‘It’s been thirty minutes.’
The finality of the words cut through. Dr. Alice sighed heavily, pulling her bloodied fingers from the boy and carefully rubbing the hair away from her forehead with the back of her hand. ‘Anyone got any ideas?’
Heads shook. Hands withdrew. Faces were somber.
Alice snapped off her gloves. ‘Time of death, zero one thirty-two. Are the family here yet?’
‘In the waiting room.’
‘Give me a few minutes to get cleaned up, then I’ll speak to them.’
Voice trailed away. A curtain was pulled. I was alone with him.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I told him, gently wiping a streak of blood off his cheek, feeling a tear trickle down mine. People died in front of me every day. It was part of the job. Something that was drilled into us at training. If we let every death get to us, we’d be basket cases. For ten years I’d been able to do my job. We’d congratulate ourselves for the ones we could save. Accept the ones we couldn’t. Learn from them, if there were lessons to be learned. I’d debrief with colleagues if I needed to, then let it go.
But lately, something had changed. I’d been ignoring it, pretending it wasn’t real, that it was fleeting, temporary. Convincing myself that everything was as it should be. But some nights, the faces of the ones we lost had started to haunt me.
This boy, Theo, was around the same age as my nephew, Logan. Same lanky, long-limbed teenage-boy build. Painfully young features, cheeks still slightly cubby in contrast with the rest of him. This was someone’s baby. Someone’s world. I tried to imagine my sister facing the news Theo’s parents were about to receive but couldn’t. In a room with glittering Christmas tinsel taped to the walls and a brightly lit six-foot fake tree in the corner, they were about to be told the world as they knew it was over. Would never be the same again.
At the desk outside the cubicle, the trauma phone went off. In the emergency bay next door, on the other side of the curtain, a monitor alarmed. Voices became louder, more urgent. More people were dying. More were coming in.
It would never end.
The curtain rustled and the familiar head of my best friend, Holly, popped around the curtain.
‘Fuck him,’ she said. ‘Honestly, you could do a million times better.’
I blinked at her. ‘What?’
She noticed the dead boy on the bed in front of me. ‘Oh shit, sorry. Are you OK?’
‘Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just… tragic, you know?’
‘He looks young.’
‘Fourteen.’
‘Fourteen?’ She shook her head solemnly. ‘Poor kid.’
I sighed, pulling the sheet up to cover Theo’s face. ‘Distract me. What were you saying when you rudely burst in here?’
She suddenly looked shifty. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Honestly, it’s nothing important. It can wait. I’ll catch up with you later.’ She closed the curtain and disappeared, but I followed her out.
‘Stop right there, Holly Walsh.’
She froze in her tracks and slowly turned.
‘You know that I know you’re lying, right?’ I told her. ‘So just spit it out. Whatever it is.’
She pulled a face. ‘OK. But first you have to promise me that you won’t spiral when I tell you.’
‘I promise.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘You know that I know whenyou’relying too, right?’
