The room is small, only big enough for 4 cots, a desk and a few shelves.
It’s poorly lit, stocked with dribs and drabs, a museum of makeshift medical supplies they’d scavenged from the wasteland. It’s as close to Frankenstein as a room can get, Momo thinks, a mutated infirmary created by the crude sewing together of a dozen other debunked medical facilities
The Q-tips, gauze and rubbing alcohol are from a pharmacy 10 miles south. Momo and Dahyun had found a cardboard box hidden in the breakroom, stuffed hastily under a card table. (“Maybe they’re hoarding supplies,” Dahyun had suggested, the type to speculate on whatever they find.) The aspirin, ibuprofen and allergy pills had been lifted from a college dorm 2 towns over. (“An RA, probably,” said Dahyun. “Makes sense they’d have all the drugs.”) The colorful bandages and lollipops? An elementary school nurse’s office. And the heavy-duty stuff, the scalpels and the IV bags and crutches, they’d pulled from the rubble of a teaching hospital up the road. (Of course, by the time they’d gotten there, all the good stuff had been scavenged or destroyed. They were lucky to have found anything at all.)
Her hand is throbbing, mangled. She’d gotten cocky on a run, gotten caught up in the thrill of the chase, the rush of finding supplies, real supplies, important supplies. She’d forgotten the basics, forgotten to clear the room before she celebrated, and in the chaos that ensued, her hand had gotten crushed. It all happened so fast that Momo isn’t even entirely sure how it happened.
One minute, she was jumping for joy and the next, her hand was pinned to the ground by a chunk of falling concrete that dislodged from a rotting roof.
She swallows hard, breathing in dust and the stale smell of the infirmary. She’s sitting on a cot, clad in a tank top and the cargo pants she’d worn on the run. Her t-shirt, ripped and bloody, is somewhere in the laundry pile, buried beneath the towels that had been used to stop the bleeding. (Thank God that Jihyo had been at the gates waiting for them. She’s quick in crisis, the first to jump in when someone’s injured. She’s a boots-on-the-ground kind of leader, the type who leads by example, someone Momo really respects.)
The door opens and Momo perks up, expecting to see Jeongyeon back with the rest of the supplies but it’s Nayeon. Beautiful, slightly forlorn, slightly scowling. Momo, always calm in a crisis and always inappropriate following a fight, flashes her a smile.
“Honey, I’m home.”
Nayeon doesn’t smile.
She nods her chin at Momo’s left hand. It’s wrapped very loosely in gauze and laying limply in her lap. Momo doesn’t flinch, doesn’t do anything to let Nayeon know how much it hurts.
“I heard what happened. How’s your hand?”
Momo bites the inside of her cheek.
“The good doctor says it’s broken. She’ll be back in a minute to set it.”
“She knows how to set a broken hand?” Momo nods. “Won’t that hurt?”
“It will. But she sent Dahyun and the others to the veterinary clinic up the street for painkillers.”
Nayeon takes a seat on the padded stool in the center of the room, the one with the wheels that Jeongyeon uses to zip around the infirmary when she’s working too hard and too quickly to remember how to use her legs.
“Do dog painkillers work on people?”
Momo shrugs.
“I guess if you take enough of them.” She wheels herself up to the cot and nods her chin at Momo’s hand again. “Let me see.”
“You don’t want to see. It’s gross.”
Nayeon’s voice is stern. “Let me see.”
Reluctantly, Momo lifts the bandage, revealing twisted bones and broken skin.
Nayeon doesn’t grimace, doesn’t react in any perceivable way. Too proud, Momo thinks. But Momo knows her better than anyone and she sees Nayeon’s eyes widen just a little, just enough to let Momo know she’s afraid, that she’s worried.
“Shame,” she says. “I like that hand.”
“Jeongyeon can fix it,” Momo says. “She’s fixed worse.” Nayeon just nods. Momo watches her, studies her face, tries to read her mind and when she comes up empty, she says, “I’m sorry about what I said before I left. I just–”
Nayeon raises a hand and cuts her off.
“Don’t.”
