I'm sorry for not posting soon but between schoolwork, softball, and today being my birthday I've been super busy! So I hope that this'll make up for it! I'm hoping on updating again by the end of the weekend. Thanks to you guys for all your support! I hope you guys enjoy! =D Please review, feedback works wonders!
Chapter Three
Thankfully it was after that my pager decided to christen itself, blaring through the cafeteria. I somehow managed to tear my eyes away long enough to gather my things and let my lips slip out an apology before getting up and leaving. The way she had looked at me, it was almost as if she knew; she knew that something wasn't quite right. But I couldn't focus on that now, I had to let go no matter how much I wanted to spit it out and tell her I was her, no matter how much I wanted to tell her that it served her right for her to feel guilty for forgetting me. No, I forced down all my anger and disappointment until I didn't feel anything at all.
It was then that I had made a vow to myself I would stay away from Callie Torres.
That was two weeks ago; and I've managed to stick to my promise. That doesn't mean it wasn't difficult to say the least. I avoided the cafeteria at all cost and gave whatever orthopaedic cases I had to my senior residents; even with these precautions hushed conversations about Callie Torres were impossible to avoid, they were everywhere. But today something felt off, as if something I couldn't control was about to take over, leaving me without any choice in the matter.
The sound of my pager blaring shakes me from my reverie just as it did that day alerting me that whatever was going to happen had already started.
"What have we got, Karev?" I ask the rough and tumble 4th year resident who seemed to have found a possible niche in peds as I run into the pit.
"Sixteen year old female, two breaks to the left leg, two to the right. There's one break to each tibia and fibula."
"And you paged me why? You know that I have a patient in intensive care that needs my full attention." My voice is sterner then I intended, I suppose the thought of being on a case with Callie along with the fact that Karev should have known better made me a lot more on edge than usual.
"You were requested." He says almost nonchalantly with a slight frown.
"Well for future reference, next times don't page me. When I'm with a critical patient tell the one that requested me that I'm unavailable and give them to another attending or senior resident. Got that Karev?" I give him a serious look before slowly beginning to back up to make my way upstairs once again.
"Got it." He says with a small nod, continuing to stand still as I backed away.
"Then do it, Karev." I say with a sense of finality before turning my back to the possible peds resident and leaving the pit.
"I was paged, Karev." I say slightly out of breath as I rush into the pit; I had just come from checking on my last few patients during rounds.
"The peds fellow has a patient for you, bay three." He holds out a chart open to a set of x-rays before strolling off, leaving the pit and me without a resident. I can't help but roll my eyes before heading towards bay three.
Making my way to bay three I take note of the breaks on the x-rays, careful not to walk into anything, more specifically anyone.
"Dr. Torres." An unfamiliar voice grabs my voice, causing me to look up from the patient chart I was holding.
"Yes?" I say, looking up to find a thin man with sandy brown hair who was wearing a lab coat decorated with superhero patches standing barely three feet in front of me.
"I'm Dr. Reece, I called for a consult." His voice is serious but I can tell that he's normally a gentle man by his demeanour that appeals to his patients.
"Yes, Dr. Karev just gave me the chart." I say, giving him a small professional smile.
"I'm guessing that Dr. Karev didn't show you the patient history." He says as a sad almost sympathetic smile crosses his face as he does.
"No, he did not. The chart was open to the x-rays when he handed it to me." I can't help but give him a confused look, causing me to raise my eyebrows slightly.
"In that case I'll tell you then, save you from having to read the chart. I'd prefer to discuss this," he says, his voice softer now, pointing to an empty trauma bay, "in private."
I am still confused but I can't very well say no. "Yes, of course."
He then leads me fairly swiftly into the trauma bay, asking me to shut the door behind me as I come in behind him. "This patient isn't only a pediatric patient or ortho patient." His voice has strengthened once again.
"Oh," is the only word that comes out of my mouth. I knew what he meant, when this happened it always made things more difficult; the surgery part of the job was the same but the interaction with the patient was complicated; definitely easier said than done.
"After you're done with your pre op, surgery, and post op they're going to be admitted to psych. She's currently restrained and has been started on a sedative drip. So as always just keep that in mind as she's still awake for now."
"Will do. Thank you for telling me beforehand, I was more focused on the breaks and getting to them then reading their history. I had planned on doing that while I was with them."
"No problem. Thankfully this is her first so hopefully dealing with her will not be as difficult if she was a second or third time patient."
"First?" I can't help but be slightly confused, I may have been a senior resident but my dealings with psychiatric patients were barely existent.
"First suicide attempt, Dr. Torres. She's lucky that the truck was going under that overpass, otherwise it's likely she wouldn't be here." Once again, Dr. Reece smiles sympathetically.
