Page 12 of Midnight Between Us
I step away from the sink and remove my contaminated gloves, sliding on a sterile pair without missing a beat.
“Vitals?”I ask.
“BP’s dropping.Heart rate’s erratic.”
I nod once.No room for panic.No room for fear.
“Drill,” I say, holding out my hand.
A tray slides closer.The metal clinks as the tool is placed in my hand.
“You’re going to drill?”someone asks, his breath catches, almost as if he’s afraid of blood.
“Yes.I’m going to save his life,” I answer, already positioning the bit.
There’s something surreal about cutting into the skull of the boy you once loved.About cracking the bone, you used to kiss just behind the ear.About slicing through skin your fingers once memorized in the dark—like he’d be gone by morning.
Because he was.
And now he might be again.
Not that I want him at all.He’s the one who left.The one who rejected me when ...fuck.
Now here he is, opened up beneath surgical lights, his life sliding through my hands like sand, and I can’t even scream.
I pack the gauze.Relieve the pressure.Slide the shunt in with practiced hands.
I don’t flinch when we hit a bleed—I suction, cauterize, move fast, move smart.His body’s fighting me, jerking on the table like it’s ready to give up.But I don’t let it.I can’t.Not when it’s him.Not when the man who vanished without a word is the one bleeding out in front of me.
“Clamp that.Good.Suction here.”
He’s lucky to be alive.Luckier than he knows.
Three broken ribs, a bruised lung, and a fractured femur.
Contusions scattered everywhere like someone tried to beat the life out of him and almost succeeded.
A head injury that hasn’t declared itself yet—because the brain likes to play dirty, likes to pretend it’s fine until it’s too late.
His oxygen stats keep bouncing, refusing to hold steady, and the left side of his chest barely rises with each shallow breath.Possible pneumothorax.Probable, if I’m being honest.Then there’s the bruising across his abdomen—deep, dark, blooming under the skin like a fucking warning sign.The bruising across his abdomen isn’t just ugly—it’s a loaded gun cocked and waiting.And if we miss it, if we blink, it’s over.
It’s the other thing that gets me.
The thing no scan can catch, no sutures can fix.
Whatever dragged him into that trunk in the first place still hangs in the air, thick and poisonous, wrapping around the edges of every decision I make tonight.The story behind these injuries will come later, whether the body in front of me survives or doesn’t.Right now, he needs every second I can give him.
For all I know, he could be some lowlife who made one too many enemies, running from mistakes that no one was willing to forgive.It does not change what he is to me at this moment.Right now, he is a pulse, a breath, a broken body fighting to stay alive.I am the only thing standing between him and the dark.So I keep working, refusing to let my hands shake, refusing to allow the questions I cannot afford to ask slow me down.
When it is finally over, I stand over the table, my breath rasping through clenched teeth.My scrubs are soaked through, plastered to my skin, the fabric stiff with blood, sweat, saline—maybe all of it mixed into one godawful reminder of how close he came to dying.The gloves cling to my fingers like a second skin, and it takes everything I have to peel them off carefully, methodically, when all I want to do is rip them away and scream until my voice breaks.
“He’s stable,” the nurse says, hovering nearby, watching me like she expects me to collapse next.
“Put him under.”
“You want to induce?”she asks, hesitation bleeding into her voice.
“He is not waking up like this.Too much swelling.Too much trauma.If he wakes confused or combative, it will spike his intracranial pressure.He could hemorrhage.Arrest.Sedate him—Versed, low dose, then start a Propofol drip.Keep him intubated and monitor ICP closely.We will reassess in seventy-two hours.”
