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Today never should’ve happened.
Yolanda kept telling herself that.
She should’ve aligned her schedule so she’d be off and at home with Trinity.
Instead, she sat in the locker room of the surgical floor. The clock on the wall told her it was well past her shift. Ten-thirty-one to be exact.
Yolanda thought about making her way down the ER for the consultation at seven-oh-five. 15-year-old male, MVA, blunt force trauma to the chest, internal bleeding from god knows where. She’d just finished with her post-op notes for the day. She was literally five minutes away from going home to Trinity.
The look on the boy’s mother's face made her scrub in faster than any surgery she’d done today.
She’d told the mother—Ginny, that was her name—that they’d had a clear shot. Never promised anything, because that’s the first thing you learn in medicine. Told her Rowan—her boy would most likely go home in the next couple of days.
Oh how wrong she’d been.
And Yolanda knew it before anyone said it out loud.
Not because of the monitor. Not because of the numbers dropping too low, too fast.
But because of the silence that followed after everything stopped being something you could fix.
That specific kind of silence that no med-school teaches you how to carry.
The mother’s face stayed with her more than anything else.
Not the words. Not the room. Not even the hours before.
Just that expression—like the world had shifted a few degrees off-axis and refused to settle back.
Yolanda had seen grief before. She had just never felt it hit so immediately after hope.
Now she was here. In the locker room of the surgical floor, now at ten-thirty-nine. Still in the purple scrubs she should’ve changed out of hours ago. Still smelling like antiseptic and exhaustion and something she couldn't name without her throat tightening.
She needed to get the hell out of here.
The twelve-minute ride home went by shorter than it usually did. That happened when they didn't clock out until rush-hour was over. On a red light, her gaze drifted to the apartments on the street. Endless homes, endless lives that just kept going like nothing happened.
Yolanda thought about how many teens were in their homes right now, tucked into the safety of their parents’ presence.
She thought about Ginny. Her empty home. The room that would stay frozen in time for years.
She realised she’d been holding her breath for a long time.
She exhaled.
It didn't fix anything.
She reached their apartment at ten-fifty-seven. By looking out from the dashboard, she could make out Trinity’s silhouette in the window behind the curtains. Probably doing that weird thing she does when watching a mundane documentary—just standing absently in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips.
The image almost made Yolanda smile. Almost.
When she let herself in, she didn't announce herself. She closed the door behind her, slipped off her shoes with a heavy sigh, and her hand stayed curled on the doorknob longer than necessary. Her duffle bag slipped off her shoulder and fell next to her foot with a soft thud, and she didn’t reach down to pick it back up.
Yolanda heard Trinity turning the TV off and pad toward the entrance.
“Welcome home,” Trinity murmured. Warm. Domestic.
Yolanda turned then. Slow. Exhausted.
She just watched her for a long second.
Trinity was in one of Yolanda’s old band t-shirts, her green jacket hanging loosely on her frame. Her hair fell carelessly past her shoulders. Her emerald eyes were soft, a rare expression reserved for off-days, and only Yolanda’s eyes to meet.
Something in Yolanda’s face must’ve given everything away. Because Trinity’s expression shifted slowly, and she took a step closer.
She didn't say anything. She just held out her hand for Yolanda to take.
Yolanda hesitated just for a half second. Her gaze flicked between Trinity’s hands and her eyes and she thought of the countless times the hand had been offered. Silently, without hesitation.
Her hands had stopped feeling like they were hers a while ago—and Trinity was still offering hers like Yolanda hadn’t failed with them.
She took it anyway. Fingers cold against Trinity’s warm ones.
They walked slowly toward the living room. Yolanda’s feet felt like concrete bricks.
Trinity sat on the couch, shifting so Yolanda could settle comfortably next to her.
Once she was pulled flush against Trinity’s chest, Yolanda finally let go of that heavy, impossible weight that pressed on her chest since the monitors confirmed what she already knew at nine-fifty-one.
Trinity’s hands wrapped around her like muscle memory. One firm on her back, the other tangled in her loose curls. A breathy, barely-there melody vibrated from her chest as she dragged her fingers across Yolanda’s hair.
Yolanda shifted slightly, her ear pressing lightly against Trinity’s chest. The melody and the steady rhythm of her heartbeat mingled together.
Yolanda’s breath hitched once.
Trinity’s hand stilled against her hair. She shifted, pressing her lips against her crown as she held her a fraction tighter.
Twice.
Yolanda blinked to try and push the tears in her eyes back.
It didn’t work.
Her hand fisted the collar of Trinity’s jacket. The tears finally fell then. Quiet. Exhausted.
“Hey…” Trinity murmured, voice barely above a whisper.
Yolanda pressed her face against Trinity’s chest as her shoulders shook.
“I’ve got you,” Trinity said, pressing a soft kiss on her hair.
Yolanda tried to speak. She managed a word muffled against Trinity’s chest—too broken to understand, only the shape of regret in it.