“Nayeon–”
“Momo, don’t. I’m not doing this with you now. I’m not having this fight again. I’m not gonna sit here with you now and yell the same shit over and over again. I can’t do it anymore.”
Momo opens her mouth to speak but the words can’t seem to find their way out of throat. They stay deeply embedded in the lining of her stomach, hiding beneath the acid and the bile and the tomato soup she’d inhaled before her run.
She doesn’t want to have their usual fight again either. She’s sick of screaming, sick of crying, sick of losing. Nayeon doesn’t like what Momo does, doesn’t like that Momo is a runner, doesn’t like that Momo is still a runner despite all of Nayeon’s objections and all of her own past injuries. She doesn’t like that she’s sitting with her in the infirmary yet again, that Momo had run headfirst into danger for the thousandth time while Nayeon sat home and wondered if her girlfriend was dead or alive.
Yeah, Momo knows the risks. She knows the danger. Nayeon likes to tell her that anyone in camp could do the job, that anyone could be a runner and that Momo needs to sit back and let them but she’s wrong. Not anyone could do this job. Not anyone could be a runner. But Momo can. She’s good at it, good enough to be on what Jihyo calls the Alpha Team. They’re the infantry, the frontline, the ones scavenging, the ones risking their lives to make sure the camp has food and ammo and medical supplies.
No, not just anyone could be a runner but Nayeon hates that Momo puts her life in danger. She hates that she’s so reckless. But is it really that reckless to try and keep your own camp alive?
If you work, you eat. That’s the rule. But Nayeon insists there’s other jobs, safer jobs.
But Momo doesn’t want another job. She doesn’t want to work in the infirmary or the armory. She doesn’t want to work in the kitchen, doesn’t want to be courier, doesn’t want to help with inventory.
To Momo, being a runner is everything. But to Nayeon? Momo is everything. She can’t understand why it’s so easy for Momo to leave her, to run into crumbling buildings, to battle hordes of the undead for a few first-aid kits and cans of chili and bags of rice.
It’s not that Nayeon thinks the job isn’t important and it’s not that she isn’t proud of Momo. It is and she is. It’s so important and she’s so proud. But Nayeon has lost so much in the last year, so many things she can never get back.
And she just can’t lose Momo, too.
“I’m going to go to the other camp for a few days,” Nayeon says, her dark eyes pointed at the floor. “To clear my head, help out with some of the inventory.”
Momo’s heart seizes up in her chest. Her throat goes dry.
“You don’t have to–”
“It’s just for a few days,” Nayeon clarifies and then she stops talking because there’s a lump forming in her throat and she doesn’t want Momo to hear it. She stands suddenly, so suddenly that her seat slides back a few feet. “Keep your hand clean, okay?”
Momo tries to think of something to say, tries to think of something that’ll make Nayeon reconsider but she’s gone before Momo even tells her that she loves her.
She bites the inside of her cheek again, harder this time, hard enough to keep her from crying.
She’s always the one begging me not to leave. This is what I get.
She hears the door open and her head shoots up. This time, she expects to see Nayeon but it’s Jeongyeon. In her arms is a box of supplies. Momo’s face falls and Jeongyeon notices.
She smirks and says, “Jeez. Sorry to disappoint. I’m just the one who’s gonna fix your hand.”
Momo frowns.
“Sorry. I was just–”
“Expecting your girlfriend,” Jeongyeon finishes. Momo raises an eyebrow. “I saw her run out of here looking as sad as you do right now. Girl troubles. I get it. Your secret is safe with me. People in this camp gossip like middle schoolers but what happens in the infirmary stays in the infirmary.”
Momo stares at the floor, stares at dusty linoleum, counts the dark scuff marks that cross the white tile. She likes Jeongyeon. They’re lucky to have a doctor, lucky to have someone like her keeping them healthy and alive. She’s dry, deadpan, no-nonsense and Momo respects that. They’re both Scorpios, something Momo only knows because Dahyun tends to busy herself with astrology when she’s feeling stressed, and she figures that makes them something like friends.
