Free Emergency Room by Caroline B. Cooney Page A

you take such pleasure in other people’s troubles.”
    She stomped away, and now his attention was taken by the wonderful switch of her walk.
    Meggie said, “Guess you’re not sharing a taxi after all, huh, Seth?”
    Oh, no! She was going to invite him out again. Seth said hastily, “I think they need me in Trauma, Meggie.”

Emergency Room 7:10 p.m.
    T HE HALLWAYS WERE SO crowded that neither Seth nor Diana could pass. Stretchers bumped into stretchers and portable X-ray units and treatment trays and wheelchairs snagged on people’s legs.
    They were rolling one of the GSWs out of the Trauma Room.
    The girl from college. I forgot her! thought Diana. She might be dying and instead of thinking about her, and worrying about her, or praying for her, I’m all worked up about some man who — if he’s my father — never got worked up enough about me to send a birthday card.
    The girl was just paler than she had been, and becoming fidgety, her finger knotting and searching the bed. Jersey. That was her name. She roomed with Susan and Mai.
    “Systolic blood pressure is dropping,” said one nurse impassively to another. Jersey was going into shock; blood loss was causing her body to shut down whatever it could in an attempt to save whatever it could.
    Rolled blankets had been packed along Jersey’s body to keep her on her side. While a medical student held her IVs aloft so gravity would keep them running, and the tech rolled the portable heart monitor alongside, a doctor and two nurses wheeled the stretcher toward the patient elevators. They must be taking her to the operating room.
    Briefly, the doors to the Trauma Room remained open.
    Where Jersey’s stretcher had been, and where her blood had spilled, the floor was not red, but yellow. Footprints of Jersey’s blood tracked out of the room and down the hall. The housekeeping staff mopped up.
    “Everything’s fine, sweetie,” said the nurse to Jersey, patting her hair. “Everything’s going to be all right. You’ve got excellent surgeons waiting for you. Wang and Seredy, they’re the best.”
    Let it be, thought Diana. Let Wang and Seredy be the best and let it all be all right for Jersey.
    She slid a little on the yellow slick of Jersey’s blood, and swallowed hard before she went back to Insurance.
    Mary didn’t even ask why Diana didn’t want to do Bed 8, but just nodded, took the paperwork, and set off to interview Mr. Searle.
    Diana tried asking herself why she didn’t want to do Bed 8, but it was too much. She literally could not think about it.
    She could not think about Seth, either. Why must she always lash out at him? How did other girls just enjoy boys? How did they relax and flirt? Why was she either at war or at a loss?

Emergency Room 7:16 p.m.
    T HE MOB OF POLICE had thinned out. The ER was rather like the ocean, with schools of fish coming and going. Groups of cops or doctors or student nurses or sobbing families were swept in and out, as if by tides, and where they went or where they came from was often hard to tell.
    Seth stationed himself at the ambulance bay to see the motorcycle accident come in. Trauma would want him around in case they needed an errand done, but if they didn’t, he’d get to watch.
    The victim was almost completely covered with sheets, and there were four EMTs, one at each side of the stretcher, rushing him straight into the Trauma Room, so basically he saw nothing.
    Seth was irked. No fair covering up. He tried to remember that somebody was in agony under that sheet. Who was Seth to want to gape and stare and calculate the man’s chances?
    I’m a future doctor, that’s who I am, thought Seth. Calculating as they come, or so I’m told.
    He followed the stretcher into Trauma.
    The Trauma team was ready, having had perhaps five minutes between the GSWs and this MVA. When the sheet was lifted, there was much less blood than Seth expected. Basically the body was shredded from the waist up, looked fairly okay from the