Night Shift
Chapter One Sneak Peek

SAMANTHA

Out of nowhere, an ambulance came barreling around the corner with lights flashing and sirens blaring, just as I was about to turn into the parking lot at St. John’s Medical Center. I jerked the wheel, narrowly avoiding a collision. Shaken but unscathed, I pulled into the parking lot on the corner of 19th and J, then cut the engine.

A cool rain fell relentlessly against my windshield while I sat in my car across from the entrance to the emergency department. Streetlights fought against the darkness to illuminate the area, creating halos of light in the misty air.

When I’d come here for my formal interview a few weeks ago, finding parking had been a nightmare. Thankfully, tonight, the staff lot had plenty of open spaces. As I braced myself for the night shift, the knot in my stomach tightened. I hated to admit it, but I was a bit nervous. Probably not for the reasons I should have been, but nevertheless, I was. And this wasn’t the typical new-job jitters or worry about being late. No, instead, my mind fixated on something far more mundane—the vulnerability of my car in this dimly lit, unprotected parking lot.

There was no security guard in sight. This car wasn’t much, but it was all I had. Dealing with a break-in or having to fix a shattered window was the last thing I needed. I’d purchased this used GTI thanks to the money I saved on tuition after receiving a scholarship for nursing school. It had taken nearly all the funds I’d saved from working at the hospital too, but I loved the little black beauty—stick shift and all. This ratty thing had given me freedom for the first time…freedom to move away from Aberdeen. Strangely enough, I was more concerned about my car getting vandalized than what awaited me across the street.

I was fifteen minutes early and had already seen three ambulances pull up to the emergency bay. It was clear that today was our turn to take on the city’s worst cases. In Tacoma, St. John’s and Tacoma General, both Level II Trauma Centers, alternated handling these intense days. By the look of it, my first shift was going to start off with a bang.

As I sat there in my car gathering the courage to head into the hospital, I reminded myself that the high-speed pace and medical challenges of the ED were, in fact, what had drawn me toward this choice.

I glanced down at the dashboard. The clock read 17:49. My shift would start at 18:00. A thrill of excitement surged through me while butterflies fluttered chaotically in my stomach. “You asked for this,” I whispered, taking a deep breath to rally my courage as I removed my keys from the ignition. I double-checked that I had my essentials before I exited the car: stethoscope, trauma shears, at least four pens, my lunch—which hopefully I would get a chance to eat—and my wit. Just as I stepped out of the car and locked it, another ambulance screamed into the bay. “Oh boy,” I muttered under my breath, “this is going to be a shit show.”

My fingers instinctively wrapped around the end of my braided ponytail that kept my long, curly red hair in check as I crossed the street. The style was practical, no-nonsense—much like the rest of my life.

This was it, the big leagues. A chance to prove myself as a newly minted CEN. I had always been the type to take charge, to push through hardships and challenges, and tonight would be no different. The constant whirl of activity, the sirens, the urgency—it was all here, and I was ready for it. Ready to face the chaos, ready to make a difference.

With a deep breath, I pushed open the doors to the emergency department, stepping into a world where every second counted and where my skills and decisions could save lives.

When I badged in to the break room, a sea of unknown faces stared back at me, each displaying the weariness typical of this job. I glanced around, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings of my new workplace. The shift was just about to begin, and everyone already looked like they didn’t want to be here. Welcome to the night shift.

The charge nurse entered, clipboard in hand, a clear signal that the pre-shift briefing was about to start. “Let’s make this quick. We’re swamped because of the wreck at 509 and Pacific,” she said.

Board rounds were a familiar routine from my time in Aberdeen, but here, in this larger hospital, the stakes seemed higher. As I focused on what the charge nurse was sharing with us, nervous energy gripped me. The rapid arrival of ambulances moments earlier indicated that many daunting tasks lay ahead this evening.

After finishing her briefing, the charge nurse paused briefly and said, “Everyone, meet our new staff nurse.” She gestured in my direction. “This is Samantha Sheridan, joining us from the Emergency Department at Harbor Regional Health in…Aberdeen, was it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied with a smile on my face, forcing myself to remember that I was the new kid on the block.

