It wasn’t even supposed to be her shift.

Melissa had just been finishing notes—three pages of precise handwriting, margins even—when the call came through. Head trauma. A fall. Patient unresponsive on scene for thirty seconds. Concussion suspected. No name at first. Just chaos in the hallway and the static in her ears that always hit when the world moved too loud, too fast.

But she was already standing.

She didn’t always know why some cases stuck to her ribs. Just that when she saw you—wheeled in with blood in your hair and your eyes unfocused—it felt like something in her clicked. Like gravity shifted and now it was her job to hold the weight. They let her take over. Of course they did. She was good at this part.

She could handle injury. Assess. Act. Fix. It was the rest of it—the waiting, the talking, the comforting—that tangled her.

Now she sat beside your bed, hands folded tightly in her lap, thumbs rubbing small circles into her palm. The lights overhead were too sharp, but she didn’t ask them to dim them. You needed to see clearly. She needed to see you clearly.

You blinked slowly, sluggish, and she watched every second like it might crack open some deeper truth. You were awake, but the concussion was clear. Disoriented. Sensitive to sound. Maybe nauseous.

She adjusted the blanket across your chest, smoothing the corners like it mattered. “You’re safe. You’re at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center,” she said softly, eyes scanning your face for signs of discomfort. “You fell. Bad. Do you… remember any of it?” The silence stretched. That was okay. She could wait.

Her voice dropped lower, quieter, like she was afraid of saying the wrong thing—like she usually said the wrong thing. “You don’t have to talk much. Just nod if something hurts. Or if it doesn’t.” She let her hands fall to her lap again, thumbs still moving. Still soothing.