Page 50 of Time for You
“Being scared? Honey, you were in an accident that hurt a lot of people. Thatisscary. It would be weirder if you weren’t freaked out, honestly.”
That earned her another weak chuckle. “How long will the cast be on?”
“Six to eight weeks.”
Mariana sniffed and sighed at the same time. “So I’ll have it during prom, then.”
“You’ve got a date already? Aren’t you a sophomore?”
A blush started at Mariana’s hairline. “My friend Grace said they wanted to go with me. But they haven’t like, officially asked or anything, just mentioned it when we were hanging out last week.”
“Well, if Grace is a good friend, they won’t care if you’ve got a cast.”
“I know, it just—”
“Sucks,” Daphne finished. “And it does, you’re right about that. But you could like, decorate the cast or something. Make it match your dress?”
“Mariana?” a voice called.
Mariana pushed herself up. “Mama?”
Daphne pulled back the curtain so Mariana’s mother could make her way over. She teared up at the sight of her daughter, rushing over to wrap her in a tight hug. Daphne couldn’t hear what she was saying, but both mother and daughter were sobbing, and she stepped back to give them some space.
After a few minutes Mariana’s mother, Thea, straightened and wiped her cheeks dry. “Thank you for taking care of my baby,” she said. “She says she broke her leg?”
Daphne ran Thea through what she’d told Mariana—the fracture, the cast, and the recovery. “It won’t be fun, but within a few months, Mariana will be back to normal, I promise,” she said. “The break isn’t too bad, and with some physical therapy once the cast is off, she’ll see no lasting effects.”
“Thank you,” Thea said again.
Daphne wanted to stay and keep talking, but she caught the eye of Dr. Gupta, who was talking to a teenage boy and a man who appeared to be his grandfather, and knew she’d lingered too long already. There were other patients to see, and with the orders in for Mariana’s cast, there wasn’t anything else she needed to do.
Daphne went to see her next patient—another bus rider, but this one a middle-aged woman with a sprained wrist—and shoved her wistfulness down.
An hour later, she walked past Vibol, who was hurrying out of his patient’s bay, frowning at his phone.
“Hey, do you ever wish you had more time with people?”
He stopped reading his texts and looked at her, puzzled. “Like, in life?”
“No, I mean here. Don’t you hate how rushed we are?”
“That’s why we went into this, right? So we could patch people up and send them on to someone else? Of course I don’t mind—it’s what I like about it. I drop in, fix them, and then fly off like I’m Superman or some shit.”
That wasn’t how Daphne had felt after leaving Mariana, though. She’d felt like she was leaving with her job half done, and she didn’t feel the euphoria she expected to, even when she’d done what she needed to at the best of her ability.
She chewed her lip, debating if it was worth telling Vibol how she felt, but he held up his phone. “You saw this, right?”
“No, what?” She pulled her phone out of her back pocket, realizing she’d missed nearly a dozen texts in the wild crush of bus patients. “What’s happening?”
“Find the one from Ellie.”
Daphne scrolled down, and her stomach jolted so hard she could have sworn it literally, physically moved.
ER Doc Group Chat
Ellie Levine
Fuck I misread the chart; Henry’s portal opensTonightnot next week, and by tonight I meanSoon
