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Victoria Javadi is having a terrible, horrible, and utterly indefensibly bad day.
She’s angry at McKay. No– that’s not quite it. She’s angry at the situation. The system. The defeated look in Roxie’s husband’s eyes. She’s angry at the tightly coiled bodies of their sons at the bedside. How Roxie gives up so, so easily. Then she’s angry at herself for feeling that way. She knows it’s not right, that she’s not right, but the thoughts worm into her brain unfettered.
She’s not angry at McKay. Not really. She’d woken up an hour early that morning, stretching like a cat on her lavender sheets, rolling out of bed with a muffled groan. Retied her ponytail four times until it sat just right. Snuck out the back of her house to avoid greeting her parents who were brewing coffee while the sun rose just outside. She knows that she slammed the door too hard to avoid subtlety. She doesn’t care.
It’s the day, she decides. The day is shit. Santos is too busy with her head stuck in clipboards for her to rant to, even if she would just hold it above Victoria’s head later on anyway, Whittaker is quiet today, and the interns are… she shudders at the thought of telling them anything about her. No thank you.
Victoria doesn’t identify who she’s truly angry at until her mother stomps into Trauma 2, looks at her, and says those three words that have been bouncing around her skull for the rest of the day.
Was this you?
She’s so shocked by the direct accusation that she can’t even hitch a breath when Ogilvie steps in for her. Ogilvie, of all people. She owes Whittaker five dollars.
When she performs the heart compressions, sinking her hands wrist deep into the cavity of the patient that had just been sitting up and marking words off his crossword, she can’t even be bothered to be happy about it. Any of it.
That’s before she sees Jesse thrown to the ground through her phone. Her fingers twitch to stop recording, but her eyes are wide, too wide, staring numbly through the dirty camera. It’s one thing to watch atrocities online and feel a wave of empathy through the screen, but another to be the one recording. She can’t replicate, or even explain the feeling.
It’s only 5. Two more hours to go. She was supposed to watch the fireworks today with her parents, but she wants nothing more than to go home.
—
She’s outside the hospital, gulping down a San Pellegrino when a blur of movement attracts her attention. It’s not quite dark outside yet, and the sun is barely grazing the ground from where it filters through the trees in the park. Victoria has been here before, nearly every week after her shifts. It’s the tender moment after work and before the street team leave without her (her mother expects her home at 9pm for dinner. Every single night. It still feels like university). It feels like nostalgia. She’s unsettled by it.
“Nice earrings, Crash. Didn’t take you for the patriotic type.”
Victoria’s hand flashes to her ear, where she feels the heart shaped studs. She thought they would be a good idea this morning, red white and blue all in a line. She’s fairly certain anything patriotic is a curse now.
“I’m not,” She mumbles back, eyes fighting to look away from Santos. The tendons in her neck are tightening, the slow pain building now that the adrenaline from the ED is wearing off, so she finally relents and lifts her head with a sigh.
The weight of the bench levels out as Santos sits next to her, letting her dark clothed legs slide apart until they brush against Victoria’s scrubs, and relaxing her shoulders onto the back of the wood. Victoria holds back a glare. Santos always manages to look like a king wherever she goes.
Santos huffs out a sigh, deflating into the bench as a small breeze tousles their hair in tandem. She closes her eyes, letting the setting sun wash over her pale face before she retreats into her pocket for a small object.
Victoria sneaks a peek to the side. One of her bangs falls into her periphery, so as she sweeps it to the side, she can quickly tell what it is: a black, matte USB stick.
Then Santos brings it to her mouth and inhales, blowing out a small cloud of hazy smoke.
“Wh– Are you smoking?”
She turns her head, pink lips lazily stretching into a smirk. “You’re staring, Javadi. You haven’t seen a vape before?”
Victoria can’t get the words out. She pauses for a second, and then snaps her jaw shut. Santos laughs at her, but it quickly devolves into clipped coughing.
“Ha,” Victoria says, plastering a smug look on her face, “Vaping isn’t good for you.”
Santos shoots her a droll look, and then lets her hair down from the half-up half-down it’s been in all day. It pools around her shoulder like liquid gold in the sun. Victoria looks away quickly.
It’s quiet for a bit, then.
Victoria’s rampantly wracking her brain for something to say. Anything. They’re just sitting there on the bench, barely touching, and Santos won’t look at her. Or maybe she is looking at her right now. Victoria wouldn’t know, she’s staring at her scuffed Asics and wondering if her parents are still working or if they decided to go to the firework show early. Or how the bench she’s sitting on is dedicated to someone’s deceased great-grandfather, probably. Will she get a bench? One right outside the ED, inscribed ‘Victoria Javadi. 2005-2025. Should have been a surgeon.’ Alas. There’s nothing, just the faint sounds of ambulances pulling in and out of the trauma bay. And Santos’s consistent puffs of air.
She decides to focus on that. Line her heartbeat up with it. Every time her mind strays, she can see the darkly lined shape of her mother’s face in front of her in the viewing room, and well, she doesn’t really need that right now does she?
Turns out that she doesn’t need to scour for a hollow conversation topic. It seems that Santos is good at that, too.
“You ever vaped before?”
Her tone is barely curious. Victoria still jumps at it like it’s the last piece of meat on the table, though, “Um, no. Parents,” She rushes out as an excuse, but cringes when she remembers that she’s nearly turning 21. “I guess I’m not really into it.”
Santos shifts beside her. She still doesn’t dare face her.
“Well?”
