Page 5

the name on the file

ELLIE

T he fluorescent lights at South Havens Trauma Hospital buzz overhead, flickering with a stubborn defiance that makes me want to climb up there and hand-deliver them to maintenance as a personal favour.

The hum burrows into my skull, a constant, low-level static that never quits.

Pretty sure they’re engineering my slow descent into madness, one flicker at a time.

The waiting room isn’t just full—it’s bursting at the seams. The air’s thick with stale heat, cheap hand sanitiser, and that unmistakable mix of blood and burnt toast. In the corner, the air con wheezes as it tries to keep up, but like everything else in this place, it’s barely holding on.

Patients spill into every corner. There’s a guy cradling his wrist like it might detach at any moment, two teenagers bickering over whose turn it is, and someone snoring in the far corner, loud enough to rattle the vending machine.

Just another night in A&E.

Beyond the chaos of the waiting area, the department pulses with motion. A blur of scrubs, rushing feet, and half-shouted orders. Monitors beep in uneven rhythms, gurneys rattle down the hall, and a paramedic barrels past, shouting out vitals like he’s narrating a Formula One race.

I lean on the edge of the reception desk, trying to roll out a tight knot between my shoulder blades. Naomi nudges me gently, sliding a paper cup into my hand. “You look like you need this more than I do right now.”

“You’re an actual angel sent from heaven.” I take a sip and immediately grimace. “I take that back. What in the devil’s name is this?”

“Drink,” she says. “It’s basically poison, but it’s caffeine.”

“It’s a human rights violation.”

She grins. “Welcome to the NHS.”

The intercom crackles to life, a garbled voice calling for a trauma consult. No one even flinches. We’re all too far gone to register anything but our own to-do lists.

“Ellie, you’re up in bay three.” Linda appears at the desk, clipboard in hand, blonde ponytail slightly lopsided.

Her eyes are tired, but she still moves like someone running on pure instinct.

She’s the nurse in charge tonight and also my mentor—which sounds formal, but mostly means she trusts me not to cock things up too badly.

Lately, that trust has been showing. Each shift, I feel a little steadier. A little surer of my hands, my instincts, my place in the pandemonium. The doubt’s still there, but quieter now. Drowned out by the rhythm of doing.

“Laceration to the hand,” Linda says. “Looks straightforward. Patch him up and send him on his way.”

“Got it,” I reply, stepping forward to take the file. I scan the top with automatic precision, my brain already shifting into clinical mode.

Male. Age thirty. Left hand. Minor laceration.

And then I freeze.

Name: Kieran Hayes.

My heart stumbles in my chest, skipping like a scratched CD.

No .

The name stares up at me, black ink on white paper. I grip the clipboard tighter, the edges biting into my palm.

It can’t be him. Surely not. Kieran Hayes isn’t that uncommon. Right ? But the second I see it, I’m already gone.

I can’t sleep.

I’ve tried—twice. First lying flat. Then curled on my side, pillow over my head like I could muffle the thoughts and the laughter echoing from a nearby tent. But the air’s too warm, the ground too lumpy, and my brain won’t shut the hell up.

Then I hear it.

A guitar strumming faintly and unpolished, as if only for themselves.

I sit up, heart already tugging me toward it. I yank on my hoodie and wellies, unzip the tent as quietly as I can—careful not to wake Naomi—and step out into the night.

It’s calmer out here.

The anarchy of the day has faded into a low hum. Tents glowing, whispered conversations bleeding into the open air. The Ferris wheel in the distance is still lit, slowly spinning, casting streaks of pink and gold into the night sky.

I follow the sound.

Kieran’s sitting on a log near the edge of the lake, his back to me, guitar balanced on his knee. He’s hunched slightly, plucking at the strings like they’re helping him think.

I pause for a moment, just watching him—lit by moonlight and the occasional flicker of the wheel’s glow. He looks peaceful.

“Couldn’t sleep?” I breathe.

He glances over his shoulder and smiles—God, that smile—then he shifts sideways, patting the log beside him.

We sit for a while. Saying nothing. Letting the moment settle around us like a blanket.

Kieran keeps strumming, aimless but soft, like the guitar’s an extension of his thoughts. I stare out at the lake, watching the water catch the distant lights in ripples. Now and then, laughter echoes from the tents behind us, but it feels far away. Like we’re in a pocket of something untouched.

It’s just easy with him.

The silence drifts into conversation—not deep, not heavy. Just little things. As natural as breathing.

