Eyes wide, you sit back in your chair. A tightness whirls in your chest until it’s suffocating, stealing the air around you.
You hadn’t realized how much you wanted this. Needed this. A weight makes its home in your shoulders and chest.
You pick up your phone and call Nikki. As you listen to the ringing, you use the energy you have left to hold off the threatening darkness and silence the whispers of disappointing Nikki.
“Did you get the tickets?” she asks.
“No... I really underestimated how feral ARMY would be. Sorry...”
“Don’t be sorry. Imagine how many other people didn’t get tickets. Shit’s fucked.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Thanks.” Feeling silly for assuming she’d be upset, you allow the guilt to dissipate. “What about you? Did you get tickets?”
A silence lengthens.
Nikki sighs. “My presale code didn’t work.”
“What?” Your head buzzes with confusion and denial. “How does that even happen?” You don’t want this to be real. It can’t be real.
Nikki releases a cackle. Is this funny…?
“I GOT TICKETS, BITCH!” she yells into the phone, causing you to startle and almost drop your phone.
The heaviness lifts and darkness scatters replaced by relief…and slight annoyance. “You are so RUDE!”
“Oh my god, I wish I could see your face right now!” she says through fits of laughter.
“Shut up,” you say as you roll your eyes, planning revenge. “Wait, did you get GA?”
“Obviously.” She said, “And sound check,” adding as if it were inconsequential.
“No. Fucking. Way,” is all you can manage.
You hear a smile in her voice as she says, “We’re going to see BTS.”
• • •
“I’m so glad we could meet for dinner,” your mom says, sitting across from you at a swanky bar. She’s styled in the current trends of ripped jeans, faux snakeskin boots, and a white button up with the first few buttons undone. The low, soft lighting flickers shadows across her face as she smiles at you. Somehow, you always feel a bit smaller in her gaze. “So, how’s work been?”
“Honestly…not great,” you say, looking down and fiddling with your silverware. You’re dressed in comfortable shoes with a striped shirt and flared jeans you threw on before walking out the door. “I’m really burned out. All I can manage is working and sleeping.”
Her eyebrows raise. “I hate to hear that. You know, I only did one year of ICU until I went to the OR,” she says. “It was too sad. But you can always get back on Lexapro if you think you need it.”
The waiter sets two fresh cocktails on the table. Your mom picks hers up and raises it into the air. “Cheers!”
“Cheers,” you say, plastering a smile on your face that feels more like a grimace. You both pause to taste the fizzy purple drinks. It’s fruity with a bite.
“I don’t think the OR is….my thing,” you say as you repress a shudder. You prefer to work with patients that have most of their organs inside them. “And Lexapro made me really apathetic. I didn’t feel sad, but I didn’t feel happy, either.” You take another sip of your drink, welcoming anything to take the edge off.
“I haven’t heard you talk about a date in a while. Maybe you need a distraction,” she says with a mischievous look as she swirls her straw. “Have you tried one of those apps?” she asks, taking a drink.
“Like Tinder? Ew, no.” You don’t bother to hide your cringing.
“You should try it! That’s how I met Mark.” Both of your parents went to their own extremes after divorcing a year ago. Your dad is off gallivanting in a new country every few months and, more often than not, brings home a 20-something who can hardly string two sentences together. Your mom stayed put and explored the local dating pool which wouldn’t be so bad if she had better taste in men. Every relationship started out the same. She was head over heels, said she’d found The One, and then, the dramatic fallout would inevitably happen. Sometimes she claimed he was controlling, other times he wasn’t interesting enough, and sometimes that he acted too old. No matter the reason, the breakup was always a spectacle.
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“I’m good,” you say as you begin to seriously regret agreeing to this dinner.
Your mom finishes her drink and says, “Just think about it.”
• • •
As May melts into June, you search for September like a lighthouse on a jagged cliffside. You trust its promise of hope in the darkness, guiding you through the unseen. Time presses on in a repeating pattern of bleary eyes, disorienting sleep, and wine lubricating the forward momentum.
June fades into July, and you’ve never been so happy to feel the humidity intensifying, thickening the air around you. You long for the scorching heat of summer at its peak and steam rising off the pavement like a strange mist. Each day that ends is one day closer to a beautiful escape you’re starving for.
• • •
You’ve heard this before far too many times. A 20-something who hasn’t yet realized they are not, in fact, immortal until it’s too late. You shrug off the remnants of sleep and replace it with your carefully refined nurse persona, becoming someone who knows exactly what to say and do. Someone who is a combination of training, experience, science, and instinct, wearing them like armor. Your true self is neatly folded up and placed in a box that’s buried deep down inside you.
