Bernard is not dreadful to look at. This fact has been abundantly clear to me over the past forty-eight hours.
Bernard, given the party-boy reputation that precedes him and the approximately nine hundred women I've seen tagged in his social media over the years, is probably very skilled at sex.
Bernard, as of three minutes ago, owes me a favor.
This is a terrible idea. I know that asking my brother's roommate to take my virginity is the kind of decision that belongs in a cautionary tale, not a life plan.
But I'm lying here in his bed, in his sheets, and I can still feel his hand on my nipple, and I think: what if I just got it over with? What if I claimed this one thing for myself? One less obstacle between me and being a fully formed adult who doesn't flinch when someone touches her because the sensation is so foreign it short-circuits her brain?
I owe you, Ella.
I let the idea sit in the dark, testing its weight, the way you press a bruise to gauge how much it hurts.
I'll ask him. Not now, obviously, with him reeking of beer and regret. But soon.
In the meantime, I have to get back to the hospital. I’ve got to be standing by Susan by seven on the dot to usher in gunshot wounds and burn victims galore.
I slide out of bed and gather my scrubs from the neat pile by my suitcase, pulling them on in the dark. I brush my teeth, lace up my shoes, grab my badge, and my bag.
I slip out the front door without a sound. The hallway is quiet. The elevator hums.
I step into the cold Pittsburgh pre-dawn and walk toward the bus stop, feeling the ghost of Bernard's erection with every step.
Chapter 5
Ella
A kid comes in on a stretcher before Susan and I can even start a conversation. The paramedics seem confident he’s a lost cause.
A certainty builds inside me, though. I will not lose this kid.
He's maybe nineteen, hit by a car crossing Penn Avenue, and his abdomen is rigid and distended while the EMTs rattle off vitals that paint a grim picture.
I hear all the words from my clinicals, from exams I failed. But today their meaning resonates. Tachycardic. Hypotensive. Altered consciousness. Internal bleeding, almost certainly, and he needs blood before he needs anything else.
"O neg, two units, now," Susan calls out, and I'm already moving.
This is the thing about me that doesn't make sense on paper. I can't pass a multiple-choice test to save my life. I transpose numbers. I second-guess written answers until I've erased holes through the Scantron. But put me in a room with a patient who is actively dying, and my hands are steady, my mind is clear, and I know exactly what to do.
I grab the blood from the rapid infuser, check the unit number against the patient's band twice, because shortcuts kill people, and spike the bag while the other nurse named Aarthi preps the second line.
She's fast. I noticed that about her yesterday: precise hands, no wasted movement, and a face that gives away nothing even when things are bad. She’s new like me, but I haven’t had a chance to talk to her.
"Pressure's dropping," McKenzie says from the monitor. The third nurse in my hiring class has her fingers on the kid's radial pulse, and her voice is steady, but I can see her jaw tighten.
She's from Louisville and has a drawl that comes out when she's stressed, which means every word right now has about four syllables.
"Squeeze the bag," Susan tells me, and I'm already squeezing it, forcing the donated blood in as fast as gravity and my grip will allow. The kid's skin is gray. His eyes are half-open, and seeing nothing.
The attending materializes and starts calling for imaging, surgical consult, the whole cascade that happens when somebody’s belly is full of blood. I stay focused on my line, on the flow rate, on the kid's face. I watch his color. I watch his breathing.
"Second unit's ready," Aarthi says beside me, and we swap bags without a word, like we've been doing this together for years instead of two shifts.
It takes eleven minutes. The surgical team takes him upstairs with enough volume on board to keep his pressure stable, and the attending pauses at the nurses' station to look at our little trio of new hires.
"Good work in there," Dr. Reed says, and he's looking at me when he says it.
Susan squeezes my shoulder on her way past. "Quick hands, honey. Real quick."
