12. The Ask
The Ask
NORA
Working in an ER is almost like fighting on a battlefield every day.
You're on your feet for twelve hours, alert and ready for whatever comes through those doors.
You're keeping injured and ailing people alive while more keep arriving.
Stretchers come through the bay, walk-ins fill up triage, ambulances back up in the loop outside.
The work doesn't stop because you're tired, and it doesn't slow down because you just finished the last one.
But it's not the work of treating patients that's going to wear you down. It's managing their anxiety.
Every patient in this department is having one of the worst days of their life.
They're scared, they're in pain, they don't understand what's happening to them, and they're stuck in a bed waiting for someone to tell them whether they're okay.
That fear doesn't sit quietly. It turns into anger, into impatience, into pressing the call button every five minutes, into snapping at the nurse who finally walks in.
Managing the person, not just the medicine, is the invisible part of the job. You check in. You explain what's happening even when there's nothing new to report. You give them a face and a timeline so the fear has somewhere to land besides their own chest.
And when a nurse doesn't do that, the patient sits alone.
The gap fills with fear, and by the time the attending rounds on bay twelve, the patient isn't just waiting for results.
He's angry. And his anger is justified because the job isn't just "draw the blood and come back when the lab calls.
" The job is the whole person in the bed.
Midmorning, Harlan stopped outside bay twelve during rounds. I was charting two bays down and heard the conversation through the curtain.
"Doc, I've been here two hours and nobody's checked on me since the blood draw."
Harlan looked at the whiteboard, then at the chart. Bay twelve was Liz's.
He found her at the nurses' station.
"Your patient in twelve says he hasn't been reassessed since his labs were drawn. His troponin's back and I need updated vitals before I can make a disposition. What happened?"
Liz's face went tight. "I've been managing four other bays. Fourteen coded—"
"Fourteen didn't code. Fourteen had a pressure drop and was stabilized thirty minutes ago." His voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. "Bay twelve needs vitals and a reassessment. Now, please."
Liz stood up and walked to bay twelve without a word. Jen, who had been charting beside her, didn't look up from her screen. The silence between them said enough.
Five minutes later, Harlan stopped at my workstation.
"Avery. Seven's labs are back. Walk me through what you're seeing."
I pulled up the results. We went through them together: the white count, the lactate, the trending creatinine. He listened, asked two follow-up questions, and nodded.
"Good. Let's get the repeat in four hours and keep the fluid running. If the lactate doesn't trend down, page me directly."
He moved on.
From the nurses' station, Liz watched him walk away.
Liz and Jen were already in the break room when I walked in for my fifteen.
They were at the table by the window, coffees in front of them, mid-conversation about something that stopped when I came through the door. I sat at the other table, pulled out my sandwich, and unwrapped it.
"Harlan's really nice to you, isn't he?"
Liz said it without turning around. Casual, like she was still talking to Jen and I just happened to be in the room.
"He's like that with everyone."
"Is he?" She stirred her coffee. "Because it seems like he has a lot of time for you specifically. Pulling you onto cases, walking through labs with you at the workstation." She took a sip. "He doesn't do that with all of us."
"He does, Liz. You've worked with him longer than I have."
Jen turned in her chair to face me. "So are you dating Knox Sullivan?"
The question hit me sideways.
"What?"
"We saw you at the diner a couple weeks ago." Jen tilted her head. "Just the two of you."
I didn't know how to answer that. Knox and I had never talked about what we were. A month ago, friends would have been the right word for it. But after last weekend at the station, and every time I thought he was going to kiss me and he didn't, friends didn't feel like the right word anymore.
"We're friends," I said. "He helped me buy a car."
Liz smiled. "Nora, you don't have to explain yourself to us." She leaned back in her chair. "You're a beautiful girl. You have options. We wouldn't fault you for exploring."
"I'm not exploring anything."
"Come on. It's okay." She held up a hand, still smiling. "We're on your side."
Jen nodded like this was settled. "Honestly, good for you. Knox Sullivan and Dr. Harlan both paying attention? That's not nothing."
"Harlan is my attending. Knox is my friend. That's all there is."
"Okay." Liz picked up her coffee. "We believe you."
They went back to their conversation like I'd never been part of it. I sat at my table with my sandwich in front of me and my appetite gone.
I wrapped the sandwich back up and went back to the floor.
That Friday, Knox asked if I wanted to come to The Lantern. The crew went every time their days off hit a Friday or a Saturday, and this week the schedule lined up. I said yes before I finished reading the text.
"...turns out, he did need to go to the bathroom. Let it go right there while I was running his plates."
The table groaned. Travis put his forehead on the bar. Greene shook his head. "Poor guy."
Jeremy leaned back with his beer. "Yeah. That was one very interesting report that evening."
Wyatt was shaking his head. Andy had her hand over her mouth. Knox was smiling beside me, his arm stretched across the back of my chair. The Lantern was full, the music was low, and the whole table was loose and easy.
Knox leaned toward me. "You okay?"
I blinked. "Oh. Yeah, just some trouble at work."
Andy looked over. "ER work is no joke."
"The work I can handle. It's some of the people I work with that make it difficult." I looked around the table. "I kind of envy this. How everyone here just gets along."
Travis pointed his bottle at me. "I thought you were good friends with Lori?"
"No, Lori's great. She's one of the good ones. One of the really good ones."
Knox took a drink. "It's Halstead and Burnham."
I looked at him. "How did you know?"
"It's not the Filipinas, and it's not Lori. That leaves Liz and Jen."
Andy set her glass down. "Liz Halstead and Jen Burnham? They've been like that since high school."
Wyatt turned to her. "Liz Halstead and Jen Burnham are the same Liz and Jen that bullied you in high school?"
Andy took a sip of her beer. "Yup."
"We've been around them this whole time?"
"Yup."
"How did I not put that together?"
She leaned over. "Because" — she kissed his cheek — "you're a man."
Andy turned back to me. "Seriously, though.
Don't let them get to you. Their opinions don't matter.
The opinions of the people who love you are the ones that matter.
" She held my eyes. "As long as you're doing good work, you'll be fine.
And if they ever try to get you in trouble, document everything and go to HR. "
Travis raised his glass. "Wow. Spoken like a real cop."
"Shut up, Travis."
The table laughed.
Something loosened in my chest. I was still frustrated. Liz and Jen were still going to be on that floor Monday morning. But sitting here, with Knox beside me and the sound of this table around us, the weight felt manageable. I could go back and be fine.
Knox drove me home that night. He pulled into Barb's driveway and put the truck in park. The porch light was on. The house was quiet.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah." I smiled. "I feel a lot better. I'm glad I went out tonight."
He nodded. Then he rested his hands on the steering wheel and looked straight ahead for a second, choosing his words.
"There's something I've been meaning to ask you."
"What about?"
"There's this place in Oatman I want to take you to."
I looked at him. "Are you asking me out on a date?"
"Yes." He met my eyes. "But only if you want to."
I smiled. "Yes. I want to."
Knox smiled back. "Okay. I'll text you the details."
I leaned across the console and kissed him on the cheek. "Good night, Knox."
"Good night."
I climbed out of the truck and walked to the front door. Before I went inside, I turned back. He was still in the driveway, still watching. I waved. He lifted a hand off the wheel.
I went inside and shut the door behind me.