261 Days

My patient sits under a massive, overgrown tree with her knees drawn to her chest. Tear-stained, porcelain cheeks and a wrinkled hospital gown are illuminated amidst the night sky. Though she refuses to lift her eyes, she sees me and crawls even further into herself, as if compacting into a tight enough ball will make her disappear. And here I am staring at her.

"Hi," I say.

Pushing a strand of thin, blonde hair behind a double-pierced ear, her hazel eyes meet mine. She blinks to hide the layer of un-shed tears and vulnerability. Her eyes hold a million questions, but she says nothing.

Kneeling in front of her, I follow the trail of goose bumps up her arms. Her breaths are faltered. "Are you okay?"

She gulps. "I'm sorry I left; it just sort of happened." Her voice, strained and feeble, shakes like the leaves on the tree above us.

Fighting the urge to just take her back inside and start running tests, I sit and open her chart in my lap instead. "It's okay. I'm not mad." The contents are thin, but in between there have to be more layers to her case besides 'Kira Murdoch: nineteen-year-old female with varying respiratory distress.' I didn't necessarily become a doctor to solve mysteries, but I also didn't become a doctor to track down escaped patients.

"Doctor, um," she pauses to read the nametag hanging on my front pocket. "Dr. Els, what's wrong with me?" Kira's baby face is accentuated by the early morning moonlight, but her eyes reflect a broken interior and fleeting independence.

In my short time as a resident, I've learned that the truth may not be the best option, but it's the only option. "We don't know yet, Kira. We've only had the chance to do blood tests, and they're negative."

"That's good about the blood, right?" She fiddles with her wristband. Her left hand is stained with dried blood from where she most likely ripped out her IV.

"For your blood." It comes out more matter-of-factly than I intend. "But there's obviously something wrong, and we'll find out what."

"And if you don't?" She still refuses to look at me. "All the poking and prodding. It's all so much."

"It's a little barbaric," I admit, "It's scary for us, too. But we will get a diagnosis. Trust me on that."

"I just," she buries her hand in her hands, chewed fingernails running through the messy bun atop her head. "I can't go back in yet. Not yet."

Without question, I nod, knowing that for me it's either this or going back to treat a waiting room full of the usual. "That's fine. Talking's fine."

Listening to the rustle of the leaves and the distant screech of sirens, I push my glasses up on my nose and try to see the hospital from the other perspective. Beyond the trees I see an array of blinking red and blue lights, and a helicopter makes its landing on the roof. I want to see it all the way someone on a stretcher sees it, the way Kira sees it. There's someone beyond those doors trying to restart a ticking time bomb, and I want to take a walk in their rubber-soled socks. But I can't; it's a job for me.

That silence is broken by a noise that sounds like my name. A hand tries to grab my arm, and as I turn to my left, Kira's breath has caught in her throat. The scared young woman who escaped from her room can't breathe, just a few feet from a hospital.

My thoughts go into overdrive. I want to do everything, but don't know where to start. But as the color fades from her cheeks and her eyes struggle to look at me, it's not a matter of what I can do, but what I need to do. Shoving the chart into my scrub pants, I lift Kira in my arms, pulling her close to my chest. All I can do is run back to the isolated, white-walled safe haven.