"She fell into a moving truck?" The shock I felt going through my body was blatantly obvious in my tone as I spoke.
"Yes, she landed in a dump truck that was filled with sod from some farm land that was cleared out in Olympia that was strangely but thankfully on its way somewhere in Seattle."
"Sounds like something you'd hear in the news as one of those human interest stories." My mouth says before my brain can stop it, causing my cheeks to become slightly flushed in embarrassment.
"Well it's not, Dr. Torres." He shakes he head slightly. "She's out there in our ER. So let's get out there and treat her so psych can do their job sooner." He smiles now, beginning to walk towards the trauma bay door.
I don't say anything. I just simply nod, fully knowing that I better be prepared for this because if I'm not it wasn't only the patient who was going to get upset. I follow Dr. Reece to the trauma bay hoping that this was going to go well.
Entering bay three, Dr. Reece pulls away the light blue privacy curtain to reveal a petite young girl who barely looks the sixteen years old her chart says. Her slightly oval face is decorated with pale green eyes and framed with obviously naturally wavy highlighted light brown hair.
"Jane, this is Dr. Torres." Dr. Reece says with a small professional smile as he motions to me just as we enter bay three. "This is J-" He only gets the sound of 'j' out before he gets cut off.
"Jane Abernathy" She says with a slightly goofy smile as she attempts to stick her hand out for a hand shake only to be stopped by wrist restraints at less than half extension.
She starts to laugh now, almost hysterically, giving away the fact the sedative must be working. "Well this isn't going to work now, is it?" She says with a grin, her laugh breaking down, becoming an almost schoolgirl like giggle.
"No, Jane I don't think it is." I give her a small smile hoping that it keeps her cooperative. "I'm here to check out your legs so that I can fix them, okay?" I ask not wanting to touch her without permission and upset her.
"Sure, Dr. T" She giggles once again. "You're like Mr. T, you're tough cause you fix bones and stuff but you're a lot a lot more prettier, cause you're a girl." A more than slight blush crosses Jane's face out of embarrassment that I am sure she's not aware of.
"Uhm, thank you," I say somehow managing to hold back the laugh that's threatening to escape my throat. "Let's check those breaks, shall we."
After checking up on my critical patient for about the hundredth time already that morning, fully well knowing that Callie would be busy with her patient I decide that it's about time to take a slight risk in going to the cafeteria, hoping that nobody who else who was close friends with her would not be there. Of course, as soon as I walk into the room I regret my decision.
Less than five feet away, standing in line next to Cristina Yang was a rather annoyed looking Mark Sloan. It was too late to turn back now I decide, so I continue to proceed to the end of the lunch line.
The closer I get to them I realize that they're in the middle of a conversation; a one way conversation consisting of Cristina complaining to Mark that is.
"What the heck is wrong with her Sloan? She was fine for like a month and a half. Now in the past two weeks she's been a mess? That doesn't just happen for no reason. I woke up this morning and found her in the kitchen whinging in Spanish and crying like a bitch baby. It's really starting-" Cristina's distained voice is cut off by a surprising outburst from Mark, catching her and myself highly off guard. His outburst had made it obvious to me who she had been talking about. Callie Torres.
"Shut up Yang!" His voice is booms through the cafeteria capturing the attention of practically the entire room.
"Jeez, Sloan! What did you do now? It's not like Hahn was here for you to piss off. Wait! She's not here is she? Why haven't I seen her, I'd like to kick that Wicked Witch's a-" She replies as the rest of the room begins to go back to their own conversations.
"Cristina!" His voice is quieter now, attempting to whisper but his angry tone makes his voice near impossible. "I'm guessing you didn't notice a girl leave your apartment in the morning two weeks ago, the one that Callie has been praying to remember. She's given up now and she's miserable. She was a mess because she would have remembered her if it wasn't for Erica, if she hadn't been so mad herself that day she wouldn't have drank enough to make herself forget her. You know what Erica did to her Yang. Hell you also know what George did to her! You very darn well know she's never been the same. But the day after she was almost like the old Callie, the smile that was across her face, even when she was so angry with herself. It was like she was walking tall again. And now she's finally let go of her because she knows that she has to, she's okay with that. But it's the fact that the only person that's on her mind is avoiding her because she told her that same story, she tried to deal with her problems in front of her. It's because of that she thinks she's a mess. So she actually is a mess, and this time I can't fix her. I can't help her Cristina. So you've got to give Callie a break and give her time to try and fix herself."
With his words that I'm sure weren't intended to ever grace my ears my heart nearly stops and I'm sure that my jaw drops. Me? Arizona Robbins' the reason why she whines in Spanish and cries like a baby? My brain uncontrollably does an almost complete one eighty.
