“How long has she been displaying these severe symptoms?” the nurse asked, looking up from her monitor screen.
“It has been three full days,” I answered, my voice shaking with exhaustion.
The nurse’s calm professional expression instantly changed as she began typing rapidly into her computer system.
A few minutes later, the ER doctor pressed his hands very gently onto the lower right side of Chloe’s swollen abdomen.
Chloe let out a bloodcurdling scream that echoed across the clinical area.
A woman standing nearby holding a paper coffee cup completely froze in place. A tall orderly stopped immediately with one hand resting on a metal bed rail. The intake receptionist’s fingers hovered silently above her mechanical keyboard.
“I need a full blood panel and an emergency ultrasound right now,” the doctor called out to the nursing staff.
Then he completely stopped looking at the vital signs monitor and began carefully watching Chloe’s body language. He saw how she flinched violently whenever a man’s deep voice carried down the bright hallway. He saw her fingers wrap frantically around the cloth of my shirt sleeve. He saw her eyes dart toward the curtain opening every time heavy shoes approached our bay.
“I need to step outside and speak with her alone for a moment,” the doctor told me gently.
Right at that exact moment, the phone inside my coat pocket began vibrating continuously. It was Darren, and he had already left fifteen missed calls on my screen.
Then a text message popped up: Where the hell are you?
Another message arrived before my shaking fingers could even unlock the screen: If you actually took her to a hospital, you are going to regret this for the rest of your life.
Twenty minutes later, the doctor returned to the room and carefully pulled the fabric curtain completely shut behind him.
