Page 26 of Break For Me
I pull the towel back immediately. I lay it across his lower abdomen, covering him.
My fingers are trembling. A fine, visible tremor that has absolutely nothing to do with fatigue.
"It’s an involuntary response," I say. I try to find my surgeon's voice, but it sounds thin and reedy. "Vasodilation from the fever. It has no clinical significance."
He turns his head away from me, facing the wall. The tendons in his neck stand out like steel cables. His jaw is clenched so hard his teeth grind together.
His bandaged hand grips the edge of the cot. The aluminum frame whines under the sheer force of his grip.
"Get out."
I gather the basin and the towels. I leave the room.
I close the door behind me and stand in the narrow, dark hallway. My back is pressed against the rough wall. My heart rate is one hundred and forty beats per minute. I can count it hammering in my carotid artery.
The bathroom isa tiny closet with a sink that runs only cold water. I lock the door.
I turn on the tap. I hold my hands under the icy stream and watch the water run over my fingers. I try to diagnose myself.
My hands are shaking. My face is flushed. I can feel the heat in the back of my neck.
Fight or flight. But I’m not fighting. And I can't flee.
I’m standing in a bathroom with the afterimage of his body burned into my visual cortex. The sheer mass of him. The topography of damage. The way his skin felt beneath my hands.
The sound he made when he saiddon't look at me.
That sound was stripped of everything. It was the raw, guttural shame of a man reduced to something he couldn't control.
I’ve heard it before in hospitals. From men in delirium. From patients waking up from surgery. I’ve always catalogued it and moved on.
I cannot move on from this.
I turn off the tap. I dry my hands on my trousers. The tremor subsides.
My reflection in the small, cracked mirror looks the same. Sharp jaw. Composed. Grey at the temples.
I push my left sleeve up. The scar is there.
A thin white line across my wrist. Healed smooth. A pale ridge that catches the light.
I trace it with a finger. The old nerve damage makes the scar numb. I can feel the pressure of my touch, but not the texture of the skin.
It’s a dead zone. A place where sensation simply ends.
I put it there three months after I lost my medical license. A hotel room in Baltimore. A sterile scalpel from my own kit.
The cut was precise. I knew exactly where the artery ran. I knew the depth required. I knew the rate of blood loss.
I didn't know the maid would come in early with fresh towels. I didn't know the towels would hold the blood long enough to keep me alive until the paramedics arrived.
I trace the dead zone. I think about the man in the other room. His shame. His scars.
The way he saiddon't look at meas if being seen was a death sentence.
I understand that impulse. The absolute terror of being witnessed in a state you can't control.
I should be afraid of him. I am.