A twinge of awkwardness made my cheeks heat. The skeptical, almost pitying looks everyone now gave me were irritating. I could almost hear their thoughts: “This girl is going to be eaten alive at a hospital like this.” Well, I was more than ready to prove them wrong. I couldn’t wait to show them I belonged here.

The charge nurse moved on, outlining the night’s current caseload and doling out our assignments. She reminded us it was trauma day. When the briefing wrapped up, a surge of adrenaline shot up my spine, and I headed toward the triage area. I remembered what Steven, the hiring manager, had warned me about night shifts at St. John’s. “Expect to hit the ground running from the get-go,” he had said. And boy, he hadn’t been exaggerating.

When I rounded the corner, I found the scene was mostly as I’d expected. Nurses were attending to the first three ambulances, their actions routine and measured. But it was the frantic activity surrounding the last ambulance that seized my attention. As fate would have it, inside that ambulance was the very patient I had been assigned to.

The shouting grew louder, and with each step I took, the commotion intensified. I tried to spot the nurse who was supposed to give me the shift report, but wasn’t sure which one she was. The charge nurse had told me to look for Bethany Raines, saying she’d have dark brown hair tied back in a ponytail and that she was a dead ringer for Alice Braga. She was probably right in the thick of things. I needed to get closer to see if I could spot her.

Before I could reach the triage area, additional medical staff flooded into the area, security officers in tow. This combination signaled trouble. One of my new coworkers was holding a little black case—that wasn’t good. At my old hospital, those black cases held locking restraints for combative patients. I wasn’t a fan of using them, but it beat getting punched or kicked. If they were already having to resort to restrictive measures like this, it was going to be a long, hard shift. The tension in the air was almost tangible, and my heart rate accelerated as they moved the patient into a trauma room. This was the reality of a Level II Trauma Center—unpredictable, unyielding. And this was my new normal.

I steeled myself. “All right, Sam, no backing down now,” I muttered under my breath. My past, riddled with its own kind of chaos and pain, had prepared me for this moment. The hardworking, determined part of me was raring to go, even as a wave of apprehension tightened my stomach at facing this new level of encounter.

From the threshold of the doorway, I watched the rapid-fire activity unfolding. The room resonated with the sounds of shrill, rhythmic beeping from monitors and the scuffling squeaks of shoes moving across the vinyl floor. Six determined hospital staff encircled the patient, who was thrashing wildly on the gurney, his movements punctuated by violent, angry screams. One nurse pressed her hands firmly around his neck, trying to hold his cervical spine in alignment. Beside her, two techs applied pressure on his wrists and shoulders. At the same time, two security officers held down his legs, applying pressure right above the knees and feet. Another officer put locking restraints around the patient’s wrists and then moved to secure his ankles.

One of the security officers hissed, “Do you want the chest strap, Doc?”

The doctor, who had just brushed past me as if I wasn’t there, responded with crisp self-assurance, “Hold off on it until we can get a good look at his torso for any visible trauma.”

Finally, I spotted the nurse who I would be relieving. I headed toward her. Even with her mask on, she did, indeed, resemble Alice Braga.

The patient reeked of alcohol. I stopped dead in my tracks as the smell sent a shudder through my body. The familiar scent triggered terrible memories of the only other person I had ever known to have this kind of pungency—my father. For the smell to be this strong, the man must have had a lot to drink. I shook my head, snapping myself back to the situation at hand. As soon as I stepped up next to the nurse, the doctor barked an order at me.

“We need a CT scan, stat, but there’s no way this patient is going to hold still, so we’ll need a sedative to knock him out.” He pointed a finger at me as if I had some Ativan or propofol just sitting in my pocket.

My eyebrows shot up, and the pharmacist standing by the door said, “Don’t worry about the medication. I got that. You go put the order in for the scan.”

After placing the order, I returned to the nurse at the head of the bed, and she began to update me on the patient.

