Page 16 of Rescuing Dr. Marian
I really hoped Foster wouldn’t hate me forever.
I looked away and began to pack my bags, considering how to rebuild the life I’d imploded. Even though it had been my decision, the idea of starting over from scratch without the relationship that had been the cornerstone of my adult life was seriously fucking overwhelming.
Fortunately, I still had my work to focus on—the ER was continually understaffed and slammed with patients, so they’d be happy to have me back early. And for the first time in a long time, I’d have space and time to figure out what the fuck I truly wanted.
Six Months Later
It turned out, what I truly wanted was to get the fuck out of New York City.
“Chest trauma, ETA five minutes,” Marcy called from the nurses’ station, her voice flat but loud enough to cut through the chaos. “Blunt force. Motorcycle versus SUV. Guess who lost.”
“Of course,” I muttered, aborting my attempt to reach the coffee machine and instead grabbing a fresh pair of gloves as I pivoted toward Trauma 2. “Memorial Day—the official start of dumbass season.”
The irony wasn’t lost on me. Six months ago, I would have been thrilled by a day like this—multiple traumas, complex cases, the adrenaline rush of high-stakes medicine. Now, it felt like being trapped in a hamster wheel, running faster and faster but never getting anywhere I actually wanted to be.
I barely finished intubating the last patient—a heatstroke victim pulled off the Coney Island boardwalk—and I still had a toddler seizing in Bay 3 waiting on a neuro consult. The monitors were chirping like demented birds, someone was yelling about pain meds in Bay 5, and my scrubs were soaked in a patient’s blood… again.
“I need a damn clone,” I said to no one in particular, pushing through a gaggle of med students huddled like scared ducklings near the supply closet.
“Dr. Marian, you’re needed in Curtain 4—Code Gray. Combative psych hold.”
“Seriously,” I said, half laughing, half groaning. “It’s a freaking circus today.”
“Circus has better snacks,” one of the residents said as he jogged past, waving an empty vending machine wrapper.
“And better hours,” I muttered under my breath, though no one was close enough to hear.
I forced myself to breathe as the paramedics rolled in the biker, his shoulder a raw mess of blood and gravel. The sight should have triggered my usual surge of professional focus, butinstead, I felt oddly detached, like I was watching someone else’s life play out in front of me.
I made eye contact with Marcy so she could get someone else on the psych patient and followed the biker into Trauma 2.
“Vitals are tanking,” the medic shouted over the controlled chaos. “Pressure’s 80 over 40 and dropping. Lost consciousness twice en route.”
I stepped up, forcing my mind to engage despite my bone-deep exhaustion. “Let’s get two large-bore IVs and hang O-neg, now. Somebody page trauma surgery. And where the hell is radiology?” My hands moved automatically—checking pupils, palpating for injuries, calling out orders.
This was what I was good at, what I’d trained for years to perfect.
But even as I worked to save this man’s life, part of me was thinking about Foster Blake’s hands on my skin six months ago, about the way he’d tasted like mountain air when we’d kissed on that beach. It was a thought that had popped upmoreoften, not less, as the months went by.
I caught my reflection in the stainless-steel cabinet—wild eyes, bloody gloves, stubble I hadn’t had time to shave in two days over skin so pale I looked damned near anemic. When had I started looking like a ghost haunting my own life?
My uncle Teddy’s teasing voice from a recent video call rang in my memory.“Maybe you need to get outside and touch some grass, Nimrod,”he’d said, his teasing tone and use of the old nickname he’d bestowed on me not hiding the worry in his gaze.
Six months ago, I would have agreed with him. Would havemade plans to head out of the city on my next day off and hike a bit of the Appalachian Trail up at Bear Mountain. But now? Now, I was lucky to get a day off once a month, let alone time to actually leave the city. All the free time I’d anticipated having to figure my shit out hadn’t materialized. In fact, I’d barely had time to think.
Not long after the aborted trip to Hawaii, my boss had assigned me to a “patient flow taskforce committee,” which demanded additional long hours and reporting duties that now took up almost every spare minute of my time. The assignment had been presented as an honor, recognition of my dedication and clinical skills.
It had taken me six weeks to learn that the assignment “recommendation” had come from above, from the hospital CMO, who just so happened to be in the same social club as Kari’s mother, my former anesthesiology mentor.
The guilt had kept me from complaining initially, but it hadn’t kept me from researching other job opportunities. It was time to get away from this toxic environment and onto the next stage in my life. Preferably somewhere closer to my family and farther away from Kari and hers.
“Pressure’s stabilizing,” I called out as the trauma surgeon finally arrived to take over. “Good peripheral pulses, pupils are reactive. He’s got a chance.”
I stripped off my gloves and gown, already mentally moving to the next crisis. That was the thing about emergency medicine—there was always a next crisis.
“Dibs on new guy,” one of the female nurses whispered to Marcy as she hustled past. I looked up and noticed a new nursestanding nearby, checking out the board. He was tall and jacked and also clearly confused.
“Hey, you need help?” I called. “Marcy doesn’t bite, I promise.”
