I wasn’t even reading the clues. I was just filling out four letter word blocks with whatever came to mind.

Love.

Wild.

Hate.

Risk.

Liar.

Fuck.

Fuck.

FUCK.

If someone were to find this paper when I was finished with it, there was a chance they could use it as evidence when I went on trial for my sanity.

I’d be sent to the psych ward for sure.

Yet knowing that, I still filled in my own answers.

When the department phone started ringing on the desk in front of me, I dropped my pen and reached for the receiver just as a requisition started printing out.

“X-ray, this is Syd,” I answered.

“Hey, it’s Melissa up in ICU. I just put in an order for a stat portable chest to check a line placement. Can you come do it right away? The doctor is waiting.”

I stood and grabbed the requisition off the printer.

“Yep. It just printed out. I’ll be right up.”

“Thanks.”

I hung up the phone and studied the order.

It was for an eight-year-old boy with pneumonia. I immediately thought about Oliver.

My nose starting stinging.

Shaking those thoughts away, I snatched the key off the desk, took the requisition, and left the department, stepping out into the hallway where we kept our portable machines plugged in and charging.

When I reached the fifth floor, I pushed the machine off the elevator and started down the hallway, looking up at the room numbers because I always forgot where they began.

I was at Room 17 and the patient was in Room 4. That was on the opposite side of the department.

“X-ray,” one of the nurses called out to me when I was passing by the reception desk.

I looked to her and stopped pushing the machine.

She was carrying an IV bag when she came closer, stopped at the tall counter that circled the desk, and said to me, “Just hang around up here for a minute. The doctors are in there working on him. They might still need it.”

The way she was speaking, I knew what that meant.

I nodded and gave her a sullen smile.

“Okay, thanks.”

Then I pushed the machine past the desk, cut down the small corridor connecting the two sides of the department to get to the even-numbered rooms, turned the corner, and froze.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

“Brian?”

My boy was standing in the hallway outside Room 4, staring through the glass and watching the doctors work on the patient I was supposed to be x-raying, but when I said his name, Brian turned his head.

My heart seized in my chest.

He looked devastated. His skin was pale and his eyes were lifeless as they locked on to mine.

It was like I was staring at a ghost.

I parked the portable machine against the wall and ran to him.

I had to.

“What are you doing here?” I asked when I reached his side, but before he could give me an answer, I got it for myself.

I turned my head and looked through the glass at the boy in the bed, who was currently getting CPR administered on him. A doctor was hovering over and compressing down on his chest while a nurse was squeezing the bag attached to this breathing tube, giving him air.

There was a crash cart next to the bed and several other nurses circling and doing their jobs, plus other workers standing around watching. Then my eyes cut through the crowd and fell on the parents, who were huddled together at the back of the room, holding each other and crying.

I recognized the father first. He was facing the door. Then I recognized the kid when I looked back at the bed.

His wheelchair was in the corner next to the bathroom.

“Oh, God,” I whispered, bringing my hand up to my mouth. “Oh, my God.”

Brian didn’t say anything, but I heard him make a noise deep in his throat like he was choking, and I reached down and grabbed his hand, slid my fingers between his, and held on tight.

He held me back.

We stood outside that room together, watching as the doctors and nurses did everything they could to keep that boy alive. They worked tirelessly, switching off with compressions after several minutes, and at one point a doctor looked up and motioned for me to come in and shoot the x-ray, but then the heart monitor started alarming again and they had to go back to doing CPR.

Brian and I didn’t speak. We didn’t look at each other. I didn’t let go and neither did he.

Pneumonia can be a complication of spinal cord injuries.

People died from pneumonia. I wished that little boy could’ve been the exception that day.

But he wasn’t.

After eleven minutes, the doctors and nurses stopped working. There was nothing more they could do. His body gave up.

The parents ran to his side and held him as the team cleared the room to give them their privacy.

I was already crying but started crying harder.

I was devastated for them.

Brian dropped his head into the hand I wasn’t holding and fell apart next to me. His big, strong body nearly buckled in half.

“Honey,” I soothed, my voice trembling. I turned into him and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, holding the back of his head as he buried his face in my neck and pressed closer, his tears absorbing into my skin, his arms holding so tight around my back it hurt, but I let it.

I had to comfort him.

“It wasn’t your fault,” I whispered as we cried together, because I didn’t know if Brian was allowing himself to think that again and I couldn’t let him do that. I couldn’t. “Don’t go to that place, Brian. You didn’t do this, okay? This is not on you.”

He didn’t say anything back, but his arms squeezed tighter.

I winced and came up on my toes.

I didn’t tell him to stop. I kept comforting him.

And he kept holding tight.

I have no idea how long we stood there, but I did know I would stand there for as long as he needed.

“What …what are you doing here?”

Brian and I pulled away from each other at the sound of a woman’s voice at my back.

I turned my head and saw the parents of the boy standing just outside the room now. They were both staring at Brian, tears still filling the eyes of the father and the mother with fresh ones on her cheeks.

Brian didn’t respond. I looked to him and he was staring back, his body rigid and yet shaking somehow.

I grabbed his hand again and did the only thing I could think of.

“He’s the one who’s been giving you all that money,” I told the parents, feeling Brian’s hand tense in mine. “For your son. It’s all been from him.”

The father’s shoulders dropped. He stared in disbelief at Brian.

The mother sucked in a breath, her eyes widening as they slid from my face and looked to the man standing next to me. Then her lip started quivering, new tears built behind her lashes, her head started shaking, and she came forward, crying again as she threw her arms around Brian and gave him a hug.

I felt Brian stop shaking and his body go perfectly still. He didn’t reciprocate the affection and he never let go of my hand.

The hug lasted only a couple of seconds and she never said a word to him, then the mother stepped back, covered her mouth, and moved back into the room.

The father came in front of Brian then and placed his hand on Brian’s shoulder. He looked him in the eyes and I knew the man was expressing his gratitude even though he didn’t speak the words.