He plucks at a quiet chord and lets it ring out into the air between us. “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

I don’t answer straight away. I watch the Ferris wheel turning in the distance, slow and dreamlike.

It’s such a simple question, but my brain scrambles under it. I think of my parents and the pressure they pile on me. I think of deadlines and exhausted nights at the library, of lectures that blur together.

Mostly, I think of Mia. Of how everything I do is for her. But at this moment… I don’t want to tell him about her. Not yet.

Right now, I’m not a struggling single mum buried in coursework and bills. I’m just a girl under the stars beside a boy who makes the world go quiet.

I swallow. “Honestly?” I say, turning to look at him. “I have no idea.”

Kieran laughs softly, not mocking—just like he gets it. “Fair.”

“I mean, my parents want me to do something sensible—secure—you know? Whatever that means. Uni, job, house, stability—tick all the boxes so they can say they raised me right.”

He hums. “And what do you want?”

I shrug, eyes still on the water, because no-one has ever really asked me that before. “I don’t know. I’ve always thought about being a nurse.”

I pause, tugging at the frayed edge of my sleeve. “It’s not some noble thing. I just… I like helping people. Showing up when someone needs it most. Just being there when they are at their most vulnerable.”

Kieran says nothing. He just listens, and it makes the words come easier.

“I’ve spent so much of my life feeling like I’m floating. But when I think about nursing, it feels… real. Like I could actually make a difference.”

I glance at him, a self-conscious laugh slipping out. “That probably sounds stupid.”

He shakes his head. “Far from it.”

“Yeah, well… I doubt it will ever happen.”

He shifts beside me, then places his guitar on the ground, turning so we’re facing each other. His voice softens.

“You can be anything you wanna be, Ellie. You just have to believe it.”

The words land heavier than they should. Not cheesy. Not thrown away. Just… honest.

My heart squeezes.

I clear my throat. “Alright, wise one. What about you? Where do you see yourself in five years?”

He leans back slightly, eyes flicking up to the stars. “Still playing, hopefully. Touring. Writing. Just… making music, I guess. Making my dad proud.”

There’s a pause.

He doesn’t mention his mum.

And I notice.

The silence hums for a beat too long. I don’t ask—but something in my face must shift, some unspoken question rising to the surface—because he sees it.

His eyes flick to mine. “She died when I was eleven. Breast cancer.”

The words are plain. Undramatic. But they land like a stone in my chest.

I shift closer, our knees brushing again. A slight movement, instinctive. “Kieran…”

“It’s alright.” He says it like a reflex, but his voice catches just slightly on the end. “I don’t really talk about it much. My dad’s solid. He raised me. Did the best he could. But yeah… it’s just been us for a long time.”

There’s something in his voice that sounds like strength held together by worn threads. And I suddenly want to touch him. Not for comfort. Not for sympathy. Just so he knows, I’m here with him.

I reach for his hand. Thread my fingers through his.

“That must have been so hard,” I say, my voice low, almost afraid to disturb the space between us.

He swallows, nods. “It was just as I was starting Year Seven. New school, new everything. Everyone else was busy figuring out who they were, and I was just… trying to get through the day without falling apart.”

His thumb brushes over mine, slow and deliberate.

“I didn’t handle it well,” he says after a moment. “Not for a long time. I was angry. Quiet. I couldn’t focus on anything. I felt like there was this… weight inside me that no one else could see.”

He draws a breath, voice softening. “Then I met Theo, our drummer. He was all chaos and bad decisions. Just showed up one day and decided I needed shaking loose. Dragged me into this music project he was doing. Said I looked like the kind of kid who needed a power chord more than a maths grade.”

A quiet laugh escapes him, and it curls right into my ribs.

“He wasn’t wrong,” Kieran murmurs. “That’s when everything changed. Music gave me something else. Something louder than the grief. Bigger than the silence.”

I say nothing. I just hold his hand a little tighter. Let the story breathe between us.

He looks down at our hands. “I don’t know why I told you all that.”

“I’m glad you did,” I whisper.

I rest my head against his shoulder, and he exhales slowly, pressing his cheek into my hair as his arm slips around my waist.

We sit like that—two people made of jagged edges and quiet resilience.

The music in the distance fades. Tents glow softer behind us, shadows lengthening as the night deepens around the edges.

And somehow, in the middle of all this mess—grief and dreams and uncertainty curling into the dark—I feel it. That strange, settling quiet in my chest.

Like maybe I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.