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“Where is everybody today?” Dana asked.
Robby barely looked up from his work. “Oh someone, who was not me, authorized lending both of my R3s, one of my med students, my only reliable surgical consult, and Kiara to the street team for the day.”
“Well now who would do such a thing?”
Now Robby looked up. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
“The street team’s a good cause. They’re at some information whatever fair, something to do with kids. You can’t say no to that shit.”
“Both my R3s?” Robby echoed, as Dana’s already walking away.
“Think of the children!”
Three blocks over, Mel blew into her cold, cupped hands. Victoria helped Kiara pitch their tent on the closed roadway, as Cassie set things up along their table.
“Aren't you freezing?” Mel asked, to no one in particular. Kiara was the only one of them with a hat and mittens on. Vic had earmuffs, but she, Cassie, and Yolanda were braving the Pittsburgh winter in only street team coats. Doctors and their hubris.
“Well, we've got that… thing,” Vic said, glancing at the sad excuse for a heater between their tent and the next. It wasn't big enough. It wouldn't expel enough heat to keep them or their neighbouring tent warm. It was plugged into a surge protector with an extension cord.
Hindsight is 20/20, isn't it.
VICTORIA: Of course I looked sideways at that heater. It was my first outreach event with the street team. I-I though they always had those there.
KIARA: They were new. Well, probably not new, but new to us on the street team. There's a first and a last for everything.
The street team was Cassie’s baby. Of course, the ER was her home and her first love, but the street team was near and dear to her heart in a different way, and she was glad to have new faces out here today with them. Sure, this was a more “glamourous” event than usual– children are usually better tolerated than street homeless folks– but everyone started somewhere.
“Are you okay?” she asked Mel. “Do you want to go take a walk around?”
Mel shook her head. “Oh, no, I’m fine, thank you.”
MEL: I think I was asked to go that day because I’m not very, um– I’m not very good, in new environments. O-or really with children. I try to be… No, I didn’t not want to go! I knew I’d be with Kiara and Dr. McKay and they know what they’re doing.
VICTORIA: Cassie’s the mom of our group for sure, especially at street team stuff. Cassie, like– you can’t help but just turn into a child out with their mom when you’re with her, you just let her take the lead and do whatever she says.
The event trickled into a relaxed start, a slow stream of parents hand-in-hand with their little ones, stopping at every booth that had something colourful to look at or touch– or even better, snack on. They were giving out pocket first aid kits and cute little teddy bears along with their barrage of brochures and pens. Cassie squatted down to talk to every kid at their level, every time with a smile.
“I used to take my son here when he was little, too,” she told all the moms.
VICTORIA: There was no one except us under our tent when everything went down, thank God.
YOLANDA: There was no one except us there most of the day.
MEL: Dr. McKay was still squatting down, she’d been talking to a child…
YOLANDA: I thought Cassie was tying her shoe or something, I wasn’t paying attention.
The heater made a noise that made them all look, almost a pop. Now, none of them knew much about thermodynamics, but they guessed it probably shouldn’t have done that.
And that’s when it exploded.
MEL: It literally blew up, it just… it exploded.
Kiara and Vic were standing the furthest away, but Vic probably did the loudest gasp out of all of them. Maybe she saw it first. Mel only cried out when she felt a sear of heat bite at the back of her thigh, burning right through her scrub pants. Yolanda screamed when she saw that Mel and Cassie were hurt.
Cassie didn’t scream at all.
“Mel, are you okay?!” she asked.
“Are you okay?!” Mel asked back. “Y-Your face!”
YOLANDA: She didn’t even realize right away. Adrenaline. And burnt nerve endings.
MEL: She was in shock. So was I, honestly.
“Don’t touch it!” Mel and Yolanda, and maybe Victoria, too, all yelled. People were starting to approach now, having heard the commotion; Kiara was turning them away. Someone was calling 911.
“The patio heater blew up,” they said, “and this woman’s face is burned.”
“It’s fine, I’m fine,” Cassie argued, but she was shaking. “I-I think.”
“You’re not fine,” Yolanda stated firmly. “You have partial thickness burns on your right temple and cheek. I don’t want you to be scared but I don’t want you being brave, either. Sit down and wait for the paramedics. In the meantime, we’re going to pour water on it, okay?”
Vic is already standing by offering her Owala. Yolanda eyes her sideways– hello, contamination risk– but it’s all they have for now. Mel holds a hand out for Cassie to squeeze.