“You have a girlfriend, right?” Momo asks, peering up at Jeongyeon. “At the other camp?”
Jeongyeon seems distracted, probably because she’s busy doing her job, but nods.
“Yeah. Yeah, I do. Sowon. She’s the doctor over there.”
Momo smiles a little.
“I met her once. That makes sense.”
“What does?”
“You and Sowon. You’ve both got the tall, dreamy doctor thing going on.”
Jeongyeon snorts.
“We met in med school,” she explains. “We were both on our third year when, well–” She gestures emptily and Momo completes the sentence in her head.
…when the world ended.
“How do you do it? Maintain a relationship in the apocalypse, I mean.”
Jeongyeon sighs and shrugs. She’s rummaging through a box of supplies and produces a splint.
“This isn’t as good as a plaster cast but it’ll have to do. What are you asking? Oh, Sowon? Yeah, it’s tough now. Tough in ways no one prepares you for but… I don’t know. We make it work. I wish she was here with me but…” She shrugs. “I’d be mad at Jihyo for separating us if it wasn’t the only reasonable option. There’s only 2 doctors. It wouldn’t make sense to put us both at the same camp. I miss her but we all have jobs to do, you know? I wish I could see her every single day. I wish I always knew how she was doing, but we write letters. Runners deliver them for us. Well, you know that already. It’s not easy but relationships weren’t easy before, either. I see her as often as possible and we make it work. Here, take this.” She gives Momo 4 ibuprofen tablets. “This won’t help much but it’ll take the edge off until Dahyun gets back.”
Momo swallows them dry.
“Hey, thanks. For the pills and for the advice.”
Jeongyeon laughs.
“I didn’t give you any advice.”
Momo stares up at her with pleading eyes.
“Can you?”
Jeongyeon sighs. She likes Momo well enough but this isn’t her job. If she’d been able to finish medical school, she would have gone on to become a surgeon. She was good with medicine, with science and math, but she wasn’t always good at the face-to-face. She certainly wasn’t good at talking about feelings, hers or anyone else’s, but there’s something about Momo’s sad expression that makes her dig deep.
With a sigh: “When’s the next time you’ll see her? Tonight?”
Momo shakes her head.
“She’s going to the other camp for a few days.”
Jeongyeon nods slowly. She gets it now, understands Momo’s long face.
“Write to her,” she says after a minute. “It’s easier sometimes. It’s easier to write it down than to say it in person. Write down what you’re so afraid to say to her and maybe it’ll help.”
Momo swallows hard.
“Thanks,” she says. Her voice is small, her spirit as broken as her hand. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. I’m gonna go grab you a Gatorade and a cookie or something, something to make up for some of the blood you lost. Lay down and rest until Dahyun gets back with the painkillers. You’ll make yourself dizzy if you don’t rest. I’ll be back in a second.” She goes to leave but then lingers in the doorway and looks over her shoulder. “And if you’re a lefty and you need help writing your letter, I could help you, I guess.”
She’s gone before Momo has a chance to thank her. Carefully, Momo maneuvers herself onto the cot without using her left hand and rests her head on a stiff pillow. She closes her eyes, tries her hardest not to relive the events of that afternoon, to blame herself, to think of all the things she’s done wrong in the last year.
There’s no guidebook for the apocalypse. You’re doing the best you can.
She takes a few deep breaths, listens to the sounds of life at camp, listens to people talking, kids laughing, gravel crunching under shoes and tires.
You’re doing the best you can but you’ll have to do better if you don’t want to loser her.
Briefly, she weighs her options. She doesn’t want to lose Nayeon but she doesn’t want to lose her job, either. She only has 2 things to live for – Nayeon and being a runner. Her job gives her a purpose but Nayeon? Nayeon gives her everything else.
Her hand throbs, an intense ache radiating up her arm and making her back teeth chatter.
I guess I’ve got some time to kill.
Thinking about what Jeongyeon said, Momo is suddenly thankful that she’s right-handed.
To help her stay focused, Momo visualizes the paper, visualizes the pen, visualizes the ink.
She takes another breath, then she begins.
Dear, Nayeon…