Page 5 of Never Quite Gone

The alarm's digital chirp sliced through the dark at 4:30 AM, and I smacked it silent with the muscle memory of someone who'd done this thousands of times before. My fingers knew exactly where to land, just like they knew how to find a vein in the dark or intubate without looking up.

Steam curled from the coffee maker, the bitter smell filling my too-quiet apartment. The machine hummed and sputtered, pushing out enough coffee for two mugs because I was too much of a coward to change the settings. Every morning, watching that second serving spiral down the drain, my chest tight with the stupid symbolism of it all.

The harsh fluorescent light of my bathroom made my face look like shit in the mirror, but at least the white coat was crisp. I straightened my tie - navy blue, because Michael had bought me a whole collection of them, insisting they made me look “distinguished.” Chief of Emergency Medicine Dr. Eli Monroe stared back at me, bags under his eyes that could be blamed on overnight traumas rather than nights spent staring at the ceiling.

Michael's side of the closet loomed like a shrine, all designer suits wrapped in plastic like fucking artifacts in a museum. I could still hear him.

“You're a department chief now, babe,” that crooked smile of his as he'd fix my collar. “Time to dress like one.”

The TV blared its morning propaganda while I clutched my coffee, avoiding the antique table we'd rescued from some overpriced Brooklyn shop. The wobbly leg still caught my hip sometimes when I passed, a physical reminder I couldn't bring myself to fix. Michael used to spend these mornings ranting at the news anchors, his coffee getting cold while he gestured at their “bullshit economic analysis.”

I stabbed the power button at 4:45, silence flooding back in.

The 5 AM subway car reeked of night shift sweat and early morning desperation. I planted my feet in a wide stance, one hand white-knuckled on the pole while I swiped through patient files. The train lurched and swayed, but my body compensated without thinking.

Michael's voice ghosted through my head:“Your subway surfing skills are getting pretty impressive.”He'd always hover nearby, pretending to catch me, making a whole dramatic production out of it. The memory sucker-punched me in the gut, but I buried it under Mrs. Chen's post-op notes like I buried everything else. Vitals stable. Margins clear. Move the fuck on.

Movement flickered in my peripheral - Dr. Yang, our new ortho resident, trying to disappear behind her phone. The fear rolling off her was practically visible, and I knew why. Last week's M&M conference had been brutal, watching me tear her attending a new one over a preventable death. I'd laid out every mistake with surgical precision while the other residents sat frozen, learning exactly what happened when you got sloppy.

“You're being harsh again,”Michael would have said, with that soft look he'd get. But Michael was gone, and harsh kept people breathing. Harsh meant everyone stayed sharp. Harsh meant I didn't have to watch another family fall apart in my ER.

The brakes screamed as we hit 168th Street. By the time I stepped onto the platform, I'd locked everything personal awaybehind the Chief of Emergency Medicine mask. Professional distance wrapped around me like armor.

Just another fucking Tuesday.

The cold slapped my face as I emerged from the subway, New York-Presbyterian's massive silhouette looming against the purple-black sky like some ancient fortress. Light blazed from every window, a middle finger to the darkness. Six years ago, those lights had meant hope. Now they just reminded me of all the people we couldn't put back together.

My badge beeped me through the staff entrance at 5:15, right on fucking schedule. Roberto barely glanced up from his crossword, our daily ritual as meaningless as my second cup of coffee.

“Quiet night?” “So far, Dr. Monroe.”

The elevator's fluorescent buzz filled forty-seven seconds while I scrolled through overnight reports, the words blurring together. MVAs, GSWs, cardiac events - all “routine,” which made my stomach clench. Any ER doc worth their salt knew “routine” was the universe's favorite joke.

The doors opened onto controlled chaos - monitors screaming their electronic panic, nurses speed-walking with that distinct “shit's about to go down” energy, the night shift passing their battles to the incoming day warriors like a game of medical hot potato.

“Board meeting at 2 PM.” Sofia materialized beside me, armed with actually-hot coffee unlike the lukewarm piss I'd been nursing. Three heartbeats of silence.

“Vale is pushing his neurology expansion agenda again,” she continued, her voice dripping with that special contempt she reserved for hospital politics. “He's got half the board convinced we need a dedicated neurosurgical trauma unit. Which would mean?—”

“Cutting into Emergency Department funding,” I finished, my fingers cramping around the tablet. The bitter irony twisted in my gut like a rusty knife - Vale pushing for the exact unit that could've saved Michael when they'd wasted precious minutes transferring him after the crash. The universe's sick sense of humor never got old.

Lock. It. Down.

Numbers swam across my screen - bed capacity, wait times, patient satisfaction scores. As if you could quantify death in fucking pie charts, measure grief in percentages.

Sofia's report came in precise surgical strikes: heart attack in catheterization, diabetic emergencies in medical, possible stroke in CT. Her voice rose just enough to scatter the vulture-circle of nurses hovering near my office.

Three seconds. Breathe.

The trauma alert shattered everything. “Multiple casualties incoming. Construction site collapse downtown. First ambulance, four minutes out.”

Time crystallized into diamond-sharp focus. My body moved on autopilot, Sofia half a step behind like my shadow.

“Page trauma surgery and orthopedics,” I barked, wrestling with the trauma gown.

The smell of latex gloves hit me like a punch to the throat - paramedic stripping off bloody gloves, shaking his head, Michael's blood still warm on my hands-

“Initial report indicates at least six critical patients,” Sofia's voice cut through the flashback like a scalpel. “Partial building collapse, approximately twenty total casualties. They're routing the most severe cases to us.”

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