his name?’
‘Adam,’ Ruby said, and flushed, and it was stupid and so, so irrelevant that it was the same name as her brother’s, but it just made a point, a stupid point, that they knew more about the other than they ought to officially. ‘I’ll go and get him.’
‘You don’t have to come in,’ Ruby offered, but his mum was sure that she’d rather.
‘Well, if it gets too much,’ Ruby said, just as she’d seen the others do, ‘just slip out.’
‘He’s going to struggle and scream,’ Cort explained, ‘and it will sting for a bit when I put the anaesthetic in, but after that he won’t feel a thing.’ He explained a little further as Ruby tightly wrapped the little boy. ‘It’s not fair to settle him down only to stick him with a needle, so once the anaesthetic is in, we’ll try and calm him.’
The only way one person could hold him was to practically use the weight of her body over the swaddled child and hold his face with two gloved hands as he screamed loudly in Ruby’s ear.
‘It will be finished soon, Adam,’ Ruby said, and she swore she felt the needle go in as he shrieked even louder.
‘That’s it.’ Cort’s voice was loud and deep and caught Adam by surprise. He paused his screaming for just a second. ‘All the horrible bit’s finished with,’ Cort said to the little boy, and then spoke to Ruby. ‘Loosen up on him while it takes effect.’
‘It’s okay.’ His mum tried to soothe him, but the baby was crying now too and she was about to as well—either that or pass out. ‘I think I’ll go out …’
‘We’ll take good care of him,’ Cort said, and then he looked down at the toddler. ‘I’m going to make it better in a moment and then you can go home.’ He spoke to him in a matter-of-fact voice and maybe all the fight had left him, but the little boy did stop screaming. ‘It’s not going to hurt now.’ He turned to Ruby. ‘Go round the other side.’ She did so and Cort changed his gloves and put a little green drape over his head, and they were back to where they started, away from the bedlam and shut in the suture room, but there was a whole lot more between them than a patient now. ‘You just look at Ruby,’ Cort said, which Adam did, and though he did whimper a few times, he was much calmer as Cort worked on quietly.
‘Could it have been glued?’ Ruby asked, because it would have been much easier.
‘It needs a couple of dissolvable sutures—it’s a pretty deep cut,’ Cort explained. ‘And it needed a good clean.’ He turned and smiled as a much calmer mum stepped into the room. ‘Just wait there,’ Cort said, but very nicely. ‘He’s in the zone. If he sees you he’ll think it’s over. We shan’t be long.’ There was one more snip and then as he went to clean it, Ruby could see what he meant by in the zone, because the second Adam sensed it was over, he shot up, saw his mum and not a tightly wrapped drawer sheet or Ruby could have kept him still a second longer.
‘Mum!’ He burst into tears all over again.
‘We’re finished!’ Cort said. ‘You get to choose your plaster now.’ And he would have left it to Ruby, but he didn’t, took just that one moment to help the little boy select.
‘Thanks so much. I’m sorry about before …’ the mum said.
‘We’re sorry you’ve had to wait,’ Ruby said.
‘That nurse …’ she explained. ‘I know she should get her proper break. I had no right to say anything.’
‘It’s fine,’ Cort said.
‘I don’t know how you do it.’ She looked at Ruby, who smiled back at her. ‘I don’t know how you can work in this place.’
‘You get used to it,’ Ruby said, because it was either that or fall into the woman’s arms like Adam and beg her to take her away from here.
‘Take him home to bed and let him sleep, but you need to check him regularly.’
‘I’ll have him in with me.’
‘Good. Stitches out in five days at your GP.’ He went through all the head-injury instructions as Ruby found a leaflet then started to clean up.
‘Cort,’ Ruby said, because it was the only chance she had to do so, ‘about—’
‘Leave it, Ruby.’ Because he just couldn’t do this.
‘I am sorry.’
So that made it fine, then. Mature he may be, but still it hurt and he just didn’t have it in him to accept her apology as easily as that.
‘You just concentrate on getting through your work.’
‘And that’s it?’
‘What do you want, Ruby?’ He glanced to the door to check no one could hear. ‘You’ve made your feelings perfectly clear.’ When she opened her mouth to dispute, Cort overrode her. ‘You’re right, things would never have worked out between us. I was looking for a diversion, missing Beth. We should have left it at one night.’
And he might just as well have taken a fist and pushed it into her stomach, but somehow she stayed standing.
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Yeah, well, given the stuff you believe in you might need to take a reality check.’
Yes he was harsh, and perhaps a bit mean, but he couldn’t just stand there and accept her apology. It was far easier to push her away.
He didn’t want to forgive her, because then he might have to love her, and Cort just wasn’t ready for that.
‘HERE‘s to Ruby’s last night!’ They were all made up, sipping wine, doing each other’s hair and getting ready to head down to the Stat Bar. Ruby would have given anything to be joining them and told her friends so.
‘We’ll take you out tomorrow,’ Jess said. ‘We’ll have a little celebration. Just think—you’ll be done!’
She would, Ruby realised.
Somehow she’d got through, not just the work but being alongside Cort. She didn’t blame him for not accepting her apology, but she was beginning to realise that it had probably been her only chance to offer one. She was back at uni in a couple of weeks, then exams. There was little chance of seeing him and realisation was dawning that it wasn’t just her time in Emergency that would be finally over with by morning.
‘Good luck.’ Tilly gave her a hug at the door.
‘What about …?’ Ruby’s voice trailed off. She’d been over and over it with Tilly, had been over and over it with herself, and no matter what positive spin she tried to put on it, she and Cort had only known one another for two weeks, which meant not a lot of history to fight for—an elongated one-night stand that didn’t stand up to the scrutiny of day.
The
