And hopefully the thought of finding our mate would calm him the fuck down, or at least sate the bastard so that I could breathe.
* * *
India
I put on my latex gloves and reached into my drawer for some antiseptic, a thick bandage, and some ointment. The little girl’s cut I was treating wasn’t anything deep, mainly superficial, but she had big crocodile tears streaming down her cheeks, and all I wanted to do was make her feel better.
She acted like the world was ending and I was going to make sure to let her know it wasn’t, that everything was okay, even if that was just by putting a bandage on it.
The mobile medic station that I ran, that I’d built from the ground up, was my pride and joy. As a nurse who wanted to help people more than I cared about making money at a hospital, this was everything I’d worked for.
I traveled up and down the coast of California, mainly helping the homeless, and anyone who was poverty stricken. Which, unfortunately, in California there was plenty of.
We mainly relied on donations and benefactors, be it monetary or medical supplies. And what we couldn’t cover, a lot of the volunteers pitched in with their own money. We were a family.
This might have been a company, an organization I’d started, but it was run by everyone. Everyone had a hand in making it successful. It was our passion and that’s why I worked damn hard to make sure it didn’t die out. That’s why I was barely making ends meet, because this was a job of passion, not a get-rich profession.
We were really lucky to have what we did. And one day I’d like to expand and not just be stationed in California. I’d like to have more mobile medics all over the country. I’d love to be able to help everyone.
“Is it going to hurt?” the little girl asked with fear in her voice.
I gave her a reassuring smile.
“It’ll be okay. I’m just going to clean it and put some of this ointment on it, then cover it up so it doesn’t get dirty anymore.” I could see she was frightened, her little body tense as she watched me with wide eyes. “Would that be okay?”
She looked hesitant as she glanced at her mother, who stood a few feet back. I’d seen the mother before, a woman who had left her abusive husband and was now staying at a women’s shelter with her child.
She was so strong, more than she gave herself credit for.
“This is what I’ll be using.” The little girl looked back at m
e. I showed her each step I was doing, and when I finally had the bandage in place, I smiled. “See, all done. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
She looked down at her freshly covered wound and shook her head, her smile lighting up the trailer.
“I can’t wait to show the other kids at the shelter. It looks so cool.”
I chuckled.
I reached in my pocket and pulled out a sucker, handing it to her and watching as she ran up to her mother.
“Thank you,” she said and wrapped her arm around her daughter’s shoulder. Then they both left.
It was moments like these that made me glad I had taken the risk and started all of this. There had been plenty of people who tried to talk me out of it, friends who thought it was a ridiculous idea, others who just didn’t understand.
But I hadn’t listened to any of them and had followed my heart.
This had been one of the easy days, a little touch-up on a cut that wasn’t serious.
“That’s it for the night,” said Jackson, one of the volunteers.
During the day, he worked as a paramedic, and most nights he was helping me. God, I loved the people who helped me out. They were so genuine and kind, and just wanted to do good.
“Thanks so much for helping today.”
He smiled and nodded, taking off the latex gloves and cleaning up his station.
The mobile medic van wasn’t that large, really just a camper that had been converted to have three separate stations. We couldn’t treat anything serious, but we handled superficial wounds and gave out prophylactics, supplements and vitamins, even some antibiotics when our volunteer physician was on duty.