That's when Cassie finally screams.
“Okay, you're okay,” Yolanda tells her, in her calmest voice. She has one hand under Cassie's chin and the other behind her head as Vic gently drowns the blistering red areas in cold water. Patches of Cassie's hair fall away, still caught in her ponytail but no longer attached at the scalp. Adults stopped and stared and made their children look away.
Would it always be that way?
KIARA: My job, oftentimes, is being with people on the day that their life changes irreversibly. I never wanted it to be one of my coworkers, one of my friends, though.
“I hear the sirens!” Mel exclaims. Poor Mel, being ignored because her burn wasn’t across her face and there weren’t enough of them to do around.
VICTORIA: I didn’t hear the sirens. Mel was either hallucinating from the shock or Cassie was making too much noise for me to hear anything else, I don’t know. I don’t remember.
But the crowd that Kiara had been controlling did part, and the paramedics did arrive. It could have been minutes or it could have been hours, and everything got louder once they were there. There were a lot of scary terms thrown around. “Areas of deep partial and full thickness thermal burns to the right side of the face; scalp, temple, cheek, outer ear and possibly the eye socket. Hearing and vision appear to be intact, right eye unaffected. Neuro status in check, breathing and airway present without stridor. Initiate major burn protocol and transfer to PTMC.”
Mel was put in a separate rig; Yolanda, taking charge, demanded Vic go with her and she’d stay with Cassie. Yolanda was mean enough to boss around the EMTs, but also soft enough to keep Cassie as calm as possible even when everything hurt and was scary.
“How bad is it?” Cassie asks her. “Be honest with me.”
“It isn’t pretty, but it isn’t life threatening either. Doesn’t look like your eye or your ear are compromised and that’s good, that’s what’s important.”
“My face is never going to be the same, is it?”
Yolanda didn’t answer.
“Garcia!” Cassie snaps. She doesn’t sound angry, she sounds scared.
YOLANDA: What was I supposed to say? No, of course her face was never gonna be the same. And psychologically… I don’t know, man. Sometimes people don’t come back from things like this. Cassie’s a strong girl, I know she’s overcome some shit, but…
“Do not let them lie to me, Garcia,” Cassie says. “And you don’t lie to me either.”
Dana answers the phone between clients. “PTMC Charge Nurse.”
“Dana, it’s Kiara.”
“Well hey, Kiara, how’s it going out there shaking hands and kissing babies?”
“Dana, there was an accident. Two rigs coming in. Two of ours.”
“What do you mean two of ours?” Dana asks. “What happened?”
“Everyone!” Dana claps her hands and raises her voice. She knows how to get her people’s attention. “There’s been an accident at the Connecting Communities Fair. Propane heater blew and spit fire.”
“Isn’t the street team there?” Whitaker speaks up.
Dana holds up a hand. She doesn’t have time for interruptions. “No community members were hurt…. two of our street team members were. Rigs are coming in soon and I need everyone to keep their calm and remain focused. Surgery is on their way down to help us out with burn care.”
Then, she sighs and asks quieter. “Now, who can get me Dr. McKay and Dr. King’s emergency contacts?”
Mel does not have an emergency contact. It’s Princess who sits with her and rubs her back while a Plastics resident slathers ointment on the back of her thigh.
“I’m fine, Princess, really,” Mel insists. “Thank you, but I’m okay. It’s Dr. McKay that got really hurt.”
“It’s not a contest,” Princess reminds her, “but if it were, you both lost. You’re both hurt. She’s got lots of people taking care of her. And you? You’ve got me. And a very cute little butt.”
Princess did make her feel a little bit better. Or it was the pain meds they gave her.
Meanwhile, Cassie’s putting up a whole fight and refusing pain meds out in North 4.
“I can’t do pain meds, I’m in recovery!”
“Sweetie,” Dana says soothingly, “It’s just lidocaine. No need for all the whooping and hollering.”
“You don’t want me to debride beside your eye without the lidocaine cream,” Dr. Walsh confirms. “Can I remove the cloth and start the debridement now, Dr. McKay?”
Cassie nods, flinching as Emery pulls the wet towel away and touches the swollen, molted mess her face has become. She squeezes Dana’s hand as it starts to sting.
“You’d be a much happier camper if you’d let us give you something,” Dana says. “Even an NSAID.”
