Short story: I know him!

Prelude


“Run! Run! Move! Move!” The EMT yelled at the patients in the hallway.
The ambulance pulled into the back of the hospital and the EMT’s ran with the stretcher to the operating room to get the bullet out. It was a toddler. He couldn’t have been more than five. I stood there watching and the bullet penetrated my heart as well. My heart bleed for that kid even though I sat in the waiting room awaiting my own fate.
“Move out of the way!” Another EMT yelled.
The little boy screamed from pain and it saddened me even more and then I saw them take him into the operating room. I didn’t know him, but for some reason I just had to know if he was ok. I went and talked to the lady at the desk, who had become my friend after I had been so in and out of the hospital in the past month.
“Stacey, what happened to that kid? He looked like he was five at the most,” I said with concern.
“Girl, he was five. He was shot,” she said in her typical hospital tone. She said it so calmly and without emotion it seemed as though working in the hospital had made her unsusceptible to the fact that this happened. For her, it seemed like since she had seen this so much it was a typical reality she accepted. I couldn’t accept it.
“What happened? Does it say?” I said.
“I’m not really supposed to say, but it seems like the home issue was domestic. The father fired at the mom and the toddler got in the line of fire,” she said.
“That’s horrible, Oh my God!” I said.
“It is, but sadly enough it happens. Why are you so concerned though? Do you know him?” she said.
“No, I don’t, but I have to though. I just have to after knowing what happened.” She was definitely lying about not knowing this family.