Adrian made it only a few steps down the corridor before he had to stop again. The tremor in his hands wasn’t violent, but it was steady—an undercurrent he couldn’t quite outpace. He curled his fingers once, twice, forcing the muscles to tighten and release, an old habit meant to trick his body into believing it was in control. It didn’t work. The tremor stayed. Small. Persistent. A reminder.
He drew in a long breath through his nose, letting it settle low in his chest before he exhaled slowly. Control the rhythm. Control the breath. The old mantra rose without permission, the echo of a voice he wished he could forget. He didn’t need it tonight, and yet here it was, threading itself through the edges of his thoughts.
A gurney squeaked somewhere behind him. He didn’t turn. A resident murmured something about labs. Someone laughed too loudly at the nurses’ station, the sound brittle and exhausted. The hospital had its own cycle—codes, lulls, recoveries, losses—and no matter how frayed he felt, he knew he was still woven into that pattern. Tonight, though, it pressed against him harder than usual.
He forced himself forward. Not fast. Just enough movement to keep from sinking into the floor. The ICU wing glowed ahead, its glass panels reflecting the sterile lights like a row of waiting eyes. He passed the window that overlooked the main atrium, catching a faint reflection of himself again—tired, shoulders tight, a shadow under his eyes that hadn’t been there at the start of his shift.
ICU was quieter. Not peaceful—never peaceful—but quieter. Machines hummed behind closed curtains. A nurse at the desk typed steadily, her posture straight and practiced. As he approached, she looked up, recognition flickering across her features.
“Room twelve,” she said softly. “Vitals are holding. The team’s watching him.”
“Any changes?”
“Nothing significant.”
He nodded once, appreciating the conciseness. He moved to the glass panel of room twelve, stopping a foot from the door. Through the narrow blinds he could see the outline of the young man lying in the bed—still, pale, a set of IV lines branching from his arm like fragile veins of light. The monitor beside him traced a slow, steady rhythm. Not perfect. But steady.
Adrian’s breath caught. Only for a moment. Only enough to feel the echo of the code tightening around his ribs again.
He stepped inside. The room smelled of antiseptic and warm plastic, the faint hint of latex lingering in the air. The boy’s chest rose and fell under the thin hospital blanket, shallow but consistent. Adrian checked the ventilator settings, the IV pumps, the sedation level. All routine. All familiar. The familiarity should have been grounding.
It wasn’t.
He circled to the other side of the bed. The boy’s eyelids fluttered once, though not consciously. Reflex. A body remembering how to exist. Adrian traced the numbers on the monitor again, slower this time, letting the silent count steady him.
“You made it,” he murmured under his breath—a statement, not a promise.
He recorded the vitals into the chart, writing with deliberate precision. Words had to be steady even when he wasn’t. They would become part of the record, part of the narrative that explained how the night unfolded. Each sentence carried weight. Each omission carried more.
He finished the chart and stepped back. A nurse entered with new labs, setting them on the counter. She hesitated before speaking.
“Dr. Cole… earlier, during the code—”
“It’s done,” he said, sharper than intended. “We stabilized him.”
The nurse nodded quickly and left, her footsteps fading down the hall. Adrian closed his eyes for half a second, regret flickering through him. The sharpness hadn’t been for her. It hadn’t even been for the code. It was for the quiet space in his chest that kept tightening, refusing to let go.
He stepped into the hallway again. The air felt cooler here, the hum of the ICU blending into a low drone that pressed lightly against the back of his skull. He walked without direction for a moment, letting his body choose the path. It led him toward the stairwell.
He pushed the door open and descended one flight, stopping on the landing where the lights were dimmer. The metal railing was cool beneath his hand. He leaned into it, letting his shoulders sag in a way they couldn’t elsewhere.
He wasn’t sure how long he stayed like that. Seconds. Minutes. Time felt elastic in the stairwell.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
He didn’t check it.
Not yet.
He let his head fall back against the wall, eyes closing as another breath shuddered through him. The tremor in his hand hadn’t stopped. It pulsed lightly against his thigh.
He curled his fingers again.
Uncurl.
Curl.
Uncurl.
The rhythm held him there.
When he finally pulled his phone out, the screen glowed with a new message—from ICU.
LABS BACK. NEED REVIEW.
Of course. Of course there was more to do.
He pocketed the phone, pushed off the wall, and climbed the stairs back to the hallway. The tremor followed him, quiet and stubborn.