“An NSAID wouldn’t touch this and you know that,” Cassie says fitfully.
“Wouldn’t it be better than white-knuckling?” Santos asks. “And, shouldn’t burn debridements be done in an OR?”
“This one’s not that big, so it’s okay to do here,” Emery tells her, not breaking her concentration. “And considering we’re doing this with only a topical ointment, we don’t need anesthesia there.” To Cassie, she’s more gentle. “You’re doing good.”
Cassie doesn’t feel like she’s doing good. Santos just had to wipe her eyes for her because she wasn’t supposed to touch her own face right now. She wasn’t even sure if she was crying because it hurt or her eyes were just watering because Emery was working so close to them, or if she was just sad that this happened. All three?
“It looks pretty big to me,” Whitaker stammers.
Dana and Santos both glare at him like he said something wrong, just because he wasn’t using the same soothing, infuriating tone that they were, and he wasn’t downplaying anything.
“It is relatively small,” Emery says. “Residents, what vaccination should we make sure our patient is up to date on, given the injury?”
“Tetanus!” Santos answers first.
“You’re peeling my face off and now you want to give me a shot too?” Cassie mumbles. “C’mon, Walsh, you’re killing me here.”
“It isn’t me, darling, Santos is administering your TDAP. But it can wait until I’m done here. I’m getting further from your eye, so hopefully the pain goes down. It got the rim of your ear, though, that is gonna suck to heal.”
“Jesus Christ,” they hear from the doorway. Cassie jumps, and Walsh groans.
“Langdon, can you not startle my patient while I have a scalpel near her eye, please?”
“I heard she got into a fight with a flamethrower, I had to come see the battle wounds,” he says, rounding the bed to get a look at Cassie’s bad side. “I’m glad you’re okay. You are okay, right?”
She doesn’t answer him, squeezing Dana’s hand through another burst of pain. “Atta girl,” Dana murmurs. Emery’s making good progress on her debridement, pulling a large chunk of burnt skin away and finding healthy, bleeding skin underneath.
“Well, that is disgusting, and I’m sure you don’t want an audience,” Langdon says, already headed back for the door. “I’ll let Garcia know you’re okay, she’s been asking nonstop for updates.” As quickly as he came, he disappeared.
“Whitaker,” Emery asks, “Can you come assess her scalp burns, please? And be more descriptive than just good or bad.”
Whittaker meets Cassie's eyes sympathetically for a moment before removing the dressing from above her ear. “Mix of deep and superficial partial,” he reports, “Blood on the dressing along with some weeping.”
Dana makes a face, and Dana never makes faces.
DANA: ‘Course it was disgusting. Burns are always disgusting. But it’s the fact it was someone I knew and cared about. I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else rather than right there letting her squeeze my hand, of course, but Christ. You show up to work and you expect to leave with your whole face intact, you know?
“Good,” Emery notes. “One of you, can you trim down the hair around the burn please? Sorry, McKay.”
“Would braids keep the hair out of the way enough to avoid shaving it?” Trinity asks quickly. “I can braid her hair away from the area, if that’s an option.”
“That is a great idea, Dr. Santos… when we’re looking at an incision or laceration. With a burn, we want to avoid any pulling on the scalp.”
With the hand not holding Dana’s, Cassie rubs Trinity’s arm. It was nice that she tried.
“Sorry, Dr. McKay,” Whitaker echoes. Strands of dark dyed hair clash with the sterile white of the floor.
Out in the hall, Vic flinches at every noise that comes from the trauma room. She imagines her face looks a little bit like Dana’s does. She feels sick.
VICTORIA: I just felt really bad for her. That could have been any one of us who got the worst of it. It just messed with me a little, you know? Like, survivor’s guilt? Even though we both lived?
YOLANDA: Yeah, I felt that. Like there was nothing anyone coulda done, but…
MEL: But what if one of us could have?
VICTORIA: All I know is that more than anybody else, Dr. McKay taught me what having empathy truly meant. And hovering outside her room that afternoon, I wished she hadn’t.
CASSIE: It looks worse than it feels. There’s, uh, burnt nerve endings… Yeah. And the topical lidocaine. The thing that I was most worried about was Harrison seeing me. But he didn’t see my face without the bandages; like, I don’t want the poor kid having nightmares about full thickness burns. He was so brave about it.
