Until Autumn

My shoulder barges through the splintered door of the OR and I race out into the hall before my desperation has me collapsing to my knees, my bloodied, gloved hands held up in the air. “HELP ME,” I yell over the sound of the wailing alarm, my voice breaking as my vocal cords tear to shreds. “PLEASE, I NEED HELP. I CAN’T HELP THEM ON MY OWN.”

Nurses, midwives, and doctors come out from wherever the hell they’ve been hiding while I’ve been going through hell and start coming at me. “What happened?” Patricia demands, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me until my gaze snaps up to hers. “Autumn. What’s going on?”

“Thorne got shot and they’re all dying. I can’t save them.”

The maternity ward turns from a ghost town into a flurry of activity. Suzi races past me while Dr. Terrace runs with horror in his eyes. Patricia grabs me and hauls me up, dragging me along as she pulls me back to the OR.

People are yelling, nurses are running around, while doctors begin scrubbing in, rushing through their usual precise and lengthy routine. Dr. Terrace goes for Ashleigh while Suzi races in for the baby.

Another doctor joins Dr. Terrace and within seconds they’re working on her, trying to save her life while Suzi checks over the screaming baby, making sure that she’s still doing alright and that I didn’t somehow make matters worse.

Patricia rushes to Thorne’s side and instantly presses her fingers to his throat, checking for a pulse as I drop down beside him, once again putting pressure on his leg. “His pulse is low,” Patricia says, giving me the best news that I’ll ever hear in my life. “But it’s still there. We can save him but we need to make this fast. Get me a gurney. NOW.”

The nurses come racing to the door with a gurney for Thorne and another quickly unlatches the second door to make space for the bed to fit through. Two male nurses help us to transfer Thorne onto the bed as someone stands behind me yelling into a phone, hopefully stealing an OR that’s already prepped and ready to go.

Thorne disappears from the OR within mere seconds and I struggle to keep up with everything that’s happening, wishing I could do something more to help but getting floundered under the raw, heartbreaking emotions that overwhelm me.

I crumble to the ground, unable to look away from the blood covering the linoleum like a shallow pool. The husband’s, Thorne’s, and Ashleigh’s all pooling together like a scene from a horrible movie.

Someone declares the husband alive and I gape in surprise. I could have sworn he was long gone. Dr. Terrace yells something over the chaos and before I know it, Ashleigh’s heartbeat is slowly beginning to rise while her husband is rushed away. One part of me wants him to suffer through the worst kind of death, while the other part of me is begging for him to live, knowing that if he was to die, it would sit heavily on Thorne’s chest for the rest of his life. Not to mention, it will always be on his record even though it was done to save the lives of his patients.

With everything under control, Dr. Terrace decides that he doesn’t need an overly emotional student crying on the floor as he attempts to save a life and I’m sent away.

With nothing to do but cry and panic, I make my way down to the locker rooms and peel off my bloodied scrubs before dropping them onto the growing pile in the corner of the room. I make my way into the small bathroom, holding my towel tight to my chest.

After making my way into a shower stall, I reach in and turn on the taps. I wait a few seconds for the water to heat before throwing myself under the shower spray and letting it wash away all the fear, doubt, and blood from my body.

My heart aches as my mind takes me through every possibility. The man who holds my heart could die today and there wasn’t anything I could do to have helped him. I just stood back and worked on someone else while his life was slowly slipping away.

If he doesn’t make it, I’ll never be able to forgive myself. But he has to make it. I know he will. Thorne is going to be alright. There’s simply no other option. I won’t allow it. I won’t accept it. Thorne and I haven’t come this far for me to lose him now.

I turn off the taps and wrap the white towel tightly around me before making my way back out to my locker. I stare at my new scrubs, and instead of finding the strength to put them on and face this head-on, I sink to the ground and cry as sharp, painful sobs tear from my chest.