day. Yet what she hadn’t realised was that none of her preparations, nor her desire to be a doctor, would actually help her cope with the continual tiredness that she’d felt on a day to day basis.
The twelve hour shifts were gruelling, and always ran longer than twelve hours. Working in the A&E meant that you never really had slow days. You never had the same patients. You were constantly challenged with different situations, and your medical knowledge and ability to react quickly was always being tested to breaking point. She’d also had to learn that being tired wasn’t an excuse for errors or delays. There simply couldn’t be any delays when your decisions resulted in a patient living or dying.
If it hadn’t been for Charlie, Emily felt sure that she wouldn’t have completed her first month at the hospital. Every shift had become overwhelming, and the sleep deprivation had begun to feel like it was killing her. She knew that if she hadn’t stumbled across the infamous Mrs Grayson when she’d been sat outside the A&E crying, then she would have walked away from medicine.
***
“Dr Peters isn’t it?” A young woman asked sitting down next to Emily.
“Yes,” Emily said slightly bemusedly not knowing who this woman was.
“I’m Charlotte Grayson. Don’t worry,” she said smiling kindly; “I’m not a patient, or an angry patient’s next of kin that wants to yell at you. I’m just here to see if I can find my husband.”
“You mean Dr Grayson?” Emily asked, and then she smiled and added; “well obviously you do, you just said that your surname was Grayson.”
They both laughed, and Emily looked at Charlie and could instantly see what all the chatter amongst the nurses and male doctors was about. Charlotte Grayson was strikingly beautiful. No wonder the nurses spent so much time bitching about her she thought, and making up stories about how much of a bad wife she must be if Nurse Willis had to come in on her days off to bring Dr Grayson food.
“Are you ok?” Charlie asked. “It’s just, if you don’t mind me saying, you look a little frazzled.”
“Frazzled,” Emily said; “that’s exactly how I feel.” She then looked away from Charlie and said; “I’m not sure I’m cut out for this,” and much to her own embarrassment she began to cry.
Charlie looked at her sympathetically, and then she gently put her arm around Emily’s shoulders. “I think you’re supposed to feel like this,” Charlie said reassuringly. “When Matt first started he used to get home, sit down, and swear that he was quitting the next day. It’s hard what you do. I think they make it intentionally hard. Without Nurse Willis looking after him, and feeding him when he forgot to eat, I think Matt might have quit as well.”
Emily wiped her eyes and looked straight into Charlie’s big brown kind eyes, trying to asses if she was being truthful or just trying to make her feel better.
She noticed that Charlie’s eyes were an incredibly rich brown colour, and she saw that they were perfectly round. She thought that they looked almost deer like, innocent and honest, and she felt sure that if Charlie was just trying to make her feel better she would never be able to tell. That must be so frustrating for Dr Grayson she mused absent-mindedly, before returning to the moment and her conversation with Charlie.
“Dr Grayson thought about quitting?” Emily asked sounding and feeling surprised by this. He was so good at his job, how could he have ever thought about quitting she’d thought.
Charlie laughed. “Yep, and he’ll probably be mad with me for telling you that. You doctors are all hierarchical aren’t you, and you’re not supposed to see any chinks in each other’s armour are you? Look I know that this will sound clichéd, but you’re probably just way past the point of tiredness,” Charlie said giving Emily’s shoulders a squeeze; “and that makes everyone emotional. I once cried when I missed my train station by one stop. Pathetic, but hopefully caused entirely by the fact that I hadn’t slept for nearly three days.”
“You’re probably right,” Emily said standing up and brushing down the back of her white coat.
Charlie stood up too, and Emily noticed that they were roughly around the same height. Yet she also noticed that that was where the comparison between them ended.
Charlie had long brown hair, and hers was mid length and blonde. Charlie had deep brown eyes, and she had blue