I first saw my own face when they did my first dressing change after the initial debridement, it was that evening. Um, that was a pretty low moment for me, I won’t lie. I startled myself with my own reflection. And then it set in that like, this happened, this is real, and I don’t… know if or when things will ever be the same as they were.
She’d had a full crowd in the room at the time: Mel, Vic, Garcia, Santos, Dana, Robby. Didn’t any of them have jobs?
Emery sent one of her residents down from the surgical floor. They were all scared of her, so they did whatever she asked, even if it was a gross burn dressing change. They’d be transferring Cassie upstairs to the burn unit as soon as they had a bed open. Till then, she was the ER’s favourite boarder.
“Could everyone give us a few?” the resident, Dr. Mowat, asks.
Everyone nods and shuffles along with murmurs and gentle gestures, except Yolanda. The resident and Cassie both look at her wordlessly. “I’m helping you with the dressing change, duh. McKay, did you want anyone else to stay?”
“No, thank you, Garcia,” Cassie says with a smile. She’s exhausted; she loves that everyone rallied for her and made sure she wasn’t alone and wasn’t anxious, and made sure that she was laughing instead of crying, but she was so tired.
“You don’t have to look if you don’t want to,” Yolanda says, as her resident starts stripping the bandages from Cassie's face. “You can wait.”
“They say the sooner you see it, the sooner you accept it, right? It’s fine, I can handle it. It’s still my face.” She sounds like she’s convincing herself more than anyone else.
“Who’s they? You do whatever you’re comfortable with.”
“Nah, give me the mirror, I’m okay. I’m a big girl.”
Yolanda does as she’s told, but she maintains her stance. “You’re a big girl who went through a really scary thing, and your injuries are a work in progress…”
The mirror drops to the floor with a clash. “Sorry– I’m-I’m so sorry–”
“Is everyone okay?” Trinity yells from the hall.
“It’s okay,” Yolanda says gently, a hand on Cassie’s back. “Yes!” Yolanda yells back to Trinity. “We’re fine!”
Cassie didn’t feel fine, though. She looked at Yolanda and shook her head. The resident picked up the mirror, and she didn’t offer it to Cassie again.
“You are fine,” Yolanda says. “You are okay. We can try the mirror again later. Do you want me to invite everyone back in, once Dr. Mowat is done?”
Cassie shook her head again. She can feel tears welling up in her eyes and she didn’t want anyone to see her cry, not again. Dr. Mowat dabs at her wet eyes with a tissue. How embarrassing that twice today she’s had to have someone else wipe her tears for her.
Yolanda nods, stepping into the hall to talk to Cassie’s growing fan club. “The first dressing change can be really hard,” Cassie hears her say. “It’s been a really long day, a lot of big emotions…”
“Can I get you something to help you sleep, Dr. McKay?” Dr. Mowat asks. “Or something for anxiety?”
“I can’t have benzos,” Cassie mumbles. “Or opioids.”
“I can get you a trazodone? Or just melatonin?”
“It’s fine, thank you. I’m fine.”
CASSIE: Yeah, I… was not fine. And I shouldn’t have let my pride stop me from taking a trazodone. I just lay there most of that first night just feeling sorry for myself, throwing myself a pity party. I got transferred upstairs in the morning, and when I woke up everyone was taking turns coming up to see me. I know they didn’t have to come far, but… I just felt so loved.
“Good morning, sunshine.” Dana grins. “Nice new room you’ve got up here. Much quieter than downstairs.”
“Were you just watching me sleep?” Cassie asks, her voice still a morning grumble. “Weirdo.”
“You got a pretty face, can’t help it.”
Cassie’s smile falters, but Dana’s does not. She moves on without skipping a beat, unwrapping a breakfast sandwich and offering half to Cassie. “Apparently Dr. Shamsi’s got her panties in a big twist because her daughter almost got hurt. And I get it, I would too, but I wouldn’t go to the administration about it, what are they gonna do?”
“Javadi’s okay though, right?” Cassie asks, mouth full of sandwich.
“She’s perfectly fine, she’s downstairs working a trauma with Robby right now! She’s a tougher kid than her mommy gives her credit for. Probably never going out with the street team again, though. If Shamsi doesn’t burn it to the ground with this.”
“Why would she do that?” No more sandwich. She’s serious now. “That can’t happen.”
“She thinks she has more say in this place than she really does,” Dana mutters.
