“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Too bad.”
The ambulance doors slam.
And then we’re moving.
The siren doesn’t go on.
Good.
I think I’d cry if it did.
The EMT talks.
Asks pain scale, asks mechanism, asks if I heard a pop.
I answer where I can.
Mostly I just hold onto the metal rail and breathe.
Tristan leans forward, forearms braced on his knees, eyes never leaving my face. He looks half feral, half furious at the existence of pain itself.
At one point the EMT says, “You family?”
And before I can answer, Tristan says, “I’m with her.”
That lands somewhere deep enough to hurt differently.
I’m with her.
Not polished.
Not explained.
Not labeled.
Just claimed.
And maybe Drew really is a neanderthal because the thought that comes into my head right then is immediate and desperate and bright:
See?
He chose me.
The hospital is bright and cold and humiliating in the way all emergency rooms are.
A wheelchair.
Forms.
Nurses.
The smell of antiseptic and old coffee and fear.
The doctor says what the trainer already knew.
Tear.
