There was a foreign burning sensation behind my ribs at the mention of this guy asking to see her, and my grip on my beer bottle subconsciously tightened. “What, uh…what’s the history there? I mean, I know he’s an ex, but what’s the story?”
She took a long sip of her drink before sighing and diving into what I quickly realized was acomplicatedhistory. She explained their three-year on-again, off-again relationship, the guy’s inability to stay committed, and his indiscretions that she overlooked and forgave time and time again.
He sounded like a grade-A prick, but I kept that thought to myself.
“But you finally called it quits…”
Haley nodded. “A year and a half ago. It just…Ifinallyrealized how toxic it was. I realized nothing was ever going tochange. Thathewasn’t going to change, no matter how much I wanted him to.”
My chest tightened with uncertainty as I asked my next question, surprised by the anxious knot forming, although I couldn’t quite explain why. “Do you…do you still have feelings for him?”
“No,” she replied without hesitation. “There is no part of me that misses him.”
I shouldn’t have felt the rush of relief I did at her answer, but it was sudden and undeniable. “So…” I trailed off, taking a sip of my beer, trying to appear unfazed. “If you’re not still hung up on him, why did his text throw you off so much?”
She took another sip of her drink. “I don’t know, honestly. I just…after all this time, I don’t understand why he’s reaching out. The first time, he was engaged. Now he’s telling me he called off his engagement, thinking that’s why I didn’t respond. It’s just...weird and confusing.”
“And did you say anything back?”
“No. I still didn’t respond.”
“Are you going to?”
“No,” she answered, again without hesitation.
“Good.”
She arched her brow with a chuckle. “Good?”
“Yes,good. Since you’ve already established this guy has treated you like shit before, responding would be adirect violationof the promise you made me.” That earned another laugh from her. “Plus, you already know that what he has to offer you isn’t what you want.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever find what Iwant,” she said with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“What? You want the fairytale?” I teased.
“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “I want…I want the little things.”
I arched my brow. “Little things?”
“Yeah, you know, like…lazy Sunday mornings. Dancing in the kitchen. Getting in the car for random drives. Impulsive trips, even if they’re not far. Those kinds of ‘things’…”
I stared at her. She had this wistful look in her eyes, shadows of longing for something she’d never experienced but wanted so desperately to. Her vulnerability in that moment was clear, and I felt a wave of empathy. And I suddenly found myself wanting her to have that, too, simply because she deserved it.
I tilted my beer bottle towards her. “To the little things.”
Haley smiled, clinking her glass against my bottle.
The next day, the chaos in the ER continued. We were hit with one patient after another, but luckily, most of them were easy in-and-out cases.
Haley and I had just rounded the corner from discharging a patient when Marie called out, “We got one coming in hot.”
We had no time for questions. The ambulance bay doors opened, and they rushed in, doing CPR on the patient. I nodded at Haley. “It’s all you.”
I trailed behind her as she hurried to the bed while they quickly moved the patient and continued CPR. “What do you have?” she asked.
“Thirty-year-old male. Became short of breath and collapsed at the finish line of the Cove Runners Marathon. No known medical history. BLS given en route…”
I looked at Haley, watching as she quickly assessed the patient and processed the information they were providing. At the same time, Marie and the CNA, Sarah, hooked him up to the monitorand defibrillator. In my head, I was saying the steps mere seconds before she called them out herself—stop compressions, check the rhythm, shock, epinephrine. She was doing everything she should be. And the monitor began beeping when she got the patient back.
