The Right Treatment Read Online Free

there was the sound of bleeping and whirring. She didn’t look much like a human at that point in time, more a ghostly extension of the machines she was wired up to.
    “Vitals?” he asked as he scrubbed up. The nurse gave him a rundown. Nothing hugely alarming, thank God; her pulse was weak, but stable. He checked her eyes, her pupils were dilating and responsive. Hopefully it would be nothing more than removing any additional pills she may have swallowed and let time do its healing. She was prepped and ready to go. He intubated her and watched the contents of her stomach drain into the kidney bowl. It was more fluid than anything; he was dealing with a young lady who obviously hadn’t eaten before hitting the town. Even at that, the stench was rancid; there was an acrid bitter smell filling the cubicle. Something familiar struck him about the girl lying on the bed, but Matt hadn’t time to study her features while worrying about her survival.
    “Have her bloods been done for toxicology?” he asked.
    A nurse handed him a form to complete; he ticked four boxes and threw the vials full of blood into the plastic bag, marking them urgent.
    “Get them over to phlebotomy now and tell them it’s urgent urgent, maybe even a matter of life or death. I need the results to know how to treat her. I don’t suppose we have a name for the forms?”
    “We do, actually! Aoife Devine; a friend came with her when she was admitted.”
    Matt froze. His pulse seemed to pound through his veins, he could hear each beat, feel it threaten to burst his blood vessels. Jesus, she looked so fucking awful he hadn’t even recognised the face he missed every day. For a moment he was sixteen again and a brazen little lass of twelve was smiling at him, telling him not to pay any attention to the lads (including her older brother) who had been taunting him. He could see her cheeky, freckled face and cute little button nose, and her hair tied in a high ponytail. She was so vibrant and full of life and even at twelve nothing fazed her, not even her God-awful parents.
    “What did you say her name was?” Matt snapped.
    It couldn’t be right. His Aoife would never have ended up in this mess. She was much too together. He had watched her grow up, and once her dyslexia had been diagnosed, she seemed to go from strength to strength. Even when he was at college, he loved to come home for weekends just to see her. Of course she never knew. No one did; he felt so silly being besotted with a girl so much younger than him. But she had been his saviour when he was too shy to stand up for himself. Her older brother and his gang of cronies had picked on Matt non-stop for being a geek, thumping him, taking his stuff, throwing things at him. When Aoife caught them, she called a halt to it by telling their father. Aoife then appointed herself Matt’s friend, even though he was a few years older, following him around like a little puppy. Matt still dreamed of meeting her brother and his cronies again, now that he realised what a bunch of assholes they really were. But his sixteen-year-old self just didn’t have the confidence.
    And for all Aoife had helped him, in turn, he had been her champion when her obnoxious, appearance-absorbed parents didn’t get her. Or when she struggled with her schoolwork. He used to fantasize about coming back to find her when he qualified and whisking her away on a white stallion beyond the rainbow. By then though, Aoife had already rejected him and they were no longer neighbours. Also, Matt had grown up; he knew there was no beyond the rainbow. Matt had forced himself to survive his disappointment, found himself, and relegated his sweet little saviour to his fantasy world. Until now. But her reappearance came in the form of a nightmare.
    He lifted the oxygen mask and examined her face closely, shining his light in her eyes again. She was white as a sheet, too thin, had black circles around her eyes, but there was no mistaking that