Trinity tilted her head, and gently squeezed Yolanda’s elbow. “What was that, baby?”
Yolanda huffed out a small whine. “I—I told her…” she managed, clearer this time as her breath hitched again, and she wiped her face on her sleeve. “He was—he was fine, I—fuck,”
Trinity’s arms tightened around her. “Yoyo,” she murmured. Yolanda slowly looked up at her.
“Breathe with me a second,” Trinity said, pulling back to take Yolanda’s hands into hers.
Yolanda tried, but her breath hitched before it could go deep enough. Her chest heaved, and she coughed out a sound that was bordering a sob.
Trinity’s hands squeezed hers. “It’s okay, let’s try again,” she said, voice soft as she drew in a deep, exaggerated breath for Yolanda to imitate.
This time the breath reached deeper than the last.
“There you go, baby,” Trinity said, her thumbs brushing against Yolanda’s knuckles.
Yolanda’s brows furrowed, a fresh wave of tears blurring her vision. Her breath threatened to hitch again, but she swallowed it back down with a small sound.
She looked down at their joined hands.
Bad idea.
Because now she could see the tremble in her fingers, the one that was supposed to be gone when she stepped out of the family room with her surgical cap clutched between her fingers.
Now she could look at the hands that failed a boy, a mother, a future now forever altered.
Trinity’s thumb caught her tears before they even slipped free, brushing past her cheek and back down against her hand.
Yolanda took another shuddering breath. “There was a boy,” she began, voice cracking. “Rowan.”
Trinity hummed a sound of acknowledgement as her thumbs kept circling against Yolanda’s knuckles.
“Internal bleeding. We just took him up for a splenectomy and—he was stable, I—”
Yolanda huffed out a laugh, vacant of any humor. “I told his mom it’d be fine,” she shrugged one shoulder. “And he was fine. There wasn't any major blood loss, we were just about done when everything just—” she trailed off, shaking her head once.
“…stopped being fine.”
Trinity squeezed Yolanda’s hands again, grounding her just enough to continue.
“E-FAST missed an arterial bleed,” Yolanda said, quieter now, almost embarrassed. “A broken rib must’ve nicked it during the transfer,”
Yolanda sniffled, gaze dropping somewhere between them. “I lost him before I could even understand what was happening.”
Trinity didn't speak right away.
Her hands stayed locked around Yolanda’s, thumbs stilling for a moment before starting again—slower this time, more deliberate.
She watched her for a beat, expression soft but unreadable in that way she got when she was thinking too much and saying too little.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
Yolanda hummed faintly, still not looking at Trinity. Not really. “I was supposed to see it,” she muttered. “I know these things.”
“I know you do,” Trinity said.
“I gave his mom hope, only to—” Yolanda shook her head once. “Only to take it away.”
Trinity exhaled softly through her nose, shifting slightly until her body was positioned directly in front of Yolanda. “You told her that based on the things you knew at the time,” she said, letting go of her hand only to cup her face. “That doesn't mean it was cruel."
Her thumb brushed under Yolanda’s eye. “Missing something in a situation like that isn't the same as failing him,” she murmured, her voice slow and deliberate. “You said it yourself—e-FAST missed it. There was no way of knowing until something went wrong.”
That finally reached Yolanda.
Her shoulders sagged and she went loose, leaning her forehead against Trinity’s shoulder. “I keep seeing it,” she admitted, voice rough, muffled against the fabric of the green jacket.
Trinity cupped the nape of Yolanda’s neck, and she swayed slowly. “I know, Yoyo,” she whispered, pressing her cheek against Yolanda’s temple.
She leaned back slightly, guiding Yolanda to settle more comfortably against her chest. With a deliberate swoop, she placed a cushion behind her back and settled them both down, one hand still steady against Yolanda’s neck.
Yolanda made a soft sound as she nuzzled closer in the crook of Trinity’s neck, one hand curling around the collar of the stolen t-shirt.
Trinity’s hand stayed buried in Yolanda’s dark curls, stroking gently as Yolanda’s breathing finally evened out.
The room felt smaller in a way it hadn’t before—not heavy, just… contained. Like the world had stepped a few meters back and decided to wait.
Yolanda’s grip on her shirt loosened slightly, but she didn’t let go. Not fully. Just enough to prove she could.
Trinity didn’t move to fill the silence. She let it settle instead, fingers still tracing slow, absent patterns through Yolanda’s hair, like she was smoothing something invisible back into place.
After a while, Yolanda shifted minutely—more a thought than a movement. Her voice, when it came, was barely there.
“…sorry.”
Trinity didn’t answer immediately. She just tightened her hold a fraction, like the word hadn’t been necessary to begin with.
“I've got you,” she said at last, so quiet it barely disturbed the space between them.
And then there was nothing else said for a while—just the steady rhythm of breathing, and the soft return of something like calm.