CADEN

“He’s coding!” I shout to my nemesis, fellow second-year resident, Dr. Janet Gilroy.

As Nurse Sharon administers adrenaline, I rip his gown open and plant the defibrillator pads on his right pectoral muscle and lower left ribcage.

Emotionless eyes are fixed on the AED machine as Janet says, “Charged.”

Dr. Myers, the attending trauma surgeon we answer to, rushes in and watches us work. I’m doing everything right, but if I weren’t, she’d take over.

Only trouble is that this guy doesn’t want to be on Earth anymore and after five minutes of no response, no pulse, no hope, Myers shakes her head. “He’s gone, Dr. Cocker. Call it.”

Panting and stubborn, I bark, “Not yet!”

“Charged.”

I really admired this guy. “C’mon, Patterson!”

The stories Bill told me about his forty-seven years of marriage to one woman he met when he was thirty-three. How they never had kids because they wanted to travel the world and learn everything they could about the countless cultures that exist. How she passed five years ago, and he keeps traveling because he believes her spirit still comes along, and he wants to keep her entertained.

It’s so hard to give up on him.

But he has other plans.

On an exhale, I finally glance to my watch. “Time of death, 12:34 A.M.”

Myers pats my shoulder, which is uncommon for her. She’s such a rock. “You gave it your all, Cocker,” she reassures me and walks out of the room.

Janet locks eyes with me before her over–achieving, comfortable heels march out.

Sharon whispers, “Sorry, Caden.”

“Give me a second with him.” I pull the AED pads off and cover his chest with a blanket.

She slips out of the room.

“Hey Bill…I hope you guys travel with wings now.”

Feeling heavier, I rejoin the chaos of an extended shift where I will continue to give my all. This is a part of being a doctor, I know that. I’m prepared to deal with the emotional connection I have with patients. It helps me fight for them. Never will I see them as a number.

I don’t know where Janet is, but I’ve no doubt that wherever she is, that woman is conniving ways to make my life a living hell.

Within seconds Dr. Dev Mangal, also a second-year resident, appears at my side, keeping pace up the corridor. He’s not a trauma surgeon like Janet and I opted to become. He decided upon the life of a general surgeon, one who removes gall bladders, appendixes, etc. More scheduled-visits-peacefulness, less urgent holy-shit-drama that my nemesis and I thrive on.

Under stark fluorescent lighting, Dev excitedly says, “Caden, we’re starting a baseball league! Want in?”

As I dodge a nurse hustling in the opposite direction, I mutter an instinctual, “Absolutely. When do we start?”

“After midnight.”

“Tonight?”

He grins, “Is there a better time?”

We look over at a nurse’s station and discover Janet Gilroy there with her head down.

I rush to check out what the fuck she’s writing. Immediately furious, I point at the form and demand, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Writing my report on the patient’s death. What does it look like I’m doing?”

“My job!”

The bitch winks at me. “Well, you weren’t here to do it. Someone had to.”

“You have gotta be kidding me!”

Dev tells her, “Again, Janet? We are not inviting you into the league.”

Janet tilts her annoying face, voice flat as always. “What league?”

Reaching over the counter, I grab the filled-out paperwork and crumple it in one hand, thinking of all the names I’d love to call her but can’t without being kicked out of the program. Or at the very least suspended with a blemish on my reputation that my ambition cannot afford.

“You ran out of that room to beat me to this paperwork. I was taking a moment to say goodbye to the dead, wish him well! You know I do that!”

Her stare is crystallized. “We have had this conversation, Caden. The guy is gone. You don’t have to say goodbye to him. He's not hovering in the ethers hoping you’ll wish him well, as you so basically put it.” Reaching for another form, she whips one out and slides the drawer shut with aggravating slowness. “What did you really say to him? ‘Why’d you make me look bad by dying on me?’”

This new form crunches in my fist just like the last. “Get out of the chair, Janet.”

Walking around the counter, I yank open the drawer and dig out a replacement for myself while snatching the pen from her reptilian fingers.

Hunched over, I fill out the patient’s demographics from scratch while growling, “William Dwayne Patterson has been under my watch, and neither he nor I need your icy heart putting a button on his final day. Take a hike!”

Janet rises from her borrowed swivel chair with the speed of a snake that just ate. She slinks off to look for new ways to bust my nuts.

Dev leans over the counter while I write. “I mean it, she is not invited.”

“I appreciate that, but I’m out.”

“What?! We need you on this thing, man! It won’t be fun without you.”

From under my battered brow I look at him. “You’ve seen what she’s doing, Dev. My family is in Atlanta. I can’t get assigned to Denver, or Chicago, or Utah, or California, or wherever the fuck they would have me go if she wins a permanent position over me. This is where I belong. And if that means I have to skip baseball after midnight, as much fun as that sounds, then I’m sorry but count me out. This is where I need to be twenty-four-seven until they kick my ass out of here.” Glancing back to the paper, I write his cause of death: Cardiac Arrest. “End-of-shift out of here, not flying-somewhere-else-forever out of here, away from everyone I care about—”

“I get it. I get it.” Dev taps the counter and heads off. “I wish I had a family like yours.”

Staring after him I feel my pulse raging.

I’ll find a way to get back at Dr. Janet Gilroy.

Don’t know how it’ll come about.

But I can’t wait to find out.