Chapter 11 Sloane
Sloane
The morning drags unbearably as i try to stretch out my rounds.
I do my best to make my other patients’ needs more time consuming than they need to be.
Eventually I can’t put it off any longer, though.
I’ve done everything that needs doing, and since Dr. Patel is off today, that makes the girl my responsibility.
Carrie’s asleep when I go to her room. She isn’t alone. Kim Dixon is there from Psych. She’s a lovely woman. Motherly. Warm. She’s the first person they send down here when a kid needs assessing. Carrie’s no kid, but they must have hoped she’d respond to a maternal figure.
“Hey, Sloane,” she whispers, putting Carrie’s chart back into the slot at the end of her bed. “Heard you performed quite the miracle with this one.”
“Suresh did most of the work.” I smile, returning the same warmth she shows to me.
“Poor girl.” She looks at Carrie. The girl’s definitely a little worse for wear. There are dark purple rings around her eyes, and her skin is still deathly white. “I’m just waiting for her to decide to wake up. Any idea how long I’m going to be hanging around?”
“She’s not sedated anymore. Could be a couple of hours. Could be a day or more. She was in a pretty bad way.”
Kim wraps her arms around her body and tuts, frowning at the young woman in the bed.
She always takes these things to heart, no matter that she has never met the patient before.
“People say that suicide’s the coward’s way out, but they couldn’t be more wrong.
It takes nerves of steel to commit like she did.
It’s good that she’s here now. She can get the rest she needs.
Hopefully develop a different perspective on things.
She’ll have a whole team of people on hand just waiting to help her. ”
Dark brown eyes flash inside my head. I swallow hard even though there’s nothing constricting my airway. Don’t let Psych get ahold of her, or I’m gonna be seriously pissed.
“She’s lucky she came to St. Peter’s,” I whisper.
“She couldn’t be in better hands.” My mind goes to dark places when I worry.
Maybe Alexis is alive. Maybe she’s been suffering just like Carrie.
Who knows what kind of horrific things she’s been through.
It doesn’t even bear thinking about. Maybe she’s been laid up somewhere, recovering from trying to end her life, too.
She wouldn’t have been taken to a hospital, though.
Too many opportunities to ask for help. Too many exits through which to make a run for it.
Lex wouldn’t have had a woman like Kim to help her. That thought makes me so devastatingly sad. That guy, whoever he is, is crazy if he thinks I’m going to hand Carrie over to him. Just absolutely fucking crazy.
“Hey, Kim. I really have no idea when her sedative is going to wear off, but I’m done with all my work for the time being. Bar an emergency, I have a little while to sit with her. Why don’t you head back to your office? I’ll come find you if she wakes up.”
Kim smiles at me like I’m the most thoughtful person in the world. “Thanks, Sloane. I have a mountain of paperwork that’ll only get bigger if I don’t deal with it soon. You got my pager?”
I tell her I do, and she leaves, gently squeezing the top of my arm as she passes me.
The girl is awake. I know she is. Has been for some time, in fact.
She’s been playing dead, assessing her surroundings, probably trying to decide if it’s safe to be conscious.
Kim doesn’t deal with patients emerging from anesthesia every day like I do.
Carrie’s breathing is shallow, quiet, and controlled instead of the deep, regular draw of the heavily sedated.
I shift the armchair from the window to the bedside and sit myself down.
From there I watch Carrie, trying to figure out how best to proceed.
“So. I went and had coffee with my friend this morning,” I tell her.
“She’s prim and proper sometimes, but she’s always been there when I’ve needed her.
This morning I told her something dark about me.
It was a conversation I’d been considering having with her for a long time, but I’d been waiting for the right time to broach it, y’know?
I’m good at making excuses. I’ve always talked myself out of it.
So like with everything else, I left it until the very last minute, until something happened, and I didn’t feel like I had a choice anymore.
She gave me some solid advice that made perfect sense, and I just kept thinking on my way to work, why the hell couldn’t you have just made that decision for yourself, Sloane?
” I lean back in the chair, watching Carrie’s eyelids flutter. She’s listening.
“But… it’s hard to do the things we know we should do, isn’t it?
Hard to make the choices we know we need to make.
We’re all so entrenched by our problems that we can never see our way out of the maze we find ourselves in.
It’s easier to close our eyes and walk blindly because we’re too scared to acknowledge the mess we’re in.
The darkness we create ourselves is better than the darkness waiting for us with our eyes open.
At least we feel like we’re in control when we close ourselves off in the dark. ”
She doesn’t respond. I’m no psychiatrist. I’m not qualified to try to iron the creases out of this girl’s life.
But I am so curious about her—why he cares so much for her, who she is to him.
How it was that he came to be carrying her lifeless body into my ER.
“You know, if you’re scared… if you’re in a position you think there’s no escape from, let me tell you now…
there is always an escape. A way out. If you need somewhere to go, if you need someone to talk to, all you need to do is say so. I can make it all happen.”
Carrie’s eyelids flutter again. This time, they open. The girl’s eyes are pale blue, the color of compacted ice. Like an iceberg. They’re filled with tears. Most people would turn to look at me, but she doesn’t. She stares at the ceiling, her chest heaving as she battles her emotions.
“I don’t need your help. I don’t need somewhere to go.” Tears streak from the corner of her eyes, chasing each other across her temples and running into her ears. “I just need Zeth.”