A History Of loss
280 Words
Liana Matthews was brilliant, disciplined, composed — but beneath all that lived a quiet grief.
Her mother had died in a hospital.
A sudden cardiac arrest.
A twenty-minute code.
A hopeless fight.
Liana had been seventeen — old enough to understand every shouted order, every faltering step of the resuscitation, every moment the universe tilted away.
Since then, Liana had promised herself she would survive life by staying untouched.
No attachments.
No losses.
No pain.
So when Adrian smiled that bright, easy smile…
When he stood tall and confident in every crisis…
When he looked at her with a tenderness she didn’t know how to return…
She felt her walls shake.
And she hated it.
But she also couldn’t stop the warmth that spread through her whenever he was near.
It began with a crash.
A multi-car accident on the freeway. Five ambulances arrived one after the other — sirens screaming, paramedics shouting, blood staining gurneys.
Adrian and Liana worked side by side in an adrenaline-fueled blur.
Intubate.
Stabilize.
Suture.
Shock.
Run.
A young girl, no more than ten, coded on the table.
“Liana, I need you!” Adrian barked, hands deep in compressions.
She slipped into place next to him with fierce precision — pushing epinephrine, ventilating, calculating dosages faster than anyone could ask.
Minutes passed.
Slowly… impossibly… the heart monitor beeped back to life.
They saved her.
And when the chaos finally died, the two of them stood breathless in a quiet hallway, bodies trembling, sweat dripping down their temples.
“You were incredible,” Adrian whispered.
“So were you,” she whispered back.
Their eyes locked.
Something inside her cracked.
Something inside him fell deeper.
- Writer
