by Tara Rose
She and Karen worked without thinking or speaking any more than was necessary. They’d each done this countless times. Loreen went into autopilot mode when bad traumas like this came in, confident in her co-workers and the doctors. They’d all worked together a long time.
They got the young woman, whom paramedics said was named Tracey, on a ventilator, got two new IVs in her, and started fluids. They drew labs and ordered portable x-rays. They put wet gauze on the burns to try and preserve the tissue until she could get to a burn unit. That was all they could do right now. Memorial Hospital wasn’t set up to take care of anything this serious.
The young girl was the most stable of the three because her burns were only second degree, but she’d have scarring on part of her face and all over her torso.
Mac, Travis, and Adam took a quick look at the two men, and confirmed with Karen that choppers were on their way from IU and Loyola.
Karen asked Loreen if she’d be okay for a moment with Tracey while she called the nursing staff in both burn centers to give them report, and Loreen told her to go ahead. Travis came into the bay, took one look at Tracey, and pulled Loreen away from the bed.
“Jesus,” he whispered. “Has Adam seen this one yet?”
“No. Why?” Loreen’s pulse raced. Travis looked like he’d seen a ghost. “What’s wrong?”
“No pun intended here, but she’s a dead ringer for Lissa.”
“Oh shit. Then keep him out of here. Tell him she’s stable and he doesn’t need to see her.”
They both glanced up as Adam came into the bay, stepped close to the bed, and then gasped.
* * * *
Loreen worked through the rest of her shift without thinking about anything she didn’t have to, but not because they had more traumas come in. It was an unusually light day after they’d flown the two young men to IU, and Tracey to Loyola. Loreen couldn’t stop replaying Adam’s reaction to Tracey over in her mind..
He’d looked at everything but her face, adjusting the IV tubing and useless things like that. Nothing he really needed to do. Loreen and Travis hadn’t said a word. Finally, he glanced at each of them, his eyes dark and filled with horrible pain. Mac was in the room by then as well, and Karen had returned. Loreen had been desperate to say or do something, but how could she have done without bringing up the obvious?
She’d never felt so helpless in her entire life. All she could do was watch the pain on his face, until finally he said he heard helicopters, and left the room. Loreen knew she had to stay and wait until they got Tracey on the chopper, but she fought the overwhelming urge to run after Adam and find him so she could try to comfort him.
While Loreen didn’t think Karen knew that she was now with Adam and Travis, she obviously knew about Lissa, although she couldn’t have known what Lissa looked like. Travis had taken her aside at that point. As Loreen watched them speak, she was pretty sure that’s what Travis had explained to Karen.
Once Tracey was finally in the hands of the flight team from Loyola, Loreen got busy with other patients. By the time she finally caught up with Travis again, he told her he had no idea where Adam was. No one had seen him since he’d left after saying he heard helicopters.
Now, it was the end of her shift. She clocked out then texted both men. She’d driven this morning with Travis and Adam in Adam’s car. She could walk home, and had done so before since it took less than half an hour to do so. But she was far more worried about Adam and his state of mind than how she’d get home.
Neither man answered her text, and it was nearly four o’clock when Travis finally walked into the nurses’ lounge. They were alone in there, so Loreen stood and hugged him tightly. “Finally. I’ve been worried sick about both of you. Where is he?”
“I have no idea. He’s not answering his cell and I’ve called everyone I can think of. I even called Sean and Maddox and asked them to find out if Julie knew where he was, thinking maybe he’d gone to see her again, but none of them have heard from him today. No one has. He left the ER and that’s the last anyone has seen or heard from him.”
Travis sounded really angry, and Loreen understood that on some level, but she also understood what Adam must be going through right now. If she’d had to take care of a patient on the anniversary of Pete’s death who looked so much like him they could be twins, she’d have reacted the same way. “It’s a bad day for him.”
“I know that. It’s a bad day for me, too. We were all good friends, and I loved them both, you know?” He ran his hands through his hair. “I didn’t mean that in a sexual way.”
“It’s all right. I know what you meant.”
“But I didn’t run out on people who were depending on me today. I didn’t run out on you.”
She didn’t know how to respond, and she certainly didn’t want to argue with Travis, so she suggested they walk home and wait for him. “I’ll take a quick shower and come to your condo. That way we’ll be together when we finally hear from him.”
He looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “How can you be so fucking calm about this? He walked out on a patient. He left both of us here, without a word. He won’t answer my phone calls. I assume you’ve tried to call him as well?”
She nodded, close to tears now.
“I can understand him ignoring me, but not you. That’s not right. Doms don’t do that to their subs.”
She swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat, struggling for the right words. Travis started to speak again but someone came into the lounge. “We should go,” she said.
“Right. Come on.” He took her hand and practically pulled her out of the room, down the corridor, and out the back door. Thunder rumbled in the distance and the clouds looked ready to burst open any second. “Fucking fantastic. Now we’ll get rained on. I don’t suppose you have an umbrella in your locker, do you?”
“No, but we’ll be all right. It’s only rain.”
