Page 28 of Before the Storm

She had concern in her gaze. I’d seen it a few times inpassing while with my sister but never directed at me. I liked it. A lot.

“Long day,” I said, trying to dismiss her concern and adding some lighter tones to the whole thing. “And it’s chaos out there, so I’m hiding until I can sneak in.”

She chuckled, but there was still a small frown on her face. “Is Sonia not here?”

I sighed. “The nurses’ station was deserted the last time I peeked.”

She reached into her coat pocket and grabbed her phone, typing furiously on the screen. Her forearms were still holding on tightly to her device. Her phone buzzed in her hand, and then she looked at me with a big smile on her face.

“She said we can go in in three minutes and straight to her room. They are finishing rounds now.”

“Thank you, lifesaver.”

She blushed but smiled at my compliment. “So what’s going on, really?”

“It’s a thing with my dad. It’s a long story.”

“I have… mmm…” She looked at the screen on her phone and then smiled at me. “Two minutes.”

I barked out a laugh, the last of the tension leaving my shoulders. “He somehow found out I’m here, so he called me to yell at me. It’s complicated.”

“Hmm,” she hummed, her attention fixed on me. Her long hair swayed behind her head with her delicate movements. Her weight shifted slightly from foot to foot. She wasbreathtaking. Even there in that dim, cold hallway. “Time’s up,Mago.Go do your magic.”

She spun on her heel and opened the heavy door, turning her head to look at me with a big smile.

“Francisco, did you hear me?” His raspy voice interrupted my thoughts, bringing me back to the present.

“No.” And if I had been standing in front of him, he would have tried to punch me for my attitude. “Chau, Papá.”

17

LUCÍA

What I had initially plannedto be a relaxing time off ended up being a string of endless days with nothing to do. Summer in our town was a sleepy affair, but it was also full of tourists that were here for the many things to do. Hikes, lazy floating in the river, tanning by the creek beds. There were a large number of paragliders, too, but the starting point for that was the other side of the mountain, so they mostly just came through on their way to the top.

So my days were long. The blackouts had been relentless, coming at all times of the day, not only at night like other years. The ceiling of the family room looked particularly gloomy from my spot on the couch. It was so hot, all the windows were open, and there was a light breeze coming into the house, but nothing was helping.

And not to sound dramatic or anything, but they really did reflect my mood so accurately. It wasthe worst because the only things I could do during those times were either scroll my phone mindlessly or get in my thoughts about Jazmín, her death, the things I could have done differently.

Francisco.And the night that I felt like things had changed between us.

Sonia had been standing by her desk that night, the phone trapped between her shoulder and ear. She was nodding, snacking on crackers that she had tucked inside her scrub pockets. In her other hand, she had a pen and was taking occasional notes of the conversation, mostly numbers, so my guess was that it was the lab, delivering a batch of results for our patients.

It was late, probably close to midnight, and it wasquiet.Which was always a bad sign in a hospital. Because it was literally when everything hit the fan and chaos quickly ensued. From the corner of my eye, I could see a shadow lingering in the hallway, their chest moving quickly like they’d run up the stairs at superhuman speed and were not catching their breath. It stayed there for a minute, then turned its body, and I could see him.

I smiled coyly, looking back to Sonia to see what she was doing. She didn’t give a shit, quite frankly, because our pediatrics patients were always supposed to be accompanied by an adult, but Jazmín was a special case. And for some reason that waswayabove my pay grade, she was granted an exception. She spent a lot of nights on her own, her mother coming in daily but not being able to spend the night during weekdays.

I went back to Sonia’s side, looking over her shoulder as she took her notes and smiled. Jazmín’s labs were looking good, and she could go home soon. That was the goal for all our patients.

Francisco scurried past us, walking in the shadows of the hospital hallways, pretending we couldn’t see him. He hurried past the first few sets of doors and walked into Jazmín’s room, closing the door quietly behind him. Jazmín had been asleep for a while, and she’d had a rough day, so he might have missed his opportunity to talk to her.

Sonia finished her conversation with the lab tech, then turned to me and started spewing numbers, asking a few questions and corroboration for courses of action with our patients. The attending was in the on-call room napping, so I made sure to take notes to ask questions later. I was almost at the end of my residency and comfortable with what I was doing, but some patients gave me more anxiety than others, and it never hurt to double check with those with more experience.

She looked up to me with her big, brown eyes. “Andá,” she said and bit her lower lip to hide her smile.

“¿Qué decís?”I tried to evade her comment, but I couldn’t help the blush that was creeping up my neck towards my cheeks. I was in my late twenties, but I still blushed like a schoolgirl with a crush when I even thought of Francisco. Who was no one, just a patient’s brother. That was it.

“Go say hi,” she added, turning back to face her computer screen, then looking up at the monitors againstthe wall. “If I need you, I’ll come find you.” She winked, then turned and chuckled to herself, grabbing one of the crackers from her pocket.

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