I almost allowed those words to undo me when they flashed on my phone screen.
Almost.
When I get to the building, the lobby is cool. A few students shuffle in, coffee cups clutched in their hands. I nod at a girl I vaguely recognize from anatomy last year. She nods back. She’s not in the seminar. Must be taking a different summer class.
Inside the classroom, students are already settling in, flipