The moment I walked through the sliding glass doors with Maya leaning heavily against me, the triage nurse—a woman I had trained fifteen years ago—took one look at Maya’s face and immediately buzzed us through the secure doors.
We bypassed the waiting room entirely. Within minutes, Maya was sitting on a crinkling paper bed in Trauma Bay 3. My former colleagues moved with a grim, furious efficiency. They didn’t ask unnecessary questions. A forensic nurse was called down. She systematically photographed every scrape, the massive contusion on Maya’s cheek, the defensive lacerations on her hands, and the horrifying, distinct finger-marks blooming like dark orchids on her upper arms.
But the physical injuries to Maya were only half the battle.
The agonizing, suffocating hour waiting for the OB-GYN resident to arrive with the portable ultrasound machine felt like a decade. Maya lay flat on her back, her bruised hand gripping mine so tightly my fingers went numb. She stared at the ceiling, her breath catching every time the doctor pressed the gel-covered wand against her lower abdomen.