“I will never forgive myself if I’m the reason the street team gets defunded.”
“Hey, hey,” Dana says, with that no-nonsense tone of hers. “It probably ain’t goin’ anywhere, but if it did, it wouldn’t be your fault. I’m sorry I said anything.”
Dana also shares her chips. And all the gossip she usually kept in like a vault. When her break’s over, she pulls Cassie’s blankets tight and promises to be back.
DANA: I feel for her. She just came to work to do her job and got hurt. And it’s no one’s fault; accidents happen. Accidents happen to good people. Cassie’s one of the best of ‘em.
-
Trinity’s the next one to show up. “Man, you don't realize how loud it is down there until you’re up here!” It wouldn’t be quiet for long, because Trinity didn’t stop talking.
Unlike Dana, she asks to peek under Cassie’s bandages. “I’ve never had a burn case to follow up on,” she says, “You’re a learning experience.”
“You’re welcome,” Cassie mumbles, wincing slightly as the air makes contact with her wound.
“It looks good,” Trinity says. She doesn’t even sound like she’s lying.
TRINITY: Of course I was lying. I was borderline fucking freaking out. Cassie’s my… friend, or something. Her face is never going to heal fully, burns like that don’t just go away. There’s all the debriding, and the skin grafts, and I am literally getting the heebie jeebies just thinking about it.
-
“You haven’t looked yet?” Frank asks when he’s there. He took the next shift, just as Cassie was waking up from a pre-lunchtime dressing change nap. Cassie shakes her head, refraining from rolling her eyes.
“What does Harrison know?” he asks next. A better question, but not one she wanted to answer.
Cassie shakes her head again.
“I’m getting the sense you’d rather me leave you alone, let you get back to your nap,” Frank guesses.
FRANK: Listen. If it were me, and everyone was taking turns at my bedside, I’d feel weird, too. I’m not claiming to know Cassie better than anyone else around here, but I know she appreciates her space. I’d imagine especially at a time like this. So I’m just saying.
-
Next, there’s a lunch tray gone cold on her bedside table and a calm, warm smile by her window. And if her eyes don't deceive her, Jack Abbot appears to be… knitting?
“Don’t go telling anybody now,” he says with a wink. Looking back down at his craft, he adds with a joking mumble, “Not that anyone would believe you anyway.”
JACK: I will not confirm or deny anything. Of course I had to go visit my McKay before I clocked in. That’s all I’ve got to say.
-
By the time she woke up a third time, she wasn’t even sure she believed it herself. Could have been a dream. For the first time today, there is nobody in her room. Emery is out in the hall, her arms crossed talking to somebody Cassie can’t see. Cassie admired how she ran this ward with no bullshit.
Then, bullshit shoulders its way right into her room.
“What are you doing here?!”
“I was worried!” Chad exclaims, “You weren’t answering your phone! You worried Harrison!”
“I’m sorry!” Emery calls out from the hall. “I didn’t want to let him in!”
Cassie sighs. “I assumed my parents would tell you–”
“You know your parents don’t talk to me.” He pauses for just a moment, taking in the sight of Cassie’s bandaged up face. “You look awful, by the way.”
“Thank you, Chad.”
“You know I tell it like it is, Cassie.”
She can’t help but roll her eyes.
“I’m sorry, I came all the way here to make sure you’re okay and you’re rolling your eyes at me?”
“Chad, the side of my face burnt off, of course I look awful.”
It felt… unsettling, to say that out loud, and she hated that it was Chad that made her say it.
The side of her face burnt off.
“Call Harrison, tell him you’re okay,” Chad suggests. “I’ll tell him, too. I’ll tell him you got hurt, and you have to stay in the hospital for a few days, but you’re okay.”
Cassie nods. “Should I– should I FaceTime him, you think?”
“No,” Chad says quickly. “I would not–I don’t– I wouldn’t want to scare him, you know. Seeing his mom with her face all swollen and wrapped up…”
“Yup, yeah, of course.” Her voice tightens like she’s about to cry, which she hates. Of course Harrison wouldn’t be able to handle seeing her face, even with the bandages. She could barely handle seeing her own face. And it would be this way forever. Would it ever get better? Would he ever be able to look at her the same way, as just his mom, not his mom with a monster face?
“Chad, I need you to go.”