“This guy arrived by ambulance following reports of a collision. Evidently, he ran a red light and T-boned a minivan crossing the intersection of 509 and Pacific, which caused another car to swerve and crash into a utility pole. This was a bad one.” She paused. “I’m sorry, I haven’t even gotten your name yet. You walked straight into a mess.” The side of her jaw clenched.

“It’s Sam,” I told her. “And your name is…”

“It’s Bethany,” she said, glancing at me. “Well, Sam, the vehicle he hit had a mother and three children in it. When police and fire arrived at the scene, they found the mother desperately clinging to her little girl, screaming for help while her other two kids were still in the van. They found the two boys dead at the scene. When they brought her here, she was semiconscious. They took the little girl, who was in critical condition, to St. Mary’s Children’s Hospital just up the road. They lined this patient in the field, so we were able to draw blood right away. We’re waiting to see what his blood alcohol level is, but I have no doubt that it’s high.”

I was trying my best to focus on her full report, but the lingering memories of that night—the one that had irrevocably changed my life—rushed to the forefront of my thoughts like a dark wraith.

“Is everything okay?” Bethany asked, concern settling in her brow. “You’re turning a little pale, and the last thing we need is another patient in the department.”

“I’m okay. This…is one of those cases that’s hitting a little close to home.” I plastered on a soft, professional smile and dug my nails into the palms of my hands to force the dark memories to recede. “Don’t worry. I’m good.”

While I listened to the rest of her report, I forced myself to slow my breathing. When working in the emergency department, I had one rule—not to get too invested in my patients, no matter how they affected me, good or bad. Sure, I cared about them, but if I allowed my emotions to get involved, it could be detrimental to their care. It was better to keep a professional distance. Caring for this man was going to be difficult because of the horrific pain his actions had caused innocent people. He would be a challenge, forcing me to confront my ethical boundaries.

But I was duty-bound to care for him, even if he was a piece of shit, so much like my father.

Giving Bethany a sidelong glance, I arched an eyebrow and asked, “Want to place a bet? Closest to guess his EtOH, and the loser buys coffee.”

The left corner of her mouth rose. “I think you’re going to fit in just fine here, and I’ll take that bet. I’ll go with a solid three-fifty.”

The doctor rushed past me once again, this time hitting my shoulder hard enough to spin me around. In a flash, he was gone, no apologies offered.

Bethany chuckled and said under her breath, “Don’t take Dr. Thorin’s rudeness personally. He’s like that to everyone.”

Once we got Mister Charming situated and sent to CT for his brain scan, Bethany briefed me on the two other patients I’d been assigned so far tonight. Thank God they weren’t in critical condition.

“I suspect that guy we just moved to CT is going to be a handful, so if he gets out of line, just remember to call security,” Bethany said, then paused. “We don’t need a new nurse getting assaulted by some drunk.”

Looking at her with a half smile, I assured her, “Just because I’m new here doesn’t mean I’m a new nurse.” The last thing I wanted was for someone to get the wrong idea about me being an inexperienced “baby” nurse from a small town. I knew how to handle my own.

“Sassy and pretty… I hope you know I meant nothing by the ‘new nurse’ comment,” Bethany said, nudging me playfully with her elbow. “And as much as I would love to stay and see what the EtOH result is for that guy, I’m fucking exhausted. It’s been a long day for me. I have a hot shower, a bottle of wine, and some Outlander waiting for me when I get home.”

I decided to treat our bet like they did on The Price is Right. “Sounds good, and I’ll guess three hundred fifty-one for the patient’s blood alcohol level.” I figured this would give me a fifty-fifty chance of winning. I’d spent enough time watching that silly game show to know that this was a solid strategy.

Bethany threw me a scowl hard enough to make my cheeks heat. “You’re really going to Price is Right me like that?” she asked.

“Sorry, Bethany, but I like to win.”

She shook her head in disbelief, but her scowl cracked into a smile.

“All right, all right… You’d better be honest about the test result when it finally comes in. Obviously, we don’t want any HIPAA violations, so don’t go texting me what it came back at, but I’m going to go ahead and give you my number because…well, I guess I like you.”

