A gunshot wound victim rolled in screaming, but we’d seen a ton of them before. We operated quick, but blood was everywhere. Our doc was yelling for more when the man’s hand shot out to grip mine. The red of it smeared all over my rubber gloves, and I tried to yank it back since I needed to be able to handle tools for the physician operating on him.
He didn’t let me go. His grip was tight, and as I caught his gaze to tell him he had to settle down, he stared at me with dark eyes.
“You’re Izzy’s sister. You’re that girl with the boyfriend who got her out.”
I shook my head immediately.
“You look just like her. I knew she was bad news. And you. You’re worse. Your boyfriend did this. I saw him. I saw him!”
My eyes widened. I yelled, “Necesitamos intubar ahora.” His oxygen saturation was dropping, and I needed him to shut up.
One of the nurses nodded and agreed with me, but Allan froze and stared like he’d seen a ghost. He stood staring so long that the head physician screamed at him.
More blood poured from the victim. His oxygen kept dropping.
We couldn’t get it to stop.
His life ran away from him just like my joy fled from me at his words.
For the rest of the night, I tried to remember the joy Dante and I shared. I tried to relish it. Then, as the cases got worse and my mind kept concocting ideas of what he was doing out there, I fought to hold on to it.
A mother lost her baby at eight months that same night. She held my hand as she cried and cried, then she stared up at me and said, “I wish I’d never even tried.”
I watched the joy flee from me. Fear and sadness and loathing crept in. So many hours at the therapist's office, so many check marks on a list, so many smiles and bouts of laughter hadn’t stopped the darkness from inking over it.
It never would.
Depression wasn’t an emotion to stop, my therapist had always said. I couldn’t ace my way through it or navigate around it or avoid it. Sometimes, I had to accept the piece of me I didn’t want, and as I left the hospital that night, the thing I feared most was whether or not Dante could accept that part of me too.
So instead of processing it with him, I tried to go without him.
He had to work too, I figured. Maybe he wouldn’t be home.
Only about ten minutes into me getting a massage from the spa downstairs, I got a text.
Dante:Where are you?
Me: I’ll be back in the room soon.
Dante: Don’t make me ask you again.
Me: I’m getting a massage.
Dante: I give you massages. What the hell are you going to get one for?
Me: I had a gift card from a patient, and the reviews on the website were good.
Also,I was practically addicted to his massages but needed to be self-sufficient sometimes. The man had done practically everything for me in the past week, other than accompanying me to work and putting on the nursing uniform to do my job. I figured I’d give him a break.
Dante:Mine are better. Mine are the only ones you should ever be getting.
Me: Oh, please. This guy has strong hands too. It’s only a twenty-minute one. I’ll be back soon.
Dante: A guy?
Me: Yes.
Dante: Where are you?