. Or maybe almost kissed me.
Or maybe not.
God, I really should stop thinking about it all the time.
Especially since it doesn’t matter at all what happened, or almost happened, or would never have happened anyway.
Not for the first time, I try to shake the thoughts out of my head while the ambulance drives along the country road toward Peggy’s Cove, where our next call is waiting.
A young woman has fallen down the stairs.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Jaden. His gaze fixed on the road, he radios in our estimated time of arrival to dispatch. He stifles a yawn, and his five-day stubble doesn’t look quite as neatly trimmed as it has over the past few days.
‘Copy that, 4-2-6, a first responder on scene has stabilized the patient in the meantime,’ dispatch replies.
I exhale in relief. Alex, who’s our driver today, puts on the blinker. Her long blond hair is gorgeous. Together with the freckles, the impressively toned body, and the friendly smile, you can only describe her as stunningly beautiful.
‘All right. We’ll check in when we get there.’ Jaden puts the radio back in its place and reaches for one of those disgusting energy drinks—his third today.
He really ought to cut that out. Too much caffeine can lead to heart palpitations, high blood pressure, and sleep problems. The huge amounts of sugar promote obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay.
On top of that there’s the smoking, his risk-taking behavior, and God knows what else he’s doing to his body.
How can he live like that?
I scrutinize him. ‘Tell me, are you actually aiming for an early death?’
Alex smirks. She seems to know Jaden well.
‘I’m just a selfless person.’ Jaden takes an conspicuously large gulp of his energy drink and turns to me. ‘Without this stuff I wouldn’t be able to tell an ECG from a shopping list anymore. That’s not how you should be treating patients, right?’
You definitely shouldn’t. Still, he can’t neglect himself like this. ‘And why exactly do you even have this ECG–shopping-list problem today?’
He leans toward me with a probing look. ‘Tell me, Miss Worst Case, is your smile on vacation today, or is it still on its way?’
‘Nyla,’ I correct him. He wants to distract, nothing more, but it’s not going to work. ‘What kept you up so badly last night that you already need your third energy drink?’
For a while he studies me thoughtfully, then the corners of his mouth twitch in amusement. ‘There was this music in my head, together with the sound of rain on asphalt.’
I can’t help swallowing; all at once I feel my heart pounding harder in my chest. So he thought about it too, more than once, maybe even the whole night.
‘And I didn’t want to sleep, I wanted to dance,’ he adds with a pointedly dreamy expression. ‘No idea why.’
He’s joking. He wants to distract from the fact that he’s running his body into the ground. Right? Of course that’s what it is, I know that, and yet he confuses me.
Abruptly, he leans back again. ‘And that’s exactly what I did.’
How? He partied all night? Before a workday? I don’t know what to say to that, and I don’t have to, because Alex raises her hand at that moment. Instinctively, my gaze follows.
‘It’s up ahead,’ she says.
Buffeted by the wind, the lighthouse towers in front of us against the gray sky while the waves crash against the rocks.
‘Dispatch, this is 4-2-6, come in.’ Jaden has grabbed the radio again.
‘4-2-6, this is Dispatch.’
Alex parks the car.
‘We’re on scene,’ Jaden reports, then we get out of the vehicle.
The salty moisture in the air settles on my skin like a film.
Jaden shoulders the emergency pack and we march to the door.
A teenage girl, pale and her face contorted with pain, is lying on the narrow spiral staircase inside the lighthouse.
At her side stands the first responder from the local fire department, who now steps aside for us.
‘What happened?’ Jaden immediately kneels down next to our patient.
‘She fell down the stairs and landed on her hip,’ the man replies. ‘I treated her as best I could, but something’s probably broken.’
I give him a nod, take down the data, and have him confirm that her parents have already been notified. ‘Thanks, we’ll take it from here,’ I say at the end.
‘I can’t move,’ our patient murmurs, pressing her pale lips together.
Jaden gently places a hand on her shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you. Do you have pain anywhere besides your hip?’
Looking for a spot from which I can support Jaden while he works, I edge past a pillar.