As Bethany walked away, a sense of relief lifted my spirits. I was pretty sure I’d just made a new friend.

It wasn’t long before the patient was wheeled back from CT in a frenzied state, ruining the upbeat vibe I’d just established with Bethany. Why did my first shift have to start like this, with such a violent and out-of-control drunk? I walked into the man’s room and asked the security officers if they knew what had happened during the scan. Normally, I would have received a call if something unusual was going on with a patient.

“He grabbed the CT tech and spit at her,” one of the officers said.

Well, that explained why the patient was now wearing a spit hood.

That kind of behavior didn’t shock me. I’d been around enough raging drunks to know they could do just about anything when inebriated. “Do we know if they completed the scan?” I asked.

The ED tech who had accompanied the man said, “He didn’t even make it into the scanner before spitting at her, which forced us to pull him out of there real quick.”

Moving closer to the edge of the patient’s bed, I gently but firmly rested my hand on his shoulder. I might have been calm on the outside, but on the inside, turmoil raged within me like wildfire. In my most composed nurse’s voice, I said, “Sir, it’s very important that we complete the CT scan. You’ve been in a car accident, and we need to check for any brain injuries. I’ll speak with the doctor about possibly giving you something more to help you relax, but I’m going to need your cooperation.”

His response was a vehement “Fuck you!” followed by an attempt to spit at me. I gasped, grateful for the spit hood’s protection. My hand dropped from his shoulder, and I stepped back. In an instant, despite his restraints, he managed to latch his fingers around my wrist, twisting it roughly and digging his nails into my skin. “I’ll kill you, you little bitch!”

The security guard was on him in a split second, squeezing the tendons of his wrist, weakening his hold just enough for me to yank my arm from his fingers.

Turning my face from those in the room, I leaned down and grasped my knees for support. His words reverberated against my skull. Darkness fringed my vision as a memory of someone else saying those same words haunted me. I exhaled slowly, regaining a semblance of composure amid the commotion.

“I’ll be right back,” I barked at the security officers. “I need to take care of my wrist where his nails dug into my skin.” Fleeing to an adjacent room, I cleaned my wrist with an antiseptic wash. Luckily, he hadn’t broken the skin. I sure as hell didn’t want to have to report an injury incident and deal with all the medical evaluations and follow-ups.

I took a few minutes to calm down and shove his words into the locked box within my mind where I kept so many other dark memories.

No, this definitely was not a good first day.

When I returned to the drunken man’s room, we administered more medication and were finally able to subdue him enough to get him back to CT for a successful scan. This time, I accompanied the patient alongside security, carrying extra medication in case he became combative again. Some people had an extremely high tolerance for sedatives.

Once we had the monster back in his room and settled, I checked on my other patients to see how they were doing. Thankfully, their cases were less complicated. One of the patients had jammed his toe pretty badly by kicking a bedpost on his way to the bathroom. We were waiting for the X-ray results to determine if there was a fracture. The other patient had been suffering from an upset stomach since last night. We still needed to check the results of her blood work, but she would most likely receive a GI cocktail shortly. First, though, I needed to perform an oral challenge to ensure she would be able to keep it down, because she had reported three episodes of vomiting over the last twenty-four hours. Since these results were going to take some time, I notified my charge nurse that everyone was tucked in and that I would be going on break.

SAMANTHA

When I entered the break room, I was relieved to find it empty. The space was modest in size and designed for function. The walls, painted a soothing shade of pale yellow, had an eclectic mix of motivational posters and funny hand-drawn illustrations that made me laugh despite this hellish first shift. Contributions from various staff members, I guessed. In one corner of the room stood a large whiteboard filled with shift schedules and important announcements. At the bottom was a playful doodle left by someone seeking to lighten the mood.

As I milled around the well-lived-in space, I reflexively rolled my shoulders to relieve the tension that never seemed to leave. In the middle of the room sat a long, sturdy table surrounded by mismatched chairs. Along one wall there was a small kitchenette area, equipped with a microwave that had seen better days, a coffee machine that had to be the lifeline of the department, and a refrigerator stuffed with quick meals and energy drinks.

