“I’mfrustratedbecause I don’t want to fucking be here! So just let me leave!”
“You were brought in on a police hold, so you have to stay here until you sober up,” Blake explained. “Let us do what we need to do, then you can sleep it off, and we can figure out where to go from there.”
The man huffed in annoyance, but, surprisingly, he didn’t argue further.
“We need to get some labs. Are you going to cooperate and let us do that?” Blake asked.
“Fine!” he yelled.
Blake, seeing that the patient responded only to him, even if reluctantly, decided to stay in the room with security when Natasha from the lab came in. He watched closely as she drew the labs, and only after she finished did we step out together and head down the hall.
“Are you okay?” he asked me.
“I’m fine. Not my first go-around with a patient like that.”
He nodded. “If you want, I’ll get his orders in, and you can get bed five ready for discharge?”
“Sounds good,” I said just before we split off.
Ten minutes later, I walked back into the charting area to find Blake sitting in front of the computer, wearing an expression that seemed almost haunted.
“Everything okay?”
“He’s a vet,” he said quietly.
My brow furrowed as I sat next to him. “Who?”
“Kaine. The guy in room thirteen. He’s a vet…” I looked from him to the computer screen, where he was reading over the patient’s medical history. “He’s been here eleven times in the last two months, each visit the same—intoxicated, belligerent, combative. He talked with one of the crisis counselors after his fourth visit, had a psych consult, and was diagnosed with PTSD, but he refused any options for resources or services, and has refused them each time since.”
“Well, they can’t force him to use the resources offer–”
“I know that,” he cut me off.
I couldn’t quite read Blake’s thoughts, but his worry was unmistakable. The tension in his jaw, the restless tapping of his fingers—this was more than just work stress.
“I’ll handle anything to do with him,” he said before abruptly standing.
My brow furrowed. “Blake–”
But he was already walking out of the room.
Something had been off about Blake for days. He seemed locked somewhere unreachable, burdened by something I couldn’t name. I hadn’t asked because, at first, I thought I might be imagining it. While I knew seeing a fellow veteran with PTSD was probably difficult for him, it was the way he just dismissedme and walked away that told me something more was going on.
A few hours later, when our shift ended, I left the hospital by myself. Blake decided he wanted to stay to see if the patient in room thirteen was going to wake up anytime soon, so he could try to talk to him, one veteran to another.
I didn’t try to persuade him otherwise. And I didn’t ask if there was something more going on because work wasn’t the place for that conversation. I planned to wait it out and talk to him later.
I didn’t realize then that it would end up being afew dayslater.
It was Saturday. The group’s usual night out at The Sandbar had been canceled because Callie was sick, and Wes and Gabe were away at a law conference in Florida. With my evening unexpectedly free, I messaged Blake to see if he wanted to hang out.
Since Wednesday—after that patient came in—Blake had seemed even more withdrawn. Over the last few days, I hadn’t found a chance for an in-person conversation, and it wasn’t something I wanted to handle over text. So, when he replied and told me I could come to his place, I didn’t hesitate, letting him know I’d be there in ten minutes.
When I got there, he still seemed distant in a way, and the vibe just felt off.
A little while after I arrived, I found myself sitting in his living room with Maverick half-sprawled across my lap on the sofa. Blake sat on the other end, lost in thought.
I couldn’t take it anymore. “Is everything okay?”