‘Every time I move, it feels like someone is ramming a knife into my thigh.’ The young woman groans loudly.
From here I can’t help; I have to get to the other side, over to where Jaden is. The space next to him, however, is pretty tight.
I squeeze my way over to him and examine the girl’s leg. Shortened, abnormal position. ‘Suspected femoral neck fracture,’ I say. Jaden shoots me a knowing look. ‘We need to stabilize her and give her painkillers before we move her.’
‘Yeah, but look at the space we’ve got here.’ He points to the narrow staircase that barely offers enough room to treat the patient properly or use a stretcher.
At last I’m beside Jaden, so close to him that my right side touches his left as I sink down onto the floor. I feel every slightest tension in his body, how his muscles work, how controlled his movements are.
‘I’ll place an IV before we transport her,’ I murmur, trying my best to ignore his nearness.
My elbow brushes Jaden’s chest, my knee nestles against his for the fraction of a second. At once I feel heat under my skin.
The cramped space forces me to practically slide onto Jaden’s lap to get the IV solution out of the emergency backpack. His breath brushes my neck, his arm touches my back. Images of the two of us yesterday in the rain haunt my mind, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
He raises an eyebrow, a hint of amusement in his gaze. ‘Tight in here, huh?’
Way too tight. ‘Hold this.’ I press the IV solution into his hand and try to find a vein in the patient’s arm in the dim light of the stairwell. ‘Do you have a flashlight?’
It takes a moment, but then the light of a flashlight flares up. A moment of concentration, a needle prick, and the line is in.
‘We’ll wait a bit until the painkillers kick in, then we’ll get her out of here.’ However that’s supposed to work. I turn to Jaden. ‘We definitely can’t manage it with the stretcher, can we?’
He leans against the stair railing, his focused gaze roaming over the spiral staircase. ‘No, there isn’t enough space for that, we can only try the rescue chair.’
‘Too risky if she has a femoral neck fracture.’ I bite my lip. Both options are anything but ideal. ‘Is there another way?’
‘We’ll carry her in a half-reclining position.’ Jaden looks down the stairs. ‘It’s only a few steps. If we stabilize the leg beforehand and administer additional pain medication…’
Yes, that’s the best way. ‘Good, give me a splint.’
We carefully set to work.
‘I’ll call Alex so she can help carry,’ I say as soon as we’re done. I shouldn’t be lifting anything this heavy, and if I run out of strength on the way, it could have fatal consequences for the teenager’s already considerable injury.
‘Oh, come on, we’ve got this. Grab her legs with me,’ Jaden says, full of energy, and crouches down behind the patient.
No. We have enough time to get our perfectly trained driver. It’s the optimal solution. For everyone. I give Jaden a pointed look. ‘You stay here, I’ll get Alex.’
‘But you’re already here, and the patient weighs fifty kilos at most. I’ll take the main load, you just have to stabilize her legs.’
That’s what I want to do, but the risk of it going wrong is too great.
I shake my head, whereupon a deep furrow forms between Jaden’s brows.
He doesn’t get it—of course he doesn’t—he’s probably thinking I’m trying to get out of work, that I don’t want to help the patient, that I don’t want to get my hands dirty.
But I’m just not like him, I’m no heroine.
‘I’ll be right back,’ I say quickly and squeeze past the pillar. On my way down I can practically feel Jaden’s eyes on my back.
Questioning. Accusing. Stunned.
And he’s at least partly right. Yesterday, in the ER, I treated a woman completely wrong, and now I’m not pitching in. I’m a doctor who can’t really help. And the day after tomorrow I might not even be that anymore, but a patient again myself.
Panic rises hot inside me; I push it back. If my body isn’t strong enough, then at least my nerves should be.
I wave to Alex, who is waiting next to the ambulance and immediately ready to help.
Five minutes later, the patient is lying in the vehicle.
I take a deep breath while Jaden stabilizes the teenager’s leg and hip for transport.
The question of whether I can ever be the doctor I so badly want to be still remains inside me.