The far end of the room housed a couple of worn but comfortable-looking couches, flanked by a small bookshelf filled with an odd assortment of medical journals, outdated magazines, and a few well-thumbed novels. Sitting on top of an issue of the Journal of Hematology & Oncology was a medical romance book with a Dr. McDreamy on the cover. Only in a hospital break room would that be normal.

The silence was a welcome change, considering how this shift had started. But just as I was grabbing my food from the fridge, I heard the door open behind me. I couldn’t stop myself from letting out a soft, audible sigh. “So much for a quiet break,” I mumbled.

With my lunch bag and bottle of water in hand, I turned around and smacked right into a solid figure. The impact sent the bag tumbling from my hands. Standing before me was the same doctor who had been barking orders at me earlier. His presence dominated the small room just like it had the trauma room. His air of indifference made it even more impossible not to notice him. He didn’t even flinch or apologize; he merely straightened his coat as if I were the one who had intruded into his personal space.

“Hello,” I managed to squeak out, mustering politeness despite his rudeness. As I bent down to retrieve my lunch, I realized my face was inches away from his crotch and jumped back into a standing position, nearly launching the bag across the room.

“You must be new here,” he responded in a dismissive tone, his eyes scanning the room rather than focusing on me.

I tried my best not to be a smart-ass but couldn’t resist. “And you must have forgotten what they taught you in your manners class at doctor’s school. Normally, when you run into someone, you apologize, or if someone says hello, you say hi back,” I said, my grin a thin veil hiding my annoyance.

He shot back, “I must have missed that class in—what did you call it—doctor’s school? I think I was too busy learning lifesaving procedures to attend that one.”

“Ah, so lifesaving trumps basic human interaction? I’ll make a note of that in my Common Sense for Doctors handbook.”

He chuckled, something I imagined he rarely did. “Common Sense for Doctors? Now, that’s a book I want to read. Did you write it during your How to Survive Encounters with Arrogant Doctors nursing class?”

I laughed, raising my chin. “It’s a personal project that I’m still working on. Your type is actually discussed in Chapter One: ‘How to Identify a Doctor with an Overinflated Ego.’”

He smirked and eyed me curiously for a moment. “I’m honored to be your muse. But tell me, does Chapter Two cover ‘How to Charm Said Doctors’?”

“Only in the appendix,” I replied, spinning around in an attempt to hide my flushed face. I headed to the table. “It’s a short reference.”

I found a seat and plopped my lunch bag down onto the table, embarrassed yet oddly intrigued by the sharp exchange. As I sat there, trying to steady my rattled nerves, Dr. Thorin’s voice lingered in my ears. Deep and resonant, the timbre had flowed down my spine and into my most intimate places. It had a panty-melting quality that was impossible to ignore. I found myself thinking absurdly that he could read the dictionary aloud, and I would be utterly enraptured, hanging on every syllable. Damn, his voice alone was auditory erotica, sending a thrill through me that was both unexpected and unsettling.

Famished and flustered, I savagely rummaged through my food.

“Did you bring anything good tonight?” he asked in a muffled voice.

When I glanced back, I gulped at the sight of his muscular ass. He was bent over, with his head stuck in the fridge. And, oh my God, what a magnificent ass it was. Nearly choking as I salivated, I coughed out, “What was that?”

With a meal-prep container in hand, he pulled his head out of the fridge and asked again, “Did you bring anything good tonight?” I hadn’t noticed before, but he was tall and ruggedly handsome. When he stood upright, his head towered over the fridge, and the first thought that popped into my head was, I would climb him like a tree.

Shaking off that image, I reached into my lunch bag and pulled out an oven-roasted turkey sandwich, a bag of chips, and an apple. With a shrug, I lifted my sandwich into the air, almost as if I was offering him a bite, and said, “I have a ‘sammich,’ chips, and an apple.”

He rolled his eyes and gave me an exasperated sigh. I immediately wondered if I had said something stupid. Did he think I was actually offering him my food? Was I offering him my food? What the hell was I doing with my hands?

