Page 17 of The Session

“I got this,” Devon said, pulling him away. “Go wash that, now!”

Mark hesitated for a second but knew he could be moments away from an HIV or hepatitis infection. He ran to the bathroom at the other end of the dressing room, tore off the glove, and washed his finger under the faucet. He pushed blood from the base of his finger toward the tip, squeezing out what he could, then applied an antiseptic.

“She’s stable,” Devon called out. “I’m going to have Salvo help me grab the stretcher, and we’re going to take you both to the hospital.”

“I can help,” Mark said, applying a bandage over the puncture.

Mark sat in an employee lounge at Saint Catherine’s Hospital at a table across from Devon. The trauma surgeon had inspected Mark’s wound and drawn blood samples to be tested in the lab.

As a precaution, Mark had been given an emergency dose of HIV PEP and a hepatitis B booster.

“In all fairness, she looked more like a pill-popper to me, not a heroin addict,” Devon said, clearly trying to make light of the situation.

“I don’t know,” Mark replied. “The blue hair. Something was going on.”

“When you gonna tell Holly?”

“Once we get her blood results back, I guess. This is either a ‘Honey, guess what happened at work’ story or an entirely different conversation.” He pointed to the couch. “I’m gonna take a nap there. Holly’s not expecting me until morning. Why don’t you head home.”

Devon hesitated. “I can’t leave you like this, man.”

“You look like crap. Go home.”

After Devon left, Mark lay on the couch and stared up at the fluorescent lights of the lounge. The last two days hadn’t exactly gone the way he had planned. As he closed his eyes, he thought back to the view of the limitless ocean through Summit’s conference-room window.

The sun was visible through the blinds of the lounge, and an orderly was quietly eating a bowl of microwave oatmeal in the corner, when the head of the trauma department gently shook Mark awake.

Mark’s eyes snapped open and he sat up. Even though he’d been deep in a dream, the reality of what had happened a few hours before came instantly back to him.

“Good news, Mark,” Dr. Eidelman said. “She tested negative for HIV and hepatitis B and hepatitis C. And I’m reasonably sure that you’re clean. Of course, we’ll want to do some follow-up blood tests.”

“Thanks,” Mark said, wiping at his eyes. “How is she doing otherwise?”

“We were able to bring her around. I think she’ll be fine—at least in the short term. Long term, hopefully she gets into a treatment program.”

“That’s good.”

“Was this your first needle prick?” the doctor asked.

“Yeah.”

“Just be more careful next time.”

Transformation

“How’s the finger?” Byron Martinez asked Mark from the other side of the dinner table while they waited for a pizza to be delivered, as was their Sunday night tradition.

“Fine. I’ll get some more tests next week, but it looks like everything is fine.”

“Did Carol give you an update?” Byron asked.

“She’s wrapping up at the store. She said she already ordered the pizza.”

Mark’s mother got off early on Sunday nights, and it was the one time the three of them could sit down to dinner. Byron was a busy man—besides the ambulance service he ran with his brothers, he still had his children from his first marriage. Although they were all grown now, they had children of their own. And although divorced from his first wife, he was still amicable with her—most of the time. Byron did his best, but Mark sometimes felt like this was his second family.

His mother and stepfather lived in a small three-bedroom home with a postage-stamp lawn and backyard that Mark had been taking care of since he was ten. Byron’s other home—the one his first wife now owned, and where one of Mark’s stepsisters still lived—was in a nicer part of town and had much more space.

Mark would be lying to himself if he said he didn’t envy those who lived in that house. But this had been his home, and his mother and stepfather had done their best to make it a cozy environment while he lived there.