Back in the ICU, the nurse handed him the lab printouts. The paper felt warm from the machine, its edges crisp. Adrian scanned them quickly, eyes narrowing at the numbers that dipped lower than he wanted. Not catastrophic. Not good either. A middle ground that demanded attention before it decided which direction it planned to fall.
He grabbed a pen and noted the values on the chart, circling two in particular. Coagulation. Hemoglobin. The margins were thin. Too thin for his liking.
“We’ll repeat these in four hours,” he said.
The nurse nodded. “Do you want me to call you if anything shifts sooner?”
“Yes.” His voice was softer now. “Immediately.”
She moved away, and Adrian stayed where he was, staring at the boy behind the glass. The rise and fall of the chest. The slow pulse line. The faint twitch of a finger. Each detail pressed into him more heavily than it should have.
He turned away before he got caught in the loop again.
The hallway felt too narrow. He needed space. Not out of panic—he refused the idea—but out of necessity. His mind kept replaying the moment in the OR, the slight hesitation, the stretch of a second that felt like failure. No one else would have seen it. No one else would have named it. But he did.
He walked toward the vending machines near the break area, the hum of their compressors filling the quiet. He didn’t want anything from inside. He just needed the hum in the background, steady and unremarkable.
A resident rounded the corner and nearly collided with him. “Dr. Cole—sorry—didn’t see you.”
Adrian stepped aside. “It’s fine.”
The resident hesitated, shifting the tablet in his hands. “I heard about the case. They said you pulled him back twice.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened. “Focus on your patients.”
The resident blinked, then nodded and hurried off.
Adrian exhaled slowly, letting the tension retreat just enough to keep moving. He leaned a shoulder against the wall, letting the cool tile press into him. He stared at the floor, tracing the lines between the tiles with his eyes.
He didn’t realize how tired he was until he blinked and the edges of his vision blurred.
He straightened. A break wouldn’t help. Rest wouldn’t help. The only thing that would quiet his mind, even a little, was work.
He took the stairs down to the second floor. The ER was quieter now, the earlier chaos replaced with a late-night lull that held its own kind of unease. A few nurses charted at the station. A paramedic leaned against the wall drinking water, his expression blank with exhaustion.
Adrian scanned the area out of habit.
He didn’t see her.
He shouldn’t have been looking.
He told himself it didn’t matter.
He walked to the patient board and glanced over the names, the diagnoses, the color-coded urgency markers. The orderliness of it grounded him for a moment.
Then he heard footsteps behind him—steady, purposeful, familiar.
He didn’t turn. Not right away.
“ICU sent labs?” Elara’s voice said from behind him.
He closed his eyes briefly. Then opened them.
“Yes.”
“How bad?”
“Not catastrophic.”
“Not good.”
“No.”
She stepped beside him, her presence settling into the space like a shift in gravity. She wasn’t looking at him; she was looking at the board, tapping her thumb lightly against her chart.
“You need anything?” she asked.
“No.”
“You look like you do.”
“I’m fine.”
She let out a short breath—the kind that wasn’t quite a sigh. “You always say that.”
“And it’s always true.”
“That’s not how it works, Adrian.”
He finally looked at her. She looked different under the ER lighting—tired, yes, but sharper, the shadows under her eyes darker now. There was a faint crease between her brows that hadn’t been there an hour ago.
She met his gaze evenly.
“Did you eat?” she asked.
“No.”
“Drink water?”
“No.”
“Sit down for five minutes?”
“Elara—”
“That’s what I thought.”
He clenched his jaw. “I don’t need—”
“You’re trembling.”
The words were soft. Not accusing. Not dramatic. Just true.
He didn’t answer.
She reached out—slowly, giving him time to pull back if he wanted—and lightly touched the back of his hand. Her fingers were warm. Steady. His weren’t.
He felt the tremor jump under her touch.
She didn’t comment on it again. She just let her hand rest there for a second longer before drawing back.
“You should take a break,” she said.
“I said I’m fine.”
“Then lie better.”
A beat passed between them, thick and fragile.
He looked away first.
“I have to get back to ICU.”
“I know.”
He took a step, but she caught his sleeve—not forcefully, just enough to stop him for half a heartbeat.
“Hey,” she said quietly.
He turned.
“You did everything you could.”
The words landed somewhere deep. Somewhere he didn’t want touched.
He didn’t respond. He didn’t trust himself to.
He stepped away.
And even as he walked, the tremor followed him, threaded into his pulse like something that refused to let go.
Comments (0)
See all