Dahlia

My heart pounded in my chest, my legs feeling like pins and needles as I sprinted down that long, cool hallway. I jabbed my pointer finger onto the elevator button and hopped up and down while I waited for it to arrive. When it finally came, I jumped in and started pressing the door close button. Just as the doors slid to a close, I caught sight of Chet staring at me, standing in the middle of the hallway, a look of complete terror on his face.

I paced back and forth in the elevator as it went down to the ground floor, feeling like a complete idiot for not following the game on the field. I shouldn’t have been in that box. I shouldn’t have let my guard down for one second. And now the quarterback was seriously injured. For the first time in my career, I begged more than anything, that they didn’t actually need me. I begged that he would be up and about before I even got a chance to get on the field. But that was highly unlikely. We all saw that collision. If I could trust my eyes, I was sure I saw the swift shift in his neck as he fell to the ground like a tree that had been cut down. It was probably broken.

Finally, the elevator doors swung open to the inside of the private team quarters. I ran through the tunnel, focusing on the bright light just on the outside of it. I eventually emerged onto the field, as if coming out of a daze to find the crowds hushed, watching. Someone had called an ambulance. I knew because I could already hear it coming. I rushed to our meeting place on the field and grabbed my case. I didn’t know if there was anything in there that could help someone who’s injury was clearly so serious, but I knew I had to try.

I kept running out onto the field, which had cleared by now, with only the quarterback and a couple of officials there to examine what was going on. I slammed the pack onto the ground and yanked it open. It was hard because I couldn’t take off his helmet, without the tools to stabilize his neck and spine.

“Dr. Waters…” It was Russ’s worried voice.

I glanced up at him. “Not now Russ.”

“Thank God you’re here.”

My eyes widened in surprise at those words. I looked up at him for any sign of irony. But all I saw was a face covered in worry and… fear. I pulled out my stethoscope and placed it on his chest to listen. There were breath sounds and a heartbeat. “He’s alive,” I muttered.

Russ nodded, releasing a sigh of relief and making a sign up to the stands. A subdued cheer followed. Shortly after, the paramedics arrived. I explained what happened as succinctly as I could as they put a brace on his neck and slid his helmet off. They put him on a gurney, ran him off the field and loaded him onto the back of that truck. Without a second thought, I got in the back of that ambulance with him.

The whole, bumpy ride to the hospital, I gazed at the body in front of me. Despite the sounds the machines were making, the player looked completely lifeless, an empty shell of himself. I folded my hands, resting my chin on them as I watched him, tears filling my eyes, anger filling my heart at whatever sport could allow this to happen to a human being and then keep going as if it was nothing. I knew that he had made his choice. He went onto the field every day knowing that this was a possibility, but all I could think about was Russ’s nonchalance and that, no matter what happened to this man, nothing would change for the other players, and it would probably happen again eventually… and again.

Eventually, we got to the emergency room of Dallas General. The doctors on duty came running out of the double doors. I stepped out of the back after they wheeled him out, following the crowd of doctors as the paramedics yelled a complete summary of everything that had happened. They rolled him into a free space on the floor and shut the curtains around him. I watched as the doctors ran every test possible. There was no brain damage, no hemorrhaging, but they had to get him in an operating room to fix his spine.

When they wheeled him away, I sat in the waiting room with my phone in my hand for God knows how long. Chet texted me several times, but I just wasn’t in the mood to respond. I didn’t want to talk to him or anyone about what could possibly be happening to a man just a couple of floors up. After I had sat there for about an hour, a complete frazzled mess, the doors opened. A couple I had recognized from somewhere walked in. The tall man glanced around the room, peering through his thick glasses while he kept his arm wrapped around his wife, who stood clutching her brown sweater close to her, her red eyes spilling tears.

When she locked eyes on me, an expression of recognition caught on and she came to sit with me. “What happened, Dr. Waters? What the hell happened.”

There was a lump in my throat as I answered. I couldn’t imagine their pain, but I knew it had to have been unbearable. “He took a really bad collision.”

“Is he gonna be okay?” The man demanded.

I opened my mouth to say something, but my face grew hot. As an intern, you were taught never to give a patient’s family false confidence. As much as I wanted to assure them, to put an end to their nerves and pain, the best I could do was, “I don’t know. Hopefully. He’s in surgery, so.”

The woman burst into tears.

I flinched at the sound as she put her face in her hands.

The man rubbed her back, resting his head on the wall behind him.

I turned my gaze on the door, waiting for a surgeon to come walking through. As I sat there, waiting for hour after hour, my heart pounded in my chest. I clenched my fists in anger, my blood boiling. None of this was fair. I couldn’t stand the way that this was just accepted. I couldn’t believe that I was just supposed to be a complicit actor in all of this.

Carnage.