Page 6

CHAPTER 6

HEL

H el tapped on the door to Aiden’s hospital room. She waited until she heard a deep rumble of a voice calling for her to come in.

Peering around the door, she was greeted by the sight of a young man hooked up to a lot of cardiac monitoring and a young woman sitting in the chair next to the bed, bouncing a baby on her lap.

She entered the room, stopping at the foot of the bed.

“Hi. Sorry to disturb you. My name is Hel Rayleigh. I’m the team doctor for the Burra Wombats. I met you very briefly out on the ice yesterday.”

Aiden’s face lit up with recognition. “Everything is a little fuzzy from then, as you can imagine. But I remember your hair.”

Hel lifted her hand self-consciously to her mop of red curls. “Yeah. It’s pretty easy to spot,” she said dryly.

It hadn’t been easy to be the ginger kid with the wild curls, having been subjected to more than her fair share of teasing.

But it had almost all been worth it the first time a young child stared at her from a hospital bed and asked their parents, very seriously, if she was Princess Merida from Brave. She had told the little girl—in her best Scottish accent, which was admittedly pretty woeful—that, indeed she was, and the child went from terrified to giggling, allowing her to treat them with minimal difficulty, whereas previously she had been sobbing in the bed.

“Your hair is amazing.” The woman— who Hel assumed must be his wife—commented.

“Thanks.” Hel reached up and touched her wild curls. “Sorry, what’s your name?”

“It’s Claudia. And this little munchkin is Ava. Also known as the baby who doesn’t sleep.”

Hel grinned down at the cute baby, who looked like she was about four months old. “No, they don’t at that age.”

“Do you have kids?” Claudia asked before she did a big bounce, making Ava giggle. “She just started doing that!” she exclaimed in delight. “I cannot get enough of her laugh.”

Hel grinned at the little girl before she replied, “No children, but I see a lot of kids in work. I’m an emergency doctor, and we have a big paediatric department.”

She leaned down and gave the baby a soft tickle on her tummy, which had her giggling again and Hel grinning in delight back. She adored kids.

And now, at thirty-five, with her last long-term relationship ending over ten years ago, she heard her biological clock ticking louder and louder.

To be honest, she wasn’t entirely sure why she hadn’t managed to find anyone who suited her. She was alright-looking, with symmetrical features—even if her jawline could be considered a tiny bit ‘strong’. Her teeth were nice, and her eyes were a hazel colour, which sparkled when she was happy.

She kept fit, running a few times a week, and at the advice of Ken—her yoga teacher brother—she made sure she did yoga at least three times a week. Twice a month, she did a Zoom lesson with him and her dad. So Ken could keep his eye on her and make sure she was practising properly, and it helped their dad keep his ruined back as supple as possible.

She put herself out there and went on plenty of dates, but for various reasons, none seemed to work out. She had been told she was too opinionated, worked too much, didn’t work out enough, wasn’t girly enough, swore too much, wasn’t opinionated enough (that one had confused her too), was too thin, was too fat, was too ginger and a fair few other reasons which most of the time didn’t make logical sense.

So here she was, perpetually single. But not lonely. She loved her life. Loved her job. Loved her friends. The only thing she didn’t love was the shared house. Which unfortunately had become worse in the last couple of weeks as one of the girls let her unemployed boyfriend/ sponge, Wayne, move in. All he did was lie on their sofa and watch television while also watching videos at full volume on his phone.

He tried to smoke in the house, and Hel read him the riot act. He tried a second time, and she threatened to spray him with the fire extinguisher. Now Wayne smoked outside the front door and made sure he exhaled onto her every time she walked past.

Hel was close to her breaking point. She couldn’t ask Sadie as she didn’t have a spare room. She hadn’t said anything to Clara as she knew her friend would have insisted she live in the house that she had rented out to move in with Taylor. Hel was too embarrassed to admit that the rent was out of her budget if she wanted her dad to have surgery asap, and she was too proud to take a hand out.

Claudia’s next word cut through her musing. “You should. I’ve had no sleep for four months, but I can’t think of anything better!” She joggled Ava again, who kept giggling.

Hel smiled but didn’t say anything as a lump rose in her throat, stopping her.

“Excuse me. I know Ava is cute and all, but patient here. I’d like some attention,” Aiden interjected, waving his hands in the air.

“You are such an attention seeker!” Claudia poked him in the side.

“I can’t help it. My natural charisma makes people look at me.” Aiden beamed and reached over to pat his wife’s leg and tickle Ava on the belly to make her giggle.

“You’re an idiot.” Claudia rolled her eyes this time.

Their cheerful banter made Hel smile. This seemed to be a conversation the couple had had many, many times before.

“What did the Cardiologist say?” Hel asked, interrupting their ‘argument’.

“They came by this morning. He told me the puck to the chest could have caused—it was a long name, sorry, I can’t recall. Basically, the puck made my heart stop.” Aiden shrugged, the monitoring leads he was attached to moving as he did.

“Maybe Commotio Cordis?” Hel supplied.

“Yeah, I think that’s what they said,” Claudia agreed.

“But also, they need to exclude anything nasty. They’re taking me for testing later to see if they can make my heart go back into the bad rhythm. And they said if they do, I’ll need a pacemaker, and I’m done with ice hockey.” Aiden’s head dropped, and he looked dejected for a moment. But his gaze soon swung to his family. “It doesn’t matter, as I’ll still be here to see Ava grow up. Thanks Hel, for everything you did. The doctor told me I only had a fifty percent chance of coming back from the blow.”

Hel nodded in acknowledgement. While Commotio Cordis—where something hit the chest at exactly the wrong millisecond in the heart’s electrical cycle and threw it into an arrhythmia—was thankfully pretty rare, every year, some young sports players were unlucky and didn’t make it.

“I’m glad I was there to help.” Hel reached out and touched his shoulder. “Anyway, I don’t want to keep you too long. Do you mind if I leave you my phone number? Can you let me know how you go?”

Claudia pulled her phone out of her handbag. “Absolutely.”

Hel gave Ava a last belly tickle and left, grinning because she had saved the young man’s life, and now he would get to see his daughter grow up. For all the trials and tribulations of her job, moments like this made everything worthwhile.