More silence. It’s getting too awkward for Victoria to bear now. She turns, stilted, shoving the knee beside Santos to the back of the bench so she can fold it against herself and face the other woman.
It’s a rough bump of knees, and then she’s looking up and seeing Santos offer her the small stick, palm upturned. Her face is impassive, patiently waiting for Victoria to stumble over whatever her next words are. She finds it comforting, oddly. Her mother always rushes her. The first person to give her this kind of patience is McKay. She tries to not think too hard about it, though.
“I’m not old enough,” Victoria starts, but Santos shrugs.
“No one cares.”
Victoria thinks of her mother. Then her father.
I don’t want to do dermatology, she thinks with a sneer. And I sure as hell don’t want to do surgery.
She grabs the vape off of Santos’ palm that’s already curling back in on itself. Victoria inspects it carefully, turning it back and forth, before looking defiantly at Santos.
Her lip is quirked up. That’s all the encouragement that Victoria needs, and she grabs it tightly and inhales quickly.
It’s all tingly for a second, and then a rush of mint hits the back of her throat and she’s gasping for air, hacking out coughs that she’s only heard from the smokers that live on the opposite side of the city. “Holy… shit…” She warbles, and Santos is laughing, actually laughing at her. Her heart pinches.
“Didn’t think you were going to go after it, Crash,” Santos grins, letting her head rest against the back of the bench as she’s cackling, and Victoria opens her mouth to correct the nickname but the air goes down the wrong pipe and she’s choking again.
Santos looks a little concerned then, not the shit, my friend is dying concerned, but more like shit, the daughter of the attending I need an in with is dying concerned. Victoria wonders if they’re friends for a brief, brief moment as she’s battling for oxygen. Then she banishes it from her mind. Thankfully, she stops choking just as Santos hits Victoria’s back firmly, right in between the shoulder blades.
She gulps some of her San Pellegrino. Then, when she’s sure that she can open her mouth and she won’t vomit, she cuts a glare at Santos, “I hate mint.”
She hears a gasp, and then, “My esteemed apologies, your highness. I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”
“Well. There won’t be one,” Victoria says, and pushes the stick back in Santos’ direction, “That was disgusting.” She knows it comes out more prim and proper than she’d like, rather than the rugged voice that Santos always pulls off, but she doesn’t care.
They sit there in silence again. Victoria is still facing Santos, so she wrenches her head back to the side, and winces when a sharp pain squeezes one of the tendons in her neck. She swallows a curse, but the pain is written all over her face.
“You good?” Santos asks. Victoria nods her head, still wincing, and the cold palm of her hand finds the back of her neck. It provides temporary relief, but the crick persists.
“Want me to help?” Trinity is leaning forward now.
Victoria hesitates, but nods helplessly.
“Shift your back to me.”
A couple of stiff adjustments, and Victoria is trying to stay up while Santos is digging her fingers into her neck, carefully pressing down. She glances over a spot that makes Victoria tense up, and say, “Wait– go back. No, up a little. Good. Harder, now.”
Santos kneads into her shoulders stronger. She twitches, almost makes a sound. Has to stuff her hand into her mouth to stop from making another embarrassing noise.
“Is that good?” Now Santos’ voice is right in her ear again.
“Yeah.” It’s almost a whisper. But her deft fingers find all the right knots anyway, scraping away the tension from Victoria’s neck, “When did you learn this?”
“YouTube videos.” Then it’s quiet again. But it’s nice. Victoria doesn’t feel guilty about melting into Trinity’s fingers. She doesn’t know quite what to say about that.
She hears the first pop of fireworks. More quiet. Then a second. Santos drifts up to her neck, addressing the pain. It feels good. Really good. Her head tips back, lips drying out. She nervously licks them.
Trinity doesn’t stop. Victoria doesn’t look back. But nonetheless, she steels herself, grits her teeth, and murmurs, “Do yo– would you, I mean, would you want to watch the fireworks together? The professional ones start soon. I’m not going with anyone.”
A pause.
“Not even your parents?” Trinity sounds genuinely surprised.
Victoria’s hackles raise and she shivers though it’s not close to cold, “No. You’re welcome to join them, though.”
Her attempts at sarcasm fall flat. Trinity lets out a wry chuckle, “No, I’m okay to hang out. As long as you don’t try to hit my vape again.”
“Oh. I thought you were going with Dr. Garcia?” Victoria admits, her brows furrowing. She tries hard not to think about what Garcia said to her earlier that day. Nepo baby, nepo baby, nepo baby. Does Trinity think that of her, too? Is that why she’s always trying to talk to her, even if she’s just making fun of her?
“When did you hear that.”
“Oh, I just,” Victoria scratches the back of her neck, “You guys weren’t being exactly quiet. That’s all.”
There’s a sigh from behind her.
“No. I’m not.” The disappointment is palpable.
Victoria turns at that, and Santos’ hands finally fall away from where they were placed on the back of her shoulder. She tries not to miss it too much, and desperately grasps at the previous conversation while internally kicking herself. “Well. I won’t go if you vape. You should know very well why they’re a bad idea.”
Trinity rests her hands behind her head and looks at her seriously then, “I like bad ideas, Javadi.”
Victoria nearly bites her tongue off. Trinity smiles meanly. She yawns, “Huckleberry is out to his farm anyway. You’re my last option, so don’t think you’re special now.”
Victoria sneers at her, just as practiced in the mirror this morning and shoots up, nearly tripping over the bench stand where the concrete is cracked. “Yeah, I know. Let’s go, then,” Her voice comes out as a squeak, “We should get good seats.”
“Lead the way.”