I came to the ER one night and treated a girl with a compound fracture and watched her father carry her out, and now I'm here.
Here is terrifying in the way only good things are.
The kind that comes from having something you don't want to lose.
"Leah!" Wrenleigh's voice from the kitchen. "Dad's burning the eggsagain!"
"I am not burning the eggs!"
"They're smoking, Dad."
"That's steam."
"That is not steam."
I leave the mirror and go downstairs to save breakfast.
Because that's my life now—bruises fading, eggs burning, and a house that feels more like home than anyplace I've ever lived.
Coin is at the stove, spatula in hand, looking at the eggs like they've personally offended him.
He's wearing jeans and no shirt, and the morning light from the kitchen window catches the muscles in his back, and I take a second to appreciate this man before I rescue his breakfast.
"Move," I say, bumping him with my hip. "I'll finish."
"They're not burned."
"They're not eggs anymore either. Move."
He moves, takes his coffee to the table and flips the coin between his fingers while I scrape the pan and start over.
The girls eat. Wrenleigh complains about the milk. Sadie Jo does homework she already finished because that's her version of comfort.
And I stand at the stove making eggs that aren't burned and aren't great and don't matter, because the fact that I'm making them is the point.
My shifts at Ruby Memorial have been different.
The flood of fentanyl overdoses that hammered the ER for weeks has slowed.
Not stopped—there are still cases, still bad batches.
But the pipeline that was pumping poison into Morgantown has been dismantled.
Haley Briggs is out of the hospital, back at school, getting counseling. Dr. Boggs told me last week, "Whatever changed out there, I hope it holds."
It'll hold because I know who's holding it.
Angelica comes on Thursday.
Coin arranged it. His terms, his schedule, his house.
She arrives at four looking different. Not better, but different.
Jeans and a sweater. Standing straighter. Hands not shaking.
"Fifteen minutes," Coin says. "In the living room. I'll be right here."
Wrenleigh is on the couch. Arms crossed, jaw set, blue eyes hard enough to cut glass.
