Page 1 of Time for You
Chapter One
Daphne wove through the busy hallway, dodging nurses and skirting an empty bed someone had left in the hallway outside the trauma operating room. Her next patient was a nineteen-year-old who probably needed his stomach pumped thanks to a two-for-one deal on fishbowls at Uncle Pete’s Tavern. A dive bar just a few blocks from the university, Uncle Pete’s was usually responsible for at least one stomach-pumping admit every weekend, and three the weekends after finals. But this Friday had seen five already, and Daphne was about ready to burn Uncle Pete’s down. Or at least write them a strongly worded letter about irresponsible drink specials.
It wasn’t that Daphne hated fun, although she’d had several roommates in undergrad who would probably claim she did, along with at least half of the other first-year residents (though at least some of them would say so fondly). It was just that Daphne had always been very focused, and things like “getting drunk because it’s fifty degrees for the first time since October” or “getting drunk because midterms are over” or even just “getting drunk because it’s Friday” simply didn’t appeal to her.
“I hear you’re not feeling well,” she said brightly, pulling back the curtain around the bed. The boy was clutching a bedpan and moaning while his friend swayed in that drunk-college-kid-trying-to-be-sober-around-real-adults sort of way. The friend was on his phone, a maroon baseball hat twisted backward on his head.
“Any chance he can get out of here soon?” the friend asked. “The Sig Eps are throwing a rager.”
Daphne made sure her face stayed neutral, because she had never gone to a single “rager” in college and had always thought they sounded really gross and overwhelming. She had spent those nights studying instead, because Daphne was a woman with a plan and always had been. Daphne had been only six when she and her mother ended up in the ER after a horrible car crash, and Daphne would never forget being so scared and in pain—her leg was broken in two places—while her mom was wheeled into surgery for a busted spleen. It was the ER doctors who had helped soothe her, put her back together, and patched up her mom. Daphne, always a very decisive child, had made up her mind there and then: She would become a doctor and work in an emergency room, providing the exact same comfort and reassurance as those doctors.
Comfort and reassurance she was admittedly struggling to provide at that exact moment, as the patient begged her to discharge him now “before the hot ones are taken.”
She knew exactly what he meant, although she wished she didn’t. “I don’t think I’d advise having buffalo wings when you’ve been vomiting,” she said dryly.
“No, I mean—” he started, but a look from his slightly-more-sober friend cut him off. “Yeah, uh, I guess you’re right.”
Daphne started asking the patient questions, pausing every so often to let him vomit, and pondered what her college life might have been like if she hadn’t been so fixated on becoming a doctor. She had never once let herself get distracted: no partying, no goof-off semesters abroad, none of it. A lot of people thought she was missing out on life, but Daphne preferred to think of herself as pursuing an important goal. Her best friend, Ellie, was just about the only person who thought she wasfun, and that was mostly because Ellie had also wanted to go to med school.
Daphne finished her exam and confirmed what the nurse had suggested—overconsumption of alcohol requiring a stomach pump. Daphne double-checked with the attending, Dr. Gupta, and then sent the orders for the patient, plus a recommendation to his friend thattheynotattempt any more two-for-one drink deals or ragers for a while, before plunging back into the chaos of an emergency department on a Friday night.
The action was nonstop. Daphne saw another Uncle Pete’s fishbowl casualty (twenty-two-year-old female dragged in by concerned friends, fortunately not dire enough for the stomach pump, although she’d have a hell of a hangover in the morning), followed by a motorcycle accident (broken collarbone and road rash), and the usual drips and drabs of people without regular access to a doctor arriving because their conditions, whatever they were, were no longer manageable at home. Vibol was on shift too, and he tossed her a sympathetic yet wry look as he consulted with a nurse.
Eight hours into her shift, with three still to go, Daphne ducked into the supply closet. She shut the door behind her, blocking out the noise of EKG machines, beeping monitors, and calls of various staff to each other for assistance. She took a deep breath, inhaling the antiseptic scent of hand sanitizer.
She liked this. Shedid. Well, maybe notthisthis, but she liked helping people. Just because it was overwhelming sometimes didn’t mean she wasn’t cut out for it. First year of residency was notoriously awful. Just last week Brittany had ended up crying on Daphne and Ellie’s couch about something the chief resident had said to her during rounds. This feeling was totally normal. It had to be. Besides, Daphne didn’t like to dwell. She had plenty of experience pushing through something that felt impossible (hello, Organic Chemistry II), so she would buckle down until the life of a resident felt like comfortable tennis shoes instead of stilettos.
A sliver of light poured in as the door cracked open. “Possible appendicitis in bay five, Dr. G,” James, the shift’s head nurse, said gently. “Twenty-eight-year-old female, stomach cramps and vomiting.”
“Be right there.” Daphne sighed. She took another shuddering breath, and back out she went.
James’s assessment was right. The woman had all the classic signs of appendicitis, so Daphne admitted her and sent her on upstairs for surgery.
During a rare lull an hour later, Daphne leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes, while Ellie sat on an empty bed in the hallway next to her. “I am going to personally murder the owner of Uncle Pete’s,” Ellie complained. “I’ve been puked on twice, and I’m on my third set of scrubs.”
Getting into the same residency program as Ellie, after their separation for med schools in different states, was the best thing that could have ever happened. As tiring as it was, at least they weren’t in it alone. They’d made new friends in the program too, although it didn’t quite cure the ache Daphne felt in her chest sometimes, the one that felt like loneliness.
“At least you had time to change. I think I fell asleep on my feet while James was going over a chart. Brittany’s so lucky, getting to sleep tonight.”
“Dr. Levine, we need a consult in bay four,” a nurse called, and Ellie smothered a groan.
“Be right there, Hannah,” she replied, and turned to Daphne. “There’s some frozen pizzas at home. Can you throw one in if you get off first?”
Daphne nodded and took what felt like her fiftieth deep breath of the shift before returning to work.
Ellie got called in on a trauma thirty minutes before they were supposed to get off, so Daphne dragged herself back to their apartment alone. She threw the pizza in the oven, realizing at the last possible second that she’d left the plastic on.
Fire hazard averted, Daphne forced herself to shower—cold water only, so she could stay awake to eat, since the last thing she’d managed was half of a protein bar five hours earlier. If she fell asleep withouteating, she’d be even worse off when she woke up. Today had been rough, but Daphne could handle it. Exhaustion was just part of being a resident. They were all constantly tired. In fact, discussing it was probably all the residents’ favorite game:I’m more tired than you and I can prove it.
Shivering and with soaking-wet hair dripping down her back, Daphne picked at her sausage and red pepper pizza until Ellie burst through the door in her usual whirlwind of activity. Ellie ran through a play-by-play of the end of her evening while downing two slices, then stood from their secondhand table—donated by one of Ellie’s many, many aunts—and considered Daphne. “You know, I wish I could be more like you.”
“What, cold and clinical?”
“Sure of myself,” Ellie countered. “You’re exactly where you’ve always wanted to be, and you’re thriving.”
Thrivingwasn’t quite the word Daphne would use to describe herself, but then again, she was bone tired. It was probably just the exhaustion that made her look down and blink back tears. “You’re killing it, too,” she argued.
“Yeah, but daily I’m like, someone’s gonna notice I’m an idiot and fire my ass.”
