I dry my hands and glance at his chart, though I already know the numbers by heart. There’s a familiar tightness in my chest at the praise—pride braided with unease. “Early-stageinfarcts can hide. Always get checked up if you don’t feel right.”
He nods, eyes shining. “I told them I wasn’t leaving until someone came in. Preferably you. My wife says I’m dramatic now.”
“Always listen to your woman, Mr. Matthews,” I say, smiling as I check his reflexes. “But you’re also stable. No new deficits.”
He exhales, the sound long and shaky, shoulders finally dropping. “So I’m… okay?”
“You’re okay,” I confirm. “We’ll keep monitoring, but your prognosis is very good.”
Relief spreads across his face, softening the lines there. I make a note on his chart, typing quickly, and pivot us toward follow-up plans before the moment grows too heavy.
Outside the exam room, phones ring in staggered rhythms, keyboards clack, carts roll past with soft squeaks. Ellie is at the nurses’ station, hair pulled into a tight braid that brushes the back of her scrubs as she swivels her chair toward me, scrolling through Mr. Matthews’s discharge notes.
“Well?” she asks.
“Textbook,” I say. “Good recovery.”
She grins, standing to meet me at the edge of the station. “You did good with him.”
I smile, chest swollen with pride that I was able to see what someone else missed. That I at least helped a family not go through what mine went through. I also whack Dad’s words away: his certainty that I’m bound to miss something. That even my best isn’t good enough because nothing saved Mom.
Ellie and I stand side by side at the counter, shoulders nearly touching. Then she tilts her head, eyes sharpening.
“I cannot believe you didn’t tell me,” she whispers, “that you have an ex who moved across the country for you, and youwatchedwhile I asked him out.”
I groan. “Ellie?—”
“Not cool, Robyn.”
“That relationship is dead and buried.” I keep my voice low and roll my neck to loosen the tension, sweeping the flicker of sadness under the rug.
She slides her hand in the shelf beneath the counter, behind her station, and pushes my favorite coffee order my way. “Why did you guys end things?”
I cradle my fingers around the cup. She doesn’t know the full story, and I-I’m hurt over the kiss, but that kiss barely scratches the surface of why we broke up. “I couldn’t land an attending position in Chicago. I didn’t want him to leave his dream job for me.” I hitch a shoulder, licking my lips. It feels truer than anything else without getting into specifics. “It was a bad breakup.”
She snorts. “So you ran. I finally get it.”
I take a sip of the coffee, letting the warm liquid take hold of me. The caffeine goes down, but the warmth doesn’t catch.
“It may be dead to you, but that man looks at you like he’s about to perform a forbidden ritual to zombify that dead relationship.”
I glance down at my hands and loosen my fingers around the cup. Coffee tasted better when Nate brought it. “We’re not—whatever you said. We’re reading a book.”
“You’re doing a book club,” she corrects, pushing back from the desk and crossing her arms. “With your ex.”
It wasn’t just caffeine with him; the warmthseepedinto my bones then, a reminder that there was a life waiting for me outside the hospital walls. Because it did more than keep me awake: it reminded me that training to become something was only one part of my life, not all of it. Did I ever tell this to Nate?
I stop, recalibrate, and lower my voice. “It’s friendly.”
Ellie cocks her hip against the counter, eyebrows lifting. “You fucked the last malefriendyou made.”
“I will have you know,” I state, “I am extremely good at not fucking my guy friends.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She waves a hand, already grinning. “You have a hot, pierced friend. We get it.” Her smile fades just a notch. “Truth stands, though. You’re not as put off by him as you think. I think, Dr. Hollis, you’re a bit of a scaredy-cat!”
A monitor beeps behind us, and someone laughs down the hall. “His mom,” I add, my thumb rubbing the edge of the counter. “She’s also my friend. And she wants me at her retirement party. I want to be there for her… but it could get messy.”
Ellie tilts her head, studying me. “And?”
