Page 14 of Sparking Sara

The past ten months of living here have been the best months I’ve had since high school. Since before my parents died. And even if I never get offered a permanent position at FDNY, it still beats the miserable existence I had back in Missouri.

When I arrive at the hospital, I use the main doors, hoping to avoid Nurse Nora and her batting eyelashes down in the ER. It’s not that she isn’t hot—she is. And normally, I might have even asked for her number. But I didn’t. And I didn’t ask for Nurse Tiffany’s either, because there’s a girl lying in a hospital bed up on floor six who could be dying.

I look at my surroundings as I head up to the ICU. There are lots of people in this hospital who could be dying. There are probably dead people right here in this building. Maybe even on this floor. My heart starts beating wildly thinking that Sara could be one of those people. My steps quicken as I make my way to her room. I nod at the nurse on my way by. She waves at me, remembering me from yesterday. I don’t stop walking until I’m in Sara’s doorway and see her lying in bed with machines still by her side.

She’s not dead.

She’s not lying on a cold, hard steel table in the basement.

But she is alone.

Before I step across the threshold, I turn around and ask the nurse, “Has anyone else been here to see her?”

She shakes her head sadly. Then she walks over to a cabinet and pulls out a blanket. She hands it to me. “You’ll need this. It’s cold in there.”

“Thanks.”

I tuck it under my arm and walk into Sara’s room. I’m immediately assaulted by a climate normally found in the Alaskan tundra. “Holy shit,” I say, wrapping the blanket around me as I make my way to the chair next to her bed.

The nurse follows behind me, putting on a jacket of her own.

I look over at her. “Can’t you just give her medicine to bring her temperature down?”

“We are,” she says. “But it’s not that easy with head injuries. She’s got ice packs in her armpits and groin areas, and she’s under a cooling blanket.”

I study Sara, and I could swear she’s shivering. “Look at her. She’s freezing.”

“I know,” the nurse says. “But we have to keep her temperature down to prevent further brain damage. Don’t worry, the sedation keeps her from feeling the full effects of the cold.”

I close my eyes, saddened by her words. “So she’s got brain damage?”

“We can’t be sure yet. Not until the swelling goes down. But odds are there will be some deficiencies.”

I look at Sara, thinking how young she is and how life isn’t fair. At least my parents were older. They had lived. And they had each other. And even though Sara has Oliver, at this moment—she has no one.

“Do you know how old she is?” I ask.

“Twenty-four.”

“Shit.”

She’s just a year younger than I am.

“That works in her favor, you know,” the nurse says. “Younger brains heal more quickly than older ones.”

“I guess that’s something.”

“I’ll leave you to it,” she says. “Let me know if you need anything. My name’s Krista. If you forget, it’s written there on the whiteboard.”

“Thanks, Krista. I might need to know where the coffee machine is,” I say, already feeling my lips turning blue.

She laughs. “I’ll bring you a cup. How do you like it?”

“Hot.”

“You got it.”

I take a seat next to Sara and watch her chest rise and fall with each pump of the ventilator. I wonder if she can feel the tube down her throat.

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