“The patient was at his girlfriend’s house under the influence of Fentanyl and had a heart attack. He collapsed in the living room,” the day shift nurse said, sitting next to you at a desk in the nurse’s station. His eyes were bloodshot and gleaming with exhaustion. He continued, “His girlfriend gave CPR for 8 minutes while waiting for the paramedics. Came to us at 1638 and we stabilized him. He’s in multiple organ failure and intubated. He’s got a pulse, but…it doesn’t look good.” You see a flash of sympathy in his eyes as he shifts in his chair.
You categorize each fact in your mind. They’re what you cling to, what you focus on when everything else is too painful.
“What about brain function?” you ask.
“No response to reflex tests or pain. The apnea test was positive for brain death.” He glances down for a moment at his report sheet then meets your gaze again.
“When was that done?” Facts. Focus on the facts.
“1830. The family was there for the test, but they don’t know the results yet.” His eyes seem to silently apologize. You feel your chest cave in like a sinkhole that finally collapsed, revealing the void underneath and ruthlessly betraying any sense of security. You feel as if you’ll be buried by this void, but just as it’s all too much to bear, something inside you rises up and steels your spirit against the crushing reality. A sense of duty to this family, these people you have not yet met, overwhelms you. You aren’t religious, but if you were, you think this would be a good time to pray.
As the day shift nurse leaves, you feel the weight of responsibility fully pass to you.
Rising from your chair, you glance into the glass-walled ICU room to see the family. They’re red-eyed and touching each other gently. One hand on a back. Two hands clasped. Reaching for comfort in an impossible situation. A mother. A father. A girlfriend.
Dr. Winters, the ICU attending, strides over to you. A few strands of her metallic gray hair have escaped from her bun and glint under the fluorescent lights. Her dark-framed glasses are smudged, and the dark circles under her eyes match your own. “Have you been updated on the patient’s condition?” she asks.
“Yes.” You both exchange a knowing look.
She nods, her face stoic. “Good. I’ll talk to them in a few minutes.”
Your legs feel like cement, but you force them forward and enter the room. “Hi, I’m Jasmine, and I’ll be the nurse tonight,” you say, making sure to meet each of their eyes.
“Has Dr. Winters said anything? Is he going to be okay?” the mother pleads. The question burns like a snake's venom in your blood.
“Dr. Winters will be here in a few minutes to discuss the results,” you say simply, internally wincing at the side-step. You watch as the hope in their eyes falters ever so slightly.
Dr. Winters enters the room with her shoulders square and spine straight. “As you know, we performed the apnea test. We watch for spontaneous breathing off the vent to determine brain activity.” A roaring silence engulfs the room as you brace yourself. “During the test, we didn’t notice any spontaneous breaths.” Tears slide down their faces, and you push your own away. This isn’t about me. “He has no brain function.” Tears turn to sobs as the hope they were holding so tightly to is ripped away. “I’m sorry,” Dr. Winters says.
You feel her wailing tear through you, fragmenting a piece of you with it. It’s the sound of a mother losing her son. You’d hear it long after your shift. In your dreams. In laughter. In the shrieks of children playing. It would be like a ghost, haunting you as you carry the death of someone you never met and the grief of a family you’d never see again. Against your own wishes, tears spring to your eyes. This isn’t about me.
You stand as witness to their nightmare as they compassionately consent to releasing him from this medical prison. He’s disconnected from the ventilator, and the QRS complexes slowly and steadily widen until his heart stills forever.
• • •
After time with him to say their goodbyes, the family leaves to make arrangements. You enter the ICU room and mechanically follow protocol, beginning by removing all the tubes from his body. You lower the head of the bed until it’s horizontal and straighten his limbs, gently moving his head to midline. You wash his body with the hospital-issued cleansing wipes. When your work is done, you contact hospital security to deliver the body bag and tag. You tie the tag around his first toe. A fellow nurse helps you place his body into the bag, and you zip it closed.
• • •
On the drive home, the horrible storm just underneath the surface overpowers the little strength you have left to fight it off and allow it to overtake you. Quiet sobbing becomes wild sounds from the depths of your being, and you manage to pull over onto the shoulder as the world glows with early morning light. You weep until you’re exhausted. Until the storm is more manageable. Until your face and scrub top are soaked with tears. Nothing can make this right. You just learn to live with it.
You’re calm enough to safely drive again, and as you reach for the gear shift, your phone buzzes. It’s a notification of an auto-deposit of your biweekly paycheck.
$1,728.