“I came all this way, Cass…”
“You live 10 minutes away! You saw that I’m okay, now go! I need you to go!”
“Okay, okay, I’m going, Jesus.” He mumbles something under his breath. Cassie almost throws a pillow at him, but he’d probably accuse her of assault or something if she did. Instead, she hugs it to her chest and screams into it. Screaming is easier than crying.
“Dr. McKay?” someone asks from the doorway. She doesn’t recognize the voice. “My name is Blair, I’m a social worker with–”
Cassie can’t help but yell. “Not now, Blair! It is not a good time!”
Blair backs out of the room with no further comment. She hears them murmuring to someone in the hallway about her. She presses her call button to summon an angel.
“You okay, Cassie?”
“Can I get a trazadone, please?”
“It’s two in the afternoon,” the nurse says, as if she has to remind her. “Are you in pain, can I get you something for that–”
“I didn’t get much sleep last night and if people keep talking to me, I am going to explode like that freakin’ heater.”
The nurse nods. “Right away, Dr. McKay.”
CASSIE: Not my finest moment, snapping at Chad and then yelling at the social worker. Of course I blame Chad for it. Even if I was bound to break eventually.
It’s dark when she wakes up again. And quiet. There’s nobody in her room.
In the silence, she picks her phone up off the side table. It hasn’t been charged since the night before last, but she hasn’t been on it much and it still has some battery left. She needs to call Harrison, but she needs to do something else first.
She opens her camera app and studies her bandaged face. This is the easy part; where all the harshness is hidden and you can barely even see the swelling underneath all the dressings. The hard part will be peeling them back.
She presses her call button again. The nurse that comes must be a night shift nurse. “Hey, you’re awake! Can I get you anything?”
“Uh, I– I haven’t seen… my face, yet. I haven’t seen underneath my bandages. I want to. If someone could unwrap them?”
“Oh,” the nurse answers. That clearly wasn’t what she was expecting. Getting juice or another sleeping pill or an extra pillow would’ve just been easier. “Yes, we can do that. I’ll be right back.”
True to her word, the young nurse comes right back with bandage scissors and a mirror. She rolls over a stool and sits patiently by the bedside, putting on a clean pair of gloves. She prefaces, “You might feel discomfort, but tell me if you feel pain.”
Cassie nods gently, as gentle, gloved fingers come towards her face and slide underneath the adhesive on her jaw. The air is cold, hitting freshly exposed, badly blistered skin. She feels it against her scalp on the spots they’d have to shave. That was probably a fantastic look on her; a spotty side shave along with a half mottled face.
“You can look whenever you’re ready.”
Garcia’s words from the last time she was here rang in her head. “You’re a big girl who went through a really scary thing, and your injuries are a work in progress…”
This time, she doesn’t drop the mirror. Her hands barely even shake. This just is what it is. This is what has happened. This is what she was left with.
“Has someone from social work come to talk to you yet?” the nurse asks, her voice as gentle as her hands.
“Someone did earlier. I didn’t want to talk to them,” Cassie answers. She presses gently against her cheekbone and her temple. She meets herself again through touch. Still her under there, the same bones that have always been there. She touches the spots of her scalp she feels the air against.
“It’s okay,” she says, “I’m okay.” She’s not sure if she’s telling herself or her nurse.
“It looks pretty good for day 2, it’s coming along nicely. Someone from the skin graft team will likely be by for a consult tomorrow. But don’t you worry about that yet, one thing at a time.”
A few more moments, and Cassie nods and puts the mirror down in her lap. She’d seen enough burns to know that they changed quickly, especially in the first few days. All shedding old skin and growing new, swelling going up and then down, turning colours, losing colour, and all over again. It’d never be the same as it was right now.
But. it’d never be the same as it was before, either.
“You did good,” the nurse says. She rubs ointment into the wounds like she’s putting sunscreen on a child’s face, like this is nothing. She doesn’t even bat an eye. “You’re doing great. Do you have anything planned for the rest of the night, anything to keep you busy?”
“I’m going to call my son now, before he goes to bed.”
“Oh that’s good! How old is he?”
“He’s going to be the big 13 this year.” Talking about Harrison can always get Cassie smiling.
“That is a fun age! Is he a mama’s boy?”
“He really is. He’s a good kid.’
“Hey, good kids are most often a sign that they had a good mom raising them.” The nurse grins. “I’ll check in on you in a bit, enjoy your time with him.”