“What did you call it?” he asked in a tone somewhere between sarcastic and genuinely curious.

“A sam-mitch,” I pronounced, emphasizing each syllable. “It’s what my mother used to call them when I was younger. It’s just a stupid word that kind of stuck with me.”

“And your name is Sam,” he noted, more as a statement than a question.

I lifted one eyebrow. It puzzled me as to how he knew my name. I was sure I hadn’t mentioned it yet.

“You have a look of confusion on your face. You’re probably wondering how I know your name,” he said smugly, pausing long enough to let my brain catch up. “It’s on your badge.”

How stupid could I look in front of this man? I snapped my head down. “Oh yeah, I forgot about that. It’s actually Samantha, but I go by Sam for short.”

“Looking forward to the next chapter, Sammich.”

Did he just call me Sammich?

Before I could even raise my head and respond, he’d left the break room. Dumbfounded, I remembered I only had a few more minutes on break and needed to eat. There was no telling when I’d get another chance. The whole point of taking a break was to stuff food into your mouth as quickly as possible because you never knew if you’d get another opportunity during your shift. As I gobbled down my sandwich, I mulled over what had happened to me in the last few hours. My mind kept returning to the drunken patient who had unsettlingly reminded me of my asshole father and all those years I had spent living in a nightmare. And I was surprised by the unnerving feelings that had been stirred by this man, this doctor, who had gone from barking orders at me to calling me Sammich.

Despite his standoffish nature, he possessed an undeniable charm, a kind of rough, untamed allure that was hard to ignore. His scruffy salt-and-pepper beard that subtly hinted at his age was a striking contrast to his curly, dark brown hair. In the fluorescent lighting of the break room, his eyes had appeared almost gray. While his smooth bronze skin suggested he spent time outdoors, his clinical demeanor suggested otherwise. Remarkably, his face was devoid of wrinkles, likely a result of rarely smiling. I chuckled at the thought. It was as if with his aloof attitude he was challenging the world to take him as he was, without any pretense or effort to conform. Although he came off as a jerk, there was something intriguing, albeit frustrating, about him. Why were all the hot ones such arrogant assholes?

***

I bolted upright, my heart racing. The beats echoed in my ears, making me feel like a frantic, trapped animal, as if I were still running in my nightmare. Sweat beaded on my forehead as the remnants of the dream flickered through my mind. Reaching up, I clutched at my chest. It was the same dream that had haunted me since childhood.

It always started the same way, with the sickening stench of bourbon and the slurred shouts of my father echoing down the hallway to my room. The darkness of the night would then envelop me as I ran, driven by sheer desperation. Behind me, my father’s voice would thunder, his drunken fury the driving force behind my terror. His fingers, calloused and unyielding, grazed the ends of my hair, but I was too quick, darting out of his reach and sprinting toward the safety of the woods behind our house.

In my dream, as in my distant reality, the night was my ally, guiding me along a moonlit path. I maneuvered through thick brambles, branches catching on my clothes as I wove in and out of the dense underbrush. I knew these woods like the back of my hand. Every root and rock was a familiar landmark in my escape. Just ahead lay my secret box, beside the gnarled, old oak tree. It was my shelter, a place where the shadows swallowed me whole, somewhere I could be away from his intoxicated rage.

My breath came in short, sharp gasps, misting in the chilly night air. Leaves crunched beneath my feet as I tried to tune out my father’s distant, muffled curses.

If I just kept running, if I could reach my secret sanctuary, I would be safe. Safe until the alcohol claimed him, lulling him into such a stupor that he would forget his own daughter, forget the chase, forget the violence that lurked in his fists.

I dove into my hiding spot. My heart pounded in my ears, a relentless drumming that seemed to ricochet off the sides of the box. I pulled my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them and trying to make myself as small as possible. Suddenly, the forest fell silent, as if it was holding its breath. And I knew I was alone again. I had mastered the art of evasion. All I had to do was run fast and hide well, and the man who should have been my protector couldn’t catch me.