Once again, he looked at her like she was nuts, and she nearly took out her phone to call Stacy. Even having to answer endless questions from her sister would be better than this right now. She didn’t need him upset with her. It wasn’t her fault it was going to rain, or that Adam had disappeared.
Travis took out his phone. “I’m calling someone for a ride. It’s too far to walk in the rain.”
She sat at one of the picnic tables and listened while he made several calls, and finally found someone who was able to drive over and give them a ride home. It sounded like everyone he’d called had already heard the story, because Travis told them each the same thing. No, they hadn’t yet heard from Adam. By the time he told her that Luke was on his way, she could tell he was beyond pissed off, so she said nothing.
Adam would be all right. He had to be. It had simply shocked him, that’s all. And today was the worst possible day for something like this to have happened. She couldn’t imagine the memories it must have dredged up, and her heart broke for him. All she wanted to do was hold him and tell him it would be okay.
Luke tried to make small talk as he drove the two home, but Travis answered in monosyllables when he answered at all. Loreen was grateful, though, that Travis had called Luke, because by the time he pulled into the driveway of her condo, it was pouring. She told Travis she’d come over as soon as she showered, and he barely acknowledged her comment.
She ran inside and collapsed against the front door, tears spilling down her face. She was trying so hard to understand their states of mind, but Travis had been right about one thing. Adam had simply left them stranded, and he had to know by now how worried they both were. But Travis reacting this way wasn’t right either, and she struggled to understand it.
After she showered, she made herself a sandwich because she had no idea whether Travis intended to make dinner or go out for food, and she wasn’t going to call him and ask. She tried to reach Adam again, but his cell went straight to voice mail. This was so unlike him. She longed to know where he was right now, and then wondered if he hadn’t s
imply gone home? Why hadn’t they tried there first?
She felt like a damn fool as she drove over there. He was probably asleep and had his phone off, that’s all. She had a key so she let herself in, calling his name. Even before she checked all the rooms she knew he wasn’t there. The air had an empty, lonely feel to it. She walked through the rooms, inhaling his scent, willing the inanimate objects to tell her where he was.
As she passed by his bedroom door again on her way back downstairs, she spotted a shoebox on the bed that she hadn’t noticed earlier. The top was off, so she sat down and examined the contents. There were dozens of pictures of people she didn’t recognize, except for two. Adam and Travis. She realized these must be photos of when the two were in Iraq, and her suspicion was confirmed as she found one of a pretty dark-haired woman, smiling up at Adam like he had hung the moon. She really did look so much like Tracey it was spooky.
Loreen wiped at the tears rolling down her face as she stared at the photo. She had a similar picture in an album tucked away on the top shelf of her closet. In it, she and Pete stood arm-in-arm, their faces happy and smiling. She wasn’t upset that Adam still had this. But it did suggest he’d come here after leaving the ER, because they’d spent last night at Travis’s condo, and Adam wasn’t one to leave things out of place.
But where had he gone after looking at these pictures?
She turned it over. It was dated two months before Lissa had been killed. She couldn’t imagine what he was feeling right now. She poked through the rest of the pictures, then came to a dog-eared holy card. Did they still give those out at funerals? Obviously in Wisconsin they did. This one was from Lissa’s funeral, and as Loreen read it, she stood up and nearly toppled the box off the edge of the bed.
“Oh, God…” She knew where Adam was.
Chapter Seventeen
Travis opened the door and Loreen rushed in, holding what at first he thought was a playing card. Her words made no sense. When he finally got her to take a couple of deep breaths and calm down, she explained that she’d gone to Adam’s condo to see if he was there, and found a shoebox open on his bed.
“This was in it, along with pictures. Pictures of you and pictures of Lissa, in Iraq. He’s gone to Wisconsin. I just know he has. Where else would he go?”
“So?”
She blinked a few times as if she wasn’t sure he’d actually said that, and the pain in her eyes was horrible. It ripped at his heart. He sighed. “I’m sorry. That was blunt. But what do you suggest we do? Run after him?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Not a chance. I’m not doing it. For one thing, we both have to be at work in the morning. For another, he had no right to do this.” Why couldn’t she understand the magnitude of this? He and Adam had worked side-by-side for two years in Iraq. You didn’t do this to your friends and fellow doctors. No matter what. Adam knew that.
“Travis, I don’t understand your reaction. Help me here. I’m lost.”
Her voice shook, and he had to avert his gaze because her big blue eyes were so full of confusion that all he wanted to do was pull her close and never let her go. Why wasn’t she angry with Adam? Did she love him more? Did she love either of them? Was it possible he’d misinterpreted the look in her eyes countless times now, or had he only imagined it directed toward him? Was it really Adam she was in love with, and Travis was just along for the ride?
Clearly she loved Adam because she was ready to drive two hours in the fucking rain to find him, despite the fact he’d left her this morning without a word, and still wasn’t answering his phone, nearly ten hours later. “You don’t know that’s where he went.”
“Where else could he be? Today of all days…and after what happened in the ER this morning, where else would he go?”