Cassie hears her say hello to someone in the hallway, but doesn’t think much of it, checking a text in the ER group chat before calling Harrison.
“I-I hope it’s not too late to come say hi.”
It was hard to say no to Mel’s gentle smile, even if it was later than Cassie wanted visitors. Robby definitely took her off the schedule today, so she came a little bit further than downstairs to visit, too.
Apparently wearing shorts in October, no less.
“For you?” Cassie asks. “Never too late, come in.”
She sits down gingerly, crossing her legs to take the weight off her burned one. Cassie imagines that it must be painful, it’s a sensitive spot. It touches everything if you’re not careful. Sure, getting hit in the face with stray flames sucked, but at least it didn’t accidentally rub against surfaces and stuff. Silver linings are fantastic.
“How are you feeling?” they both ask at the same time.
“The weirdest part is having an unscheduled day off work,” Mel says with a smile. “I’m not used to having a day where I’m supposed to be resting. And Robby gave me tomorrow, too? I don’t really think he knows what to do except throw time off at me.”
“Could be worse; he could be pushing you to go talk to Caleb, the trauma therapy guy.”
“Oh, he suggested that too. I think the thing is that I don’t really identify that I went through trauma yet? I mean maybe it’s different, for you–”
“Why do you say yet?” Cassie asks.
“Maybe the more I think about it or process it, it’ll become… traumatic, or something,” Mel answers. “When I slow down enough to think about the fact that we were just trying to do our jobs and we got hurt– and I’m so sorry, I don’t mean to say that we went through equal things–”
“We did and we didn’t go through equal things,” Cassie reassures her. “But this isn’t the trauma olympics, Mel.”
“Do you wish it had been me instead?”
CASSIE: I was just taken aback by that question. Of course, of course I didn’t wish it had been her, or anyone else that was there. I wish it hadn’t happened. I wish nobody had gotten hurt. I wish we’d got to finish our day and pack up and go home to our families at the end of it and that was that. Do I wish it had been Mel that got it worse, oh my God, absolutely not. But I didn’t say all that. My brain shortcircuited.
MEL: But I wouldn’t have blamed her if she said yes. In a moment of hurt, or self-pity, if she said that she wished her pain on me? Okay. Maybe I would too. I don’t– I don’t know.
“Wh–”
“It’s okay, if you say yes. I wouldn’t blame you.”
“No! Oh my God, no, Mel. No.” Cassie can’t manage to form full sentences on the matter, she just wants to reassure Mel that that is not the case at all.
“I think I should talk to the trauma counsellor,” Mell says after a moment. “I think you should, too.”
Cassie nods. “I’m surprised he hasn’t come in here yet, actually. Do you have to talk to the skin graft team, too?”
“They said they would call me.”
“They’re coming to talk to me tomorrow apparently.”
“Should I come back tomorrow, too?” Mel asks. “I can, if you want. If you want company. And if you don’t, that's okay, too. I-I’ll find something else to do.”
Cassie smiles, the genuineness taking her by surprise and the ripple of muscle movement spreading even beneath her bandages. “I’m going to try to get my son here for a bit after he’s out of school. You could join us to build LEGOs for a bit?”
“My sister and I love doing LEGOs together,” Mel says. “I would love to join you and Harrison for LEGO time.”
“You are more than welcome.”
“And if you’re nervous about him coming to visit, at least you have company?” Mel perks up at the idea of being helpful. Cassie knows this about her; she’s like a well-trained sheepdog in that regard.
“Thank you,” Cassie says. “Thanks for coming, and for coming back tomorrow. I said I wouldn’t wish this on you– and I don’t– but I’m also glad I wasn’t alone when it happened.”
“Look where you work, you’re never alone.” Mel smiles.
CASSIE: When people ask about the day of the accident, of course I remember the fear. The fear of not knowing what happened or what was going to happen next. The fact that my life changed without my permission and it was something beyond my control. Something beyond my control happened, and I didn’t even get to be one in control of sharing it, either, because they could literally see it all over my face.
But what I remember more was the care from the people around me, the fact that nobody wavered for a second before stepping in and loving me. I didn’t ask for that. I didn’t expect it. And I think it was the day that I was fortunate enough to find out how much of a support system I have. And I hope that I never have to return the favour of going to visit anyone in the burn unit, or any other unit here…! But I would. A hundred times over.