1.Charlotte
There’s something curious about ‘being fine’: say it enough times, and the word stops meaning anything. It becomes a reflex, a placeholder, a verbal shrug you offer the world so it stops asking questions you don't want to answer.
I was fine.
Totally, completely, absolutely fine.
The symphony of Riverside General's ER at 3 PM was a specific, practiced chaos, the kind that would send most people running for the exits but felt like home to me. A toddler's wail from curtain bay three harmonized with the steady beep of a cardiac monitor in bay one, underscored by the hushed, rapid-fire exchange of two residents arguing about lab results near the nurses' station.
"Jenna, breathe," I said, my voice low as I guided the new nurse's trembling hands. She was holding a blood pressure cuff like it might sprout teeth and bite her. "Mr. Henderson's veins are tricky. You're looking for the bounce, not the river."
"The bounce?" Her eyes were wide, slightly panicked. Three weeks into her rotation, and she still couldn’t tighten the Velcro on a cuff without trembling.
"Here." I took her hand, repositioning it gently over the elderly man's papery skin. "Feel that? Right there. That's your target. Now inflate."
She followed my instructions, and I watched her shoulders slowly relax as the reading stabilized on the monitor.
"I got it," she breathed, with a hint of wonder in her voice.
"You got it," I confirmed. "See? You're not going to kill anyone today."
"That's... a low bar for success," she said, but she was smiling now.
"In the ER? That's the only bar that matters. Everything else is just paperwork." I stepped back, giving her space to finish up. "Page me if you need anything. And remember, confident hands. Patients can sense fear."
"That's terrifying."
"Welcome to nursing."
I moved away, my eyes already scanning the board. Ramirez, chest pain, waiting on troponin results. Miller, ankle fracture, needs casting. My brain sorted and prioritized automatically, a constant hum of triage running beneath every other thought.
At the central station, Sarah caught my eye as she handed off a chart to one of the residents. Her dark hair was escaping its ponytail, and she had the slightly manic look of someone who'd been running on coffee and adrenaline for about six hours too long.
"Henderson's BP is stabilizing," she reported. "Jenna got it on the third try. Only mild hyperventilation on her part."
"Progress."
"You're a saint for your patience with her. I would've taken over by the second attempt."
"That's because you're a control freak."
"I prefer 'efficiency enthusiast.'" Sarah tilted her head, studying me with the particular scrutiny of someone who'dworked beside me for three years. "You look like death, by the way. Gorgeous, professional death, but still. Death."
"Thanks. That's exactly the look I was going for."
"When did your shift end?"
I reached for the next chart, avoiding her eyes. "Recently."
"Charlotte."
"Fine. Three."
She glanced at the clock on the wall. 4:23 PM. "So you've been off the clock for almost ninety minutes, and you're still here because...?"
"I wanted to make sure Jenna didn't accidentally kill Mr. Henderson." I flipped open the chart, scanning the notes without really seeing them. "And Mrs. Gable's new medication cocktail isn't sitting right, so I wanted to flag that for the night shift."
"Uh-huh." Sarah plucked the chart from my hands and didn’t even look at it. "When did you eat lunch?"
