But as I climbed into the truck, I thought about what Shane had said. What Rodriguez had said. What I wanted.
Maybe it was time to stop hiding.
CHAPTER 2
Ava
Independence wasn't a preference.It was a vow. I'd watched what happened when you let someone else define your worth. I promised myself I'd die before I became that woman.
"Trauma bay two, Dr. Rothwell. MVA, forty-three-year-old female. T-boned at an intersection. GCS eight on scene, BP dropping."
I was already moving. The ER at Queens General smelled the way it always did: antiseptic and blood and the desperation of people waiting to find out if their lives were about to change forever. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Monitors beeped in overlapping rhythms. Somewhere down the hall, a child was crying.
The paramedics burst through the doors with the gurney, already rattling off vitals. I caught what mattered: internal bleeding, probable splenic laceration, pulse thready and weak.
The patient was a woman in a business suit, blouse soaked red, wedding ring catching the trauma bay lights.
"On my count," I said. "One, two, three."
We transferred her to the table. I was already assessing, already calculating, my hands moving through the familiar choreography of holding death at bay.
"Get me two units of O-neg. Someone page surgery." I looked at the resident beside me. Chen, third year, good instincts, prone to freezing under pressure. "You're bagging. Keep her oxygenated. Don't think, just breathe for her."
Chen nodded, eyes wide but hands steady. Good.
The next forty minutes were a blur of blood and adrenaline and the high-pitched whine of monitors threatening to flatline. I cracked her chest in the trauma bay when her heart stopped the first time, got it beating again with my hands wrapped around it. Called for more blood when the transfusions couldn’t keep up.
I did everything right.
It wasn't enough.
"Time of death," I said, stripping off my gloves. "4:47 AM."
The room went quiet. Chen looked like he might cry. The nurses exchanged glances but kept their faces professional, the way you learn to do after enough codes.
"Someone call the family," I said. "I'll talk to them."
I walked to the family room on autopilot. A man was waiting there. He looked like he was in his early forties, still in pajama pants, the shell-shocked expression of someone who’d gotten the call every spouse dreads. Two kids sat beside him, a girl, maybe twelve, and a boy younger, both of them staring at me like I held the answer to a question they were terrified to ask.
I told them their mother was dead. I used the words we're trained to use:I'm so sorry. We did everything we could. She didn't suffer.The man crumpled. The girl started screaming. The boy just sat there, frozen, too young to understand and old enough to know something terrible had happened.
I stayed until social work arrived. Answered their questions. Kept my voice steady.
Then I walked back to the ER, washed my hands until the water ran clear, and picked up the next chart.
This was the job. You save who you can. You lose who you can't. You don’t fall apart.
The break room was empty except for a pot of coffee that had been sitting long enough to achieve sentience. I poured myself a cup anyway and sank into the cracked vinyl chair in the corner.
Five minutes. That was all I had before the next crisis.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I glanced at the screen.
DAD.
I let it ring. Watched his name pulse on the screen until it finally went to voicemail. He wouldn't leave a message. He never did.
More than a decade of silence, and now he was calling again. Three times this month. I didn't know what he wanted. I didn't care enough to find out.