But the nightmare didn’t end there. Today it seemed to cling to me, the remnants of terror engulfing me like a suffocating shadow. I gasped for air, a panic attack clawing its way up my throat. My pulse raced with a wild, uncontrollable rhythm that threatened to claim my ability to breathe.

I was no longer that little girl in the woods, but the fear, the sense of helplessness, was as real as it had been back then. It was a reminder of where I’d come from, of the demons I carried within me.

Struggling for air, I stumbled out of bed, searching my small one-bedroom apartment for something, anything, to help me breathe. My bedroom offered no relief, so I staggered into the kitchen, my chest heaving. There, I found a paper bag. Clutching it around my mouth, I inhaled and exhaled, trying to steady the rapid rise and fall of my chest.

“Janie, my therapist,” I muttered to myself, “focus on what she taught you, Sam.” I closed my eyes, forcing myself to recall my therapist’s words, the strategies she’d taught me for managing these crippling episodes. Should I call her? It had been ages since a panic attack had hit me this hard. But then, today hadn’t been just any day.

If I had any hope of getting through this, I needed to use the mindfulness techniques she’d taught me.

Hurriedly, I scanned my apartment to find five things I could see. Two bananas on the counter, a stack of flattened moving boxes in the center of the living room, my favorite book sitting on the end table, my clogs by the front door, and my keys on the table. Next, four things I could touch. I found the saltshaker, the mail I’d been ignoring on the table, the fuzzy blanket crumpled on the sofa, and the lock of hair I always twisted around my finger. “Come on, focus, Sam,” I murmured to myself, continuing to press the bag over my mouth and nose. Then I sought to find three things I could hear. A slow drip from the faucet, my neighbor’s TV, and a dog barking in the distance. Now, two things I could smell. A lavender double-wick candle and a half-empty bag of coffee. And last, one I could taste. The box of Cap’n Crunch on the counter. I let the paper bag fall from my lips as the panic receded, then glanced around the room again.

Nestled in a rundown building in a less-than-desirable neighborhood, my apartment was a small haven I had carved out for myself. The walls, once dull and peeling, now boasted a fresh coat of cheerful yellow paint. It was a color that always managed to lift my spirits. Despite the unit’s modest size, I had been able to arrange the space to feel cozy and welcoming. A new sofa, adorned with bright throw pillows, occupied one corner of the living room, facing a small TV that sat on a secondhand stand. The single bedroom was cramped, but I kept it tidy. Every item in this apartment, from the thrift-store curtains to the potted plants on the windowsill, was a testament to my independence. It wasn’t much, but it was mine—a small sanctuary where I was rebuilding my life, one day at a time. Soon enough, my new job, as challenging as it might be, would earn me a good living, and I’d find a better place.

Taking another shaky breath, I steadied myself against the counter as my mind, traitorous as it was, flickered back to my first day at St. John’s Hospital. Over and over, it replayed the dark image of a drunk man—my patient—slamming his car into a minivan, killing two young children and seriously harming a third. Although I hadn’t seen the accident, I’d witnessed the aftermath, the lives torn apart. The distraught mother had arrived at the hospital covered in a mixture of her own blood and that of her daughter. Her anguished screams as she was told about the loss of the two little boys had shattered my heart. I rubbed my wrist where phantom nails dug into my skin. The drunk man’s face haunted me, conjuring up memories of my father pulling out onto the road and swerving at the last second but still slamming into the side of an SUV.

This was my reality now. Saving lives and dealing with loss was what I had chosen, what I had worked so hard for. I was determined to make my life count, particularly when things were tough, unlike the abusive father I had and unlike the kind mother I’d never truly known.

“This is your path, Sam,” I whispered to myself. “You’re here to make a difference, to fight for those who can’t.” And with that thought, I found a sliver of peace.

Throwing the paper bag in the garbage can beneath the sink, I pulled a glass from the cabinet, got a drink of water, and returned to bed. I needed to sleep and be rested for the day ahead. It was part of the job. If I made a mistake, I could kill someone. In the often chaotic turmoil of the ED, I had to be my best, stay in control, and politely manage the thousands of demands that came my way.