Page 2 of The Heart We Guard
I was sixteen, he was twenty, and he was always up to some scheme. He used to say I was the brains, and he was the brawn. I used to wish he’d get a regular job, get an apartment, then let me come live with him.
He’d been happier than he’d ever been and told me that, while he couldn’t give me details, he had some big thing with theclub that would hopefully lead to him becoming a fully patched-in member. Instead, he ended up bleeding out on my foster parents’ perfect green lawn.
He’s also the very reason I’m a surgeon, the reason I’ll do all I can to give Nicholas Gray a better chance at a fresh start.
“Blood pressure is…?” I ask without looking up.
“Sixty over forty but falling,” Melody says.
“I don’t like any of this.” When I hand the chart back to Melody, I snap on some gloves and palpitate his abdomen gently. It’s distended. Matched with the pace at which he’s losing blood, we need to act.
Now.
“We don’t have the time to run a whole bunch of tests,” I say. “You’re right, Melody. Possible liver laceration, hemorrhagic shock, maybe the vena cava. If we don’t open him up in the next few minutes, we might lose him. Let’s take him up to OR three.”
As people jump to make what I just ordered happen, I say, “Nicholas, I’m Dr. Greer. We’re going to take you up for surgery.”
“Please. It fucking hurts.” He reaches for my hand and squeezes it. While he needs comfort, it’s not in my natural wheelhouse to provide it, and my fingers are my most important tool. So, I take my hand away from him.
“I’m sure it does. But in less than five minutes, we’ll have you sedated so we can operate. You think you can sign the paperwork on the way up to the OR?”
His wide brown eyes are glassy, and sweat beads on his brow and above his lip. “Can’t. Afford…it.”
“Don’t worry about that right now. There’s a process for all that. Let’s just keep you alive, yeah?”
I don’t tell him I no longer have faith in the process. On a macro level, the right to access healthcare is increasingly becoming a privilege of the wealthy. On a micro level, eventhough I donate on a monthly basis to the fund to provide financial relief to those who need it, the administrators are becoming stingier and stingier on the criteria with which they dispense it.
Meanwhile, people like Nicholas go bankrupt.
I still believe in saving lives; I guess I no longer have faith in the traditional methods of dispensing medicine.
“His BP is tanking. We’re gonna be at sixty over nothing if we wait too long,” Melody says.
“Let’s go,” I say, without waiting for an answer from Nicholas.
I like to think you see the best of human nature in a situation like this. People hurry out of our path, and others go out of their way to do their jobs quickly. Someone calls for the elevator when they see us heading that way so it’s open when we reach it.
Staff members function at their best, getting from place A to place B so we have the opportunity for a quick signature.
Nicholas doesn’t even read it before scribbling on the paper.
I’m going to do everything I wish someone would have done for my brother. I’ll clean his wounds, repair the damage, and stitch him up again. My team and I will make sure he stays alive through the process.
Unlike Eli.
Who bled out after being abandoned.
Who died before the ambulance I called could get to him.
All because he was a prospect.
Not part of the brotherhood.
Which is why I took the stand, looked their president in the eye, and pointed to him in a criminal court. For the longest time, I’ve wondered if they didn’t retaliate because I was a child.
When the elevator doors open, I look to my patient. “I’m going to scrub in now. But you’re in good hands, Nicholas.”
He reaches for my hand and pulls me in with more force than I would have thought him capable of in his condition. “Gage.”