“Anywhere. To a bar, to Ohio to see his cousins, to Aruba, to the fucking moon for all I know. I’m not driving to Wisconsin on the off chance he went there. He’ll call when he’s ready to.”
She stared at him as if she didn’t even know him, and his heart nearly broke. He had to try and make her see his point of view. “Look. You may not be pissed off at him right now but I am.”
“I can see that.”
“And I don’t understand why you aren’t, but at least let me explain why I am.”
“Fair enough.”
“You don’t know what we went through over there. He left and went back for years. I could only handle it for two. We saw shit that made those burn victims this morning look like kids with paper cuts. When you go through something like that, you develop a bond like no other with the people who work by your side. I’m betting it’s similar to the bond soldiers forge in combat. It changes you. It hardens you. And it cements those relationships forever.”
He ran his hand through his hair, struggling for the right words. “What Adam did this morning was all about him. His pain. He didn’t even think what it would do to me or to you. He disregarded the fact that I knew her, too.”
She shook her head. “He was in shock. Now that I’ve seen her picture, she looked so much like that girl this morning. Travis, he must have been so—”
“Loreen, for heaven’s sake! Stop defending what he did. You don’t understand.”
“Then help me do so. Nothing you’ve said so far helps me understand anything other than you’re pissed off at him for leaving.” She wiped at the tears on her face, and Travis knew he should go to her, but his body wouldn’t move. He was numb. The memories of those two years had been coming fast and furious all day, and they still hadn’t abated.
He had no way to make her understand this. He was head-over-heels in love with her, and he couldn’t even tell her that. He’d be too humiliated when she didn’t react the way he wanted her to. All she wanted to do right now was go to Adam. She didn’t even see how much pain he was in as well. “Have you no room in your heart at all for me right now?”
“What? How can you ask me that?”
Her whisper was somehow worse than if she’d shouted the questions. Now, instead of confusion and pain on her face, he saw disbelief, and that did it. He couldn’t take anymore. In one tiny part of his brain he knew he was acting like a total selfish asshole, but he couldn’t seem to stop it. He wanted Loreen to need him as much as she needed Adam right now, and that wasn’t going to happen.
“You’re really not going to try and find him.”
It wasn’t a question. Her voice was sad, filled with resignation.
“I don’t need to. He’ll come home when he’s ready to.”
“Why aren’t you worried about him?”
“Because he can take care of himself in adverse conditions. We both can. And he has a cell phone. If he needed us, he’d have called by now.”
She stood. “So that’s really what this is about, isn’t it? He doesn’t need you, so you’re just shutting down.”
“Yes. Yes, dammit. That’s exactly what this is about. That’s what I’ve been trying to explain to you. We went through hell together. He lost a fiancée and I lost a friend and fellow physician. What he did today was selfish, and I’m sorry if you can’t see that.”
The tears ran freely down her face now. She didn’t even bother wiping them away.
“Hurting me is bad enough. But he walked out on you, too. He lectured you on trust, and set up all kinds of protocols that you work so hard to follow to the letter, and then he left. No word. Nothing. And instead of getting angry at him like you should be doing, you’re ready to run all over the Midwest, trying to find him. As if he needs rescuing.”
She took a breath deep enough to move her shoulders. “Rescuing. Good choice of words, Doctor.”
The tone of her voice was flat. Travis heard the nails banging his coffin lid closed. He’d lost her, and it was entirely his own fault.
“You know what I think? I think you both need rescuing, but not from anything external. I think you need it from your own thoughts. Your own memories. Your pain. Both of you. Neither one of you has completely wor
ked through the pain of what you saw over there, or the pain of losing Lissa.”
He watched the emotions cross her face while her words hit him square in the face with their truth and clarity.
“And I’m no longer sure I’m the woman to help either of you do that. I thought I was, but right now, I’m not so sure I can do it. I’m not sure you want me to try that hard.”
She brushed past him and he caught her arm, but she shook it off. “I’ll see you at work in the morning. If you change your mind and decide you need me, you know where I am.”
* * * *
Twice that evening Loreen was in her car, heading north, and twice she turned around and went back home. Travis had been right about one thing. She didn’t know for certain that Adam was in Wisconsin. And even if he was, she didn’t know Lissa’s family or where to even begin looking for them. Going all that way would prove useless because she had no way to locate him. And she wasn’t about to call Travis and ask for details which she assumed he knew.
Travis called her no less than a dozen times, but left no messages. He texted her only once, begging her to talk to him, but she had nothing to say. She was more confused and numb than she’d been in years, and she didn’t know what to make of everything he’d said today.
Pain did odd things to a person. It made them see things in an entirely different light. She knew that from taking care of patients in the ER for years. They perceived every sensation differently. It was the same reason that when Adam and Travis paddled her or flogged her, her brain interpreted it as pleasure rather than as noxious stimuli.
She’d spent enough time talking to neurosurgeons to know physicians don’t understand everything about how or why our brains interpret certain signals the way they do. And she’d spent enough time comforting grieving families to know that no two humans reacted to the death of a loved one in exactly the same way.
