Thirteen years ago, I walked into my first real overnight shift in the ER wearing a coat that still felt like a costume. I was twenty-six, newly minted, still learning how to make my voice sound steady when alarms screamed and families begged and the line between “we can fix this” and “we can’t” moved faster than your heart could follow. That night started like most nights—too many patients, not enough hands, the stale smell of disinfectant mixed with burnt coffee, the kind of fatigue that sits behind your eyes and turns everything fluorescent and sharp.

Then the paramedics came in fast, wheels rattling, voices clipped, and the air changed instantly the way it always does when a wreck arrives. Two stretchers. Sheets pulled up. The stillness beneath them felt louder than any siren. And behind them, on a third gurney, a three-year-old girl with a seatbelt bruise blooming across her chest and eyes so wide they looked like they’d swallowed the whole world. She wasn’t crying. She was beyond crying—somewhere numb and watchful, her gaze twitching from face to face as if she was trying to find a familiar anchor and finding only strangers in scrubs.