I am walking backward, not just because I’m moving alongside the gurney, but more out of recoil and horror. I’m walking backward, but I can’t feel my legs. Frozen. Useless.

Shane lies on the stretcher, wearing a red shirt I’ve never seen before. It looks just like her white one, sleveless. Her arm is covered in blood. Eyes closed, skin pale. Her makeup looks harsh, like a mask. Her entire delicate shoulder is a pulpy red mess. One of the EMTs walks awkwardly while putting pressure on it. Her hand is the only part of her left arm not covered in blood, and it looks like a small dove lying limply on the stretcher, very white. Her skin is pale, lips gray, her mouth open. She seems unable to catch her breath and her eyes are closed.

I back right into a solid warm weight, strong hand on my back. “Why you yelling, Dar? What’s wr…Oh *****!” Darrell.

He pushes me gently out of the way. I watch, following the procession to a treatment room, as if from somewhere outside reality.

I waver there like a ghost with my hand on my mouth. Because if I take it away I know I will scream.

She has lost enough blood to be near death. I can already see the signs of shock, the pallor. I hear, from beneath the shouting, the wheezing breath from her perfect lips. They are moving her away from me, and I realize that I have to keep walking. I can’t move my hand and I can’t say a word, because if I do, a scream will come out.

Bucknel is barking out orders. It seems as if they are coming from the moon but they echo and resound in my head. “Start a unit of O-neg, CBC and diff, lytes, type and cross match, page the OR, start prepping her. What’s her name?”

I remove my hand from my mouth and form the sound of her name. But the thing in my throat that needs to be alive to make the sound is dead, and it comes out as a whisper, as if I’m a ghost, and no one hears.

“Shane,” Darrell says clearly.

Bucknel nods. “Shane, can you open your eyes?” It’s just another trauma to her, and she is confident and calm. How can she be calm, when the fragile, fierce creature that is Shane is bleeding out in front of us? Want to deck her. Want to hug her.