The fear of dating a woman with possible self-destructive behaviour, the fear of being the "rebound girl", the fear of Callie being completely self-absorbed, all my fears that had anything to do with Callie Torres begin to float away; leaving me with only the desires I've been forcing down for the past two weeks and the image of a broken beautiful woman who just needed someone to put her pack together, to show her that everyone else wasn't the same as those who had hurt her.
Without any further need to give into my fears I realize that what I have to do is quite obvious; to be the person she needs.
"You think I'm crazy, I know you do." Jane's voice echoes off the walls of her quite bare room.
"Excuse me?" I ask, as her small outburst has taken me off guard, as I finish Jane's post-op procedures. Normally this would be done by a resident but psych thought it would be best if she had the same two Drs, Dr. Reece and myself, at all times.
"I said, you think I'm crazy." She sighs. "I'd think I'm crazy too if I were you. But that's just cause you don't know me all that well. Not many people do to be honest." She begins to ramble, it has become obvious to me now that Jane is one of those patients who don't knocked out with sedatives instead they get hyper.
"I'm a Marine Brat. I move around all the time. I went to three different schools last year. But my parents promised that this year we'd stay in one place for my senior year. But guess what?" She stops for a second, as I continue to listening, waiting for her answer. "Hello? Are you listening?" Jane narrows her eyes at me, trying to create a mean intimidating face I'm sure.
"Sorry, I thought it was a rhetorical question. What?"
"They told me yesterday we were freaking moving, AGAIN!" This time Jane's voice is now raised, drawing attention from the nurses at the nurses' station outside the private room she had been moved to. "Do you know what that's like, Dr. T?" Thankfully her voice has lowered once again to a casual level rather than that of a coach for some sort of aggressive sport.
This time I know better than to take her question as a rhetorical one and give her an answer. "No, I don't. I lived in the same place my entire school life until I moved here when I started my residency."
"Trust me, Dr. T. You're one of the lucky ones, the whole moving thing sucks."
"I'm sure it feels like that now, but that'll help when you get older. You'll have an easier time in college or university. You'll be able to adapt easier which'll make making new friends a lot easier too. Did you ever think of it that way, Jane?"
"Well do you think I did? Considering I'm laying in this bed, in a hospital, after jumping off an overpass, Dr. T." She looks at me, tilting her head to the side a little.
"Well I really think you should, Jane. There's a lot more to life than just high school, sweetie."
"That's what everyone says. But the loser in high school is the loser who works at the mini-mart on the outskirts of town, Dr. T."
"Sure, that does happen sometimes, Jane. But that's only if they let it happen."
"What do you mean?" She gives me a highly curious look, quirking her eyebrow in a way that would normally made me laugh, but considering the situation I fought to hold it in.
"I mean that you can be a loser in high school and still end up being the CEO of some big company, or a successful surgeon, or –"
"Dr. T?" Jane buts in almost innocently, making me unable to finish my sentence.
"Yes Jane?"
"Were you like me?" She looks up at me with her innocent green eyes, piercing through the walls I had set around myself through out the years.
Even though I know it's unlikely she'll remember this conversation I know that it's my responsibility to answer her honestly. "Yes, Jane I was. I was the girl who sat in the back and chewed on her hair. I was the girl who always had her hood up and had minimal contact with people."
"Then what happened?"
"Real life did, sweetie."
"Real life?" She looks at me, confused at can be.
"Yes, real life. You've got to give it time begin, Jane. You can't end your life before it's even started." I give her a wide smile that I'm hoping will enforce my point.
"I'll think about it, Dr. T."
"Okay, you'll have plenty of time for that because you're going to stay here for today and tomorrow then they're going to move you upstairs. You'll get the chance to talk about this with someone else who knows exactly like me. Just give it time, Jane, just give it time."
"Okay."
"Everything looks good with your legs so just try and rest okay?" I give her another small smile.
"Alright, Dr. T."
And with the end of that hopeful conversation I exit Jane's room, hoping that she'd have what she needed; time.
"You're good with her." I say as Callie walks out of Jane's room. Of all the people who I could have guessed would have requested me, Jane Abernathy was down with the least likely on the list.
"Excuse me?" She says, as she turns around to face me I can tell she's obviously been caught off guard.
"I said you're good with her." I give her a smile, hoping that it helps enforce my point.
"Oh I heard what you just said. I was just shocked you were speaking to me." She says, obviously hurt, before beginning to walk away.
Before I even get the chance to think about what I'm doing, I wrap my hand around Callie's arm, just catching her elbow tight enough to make her stop.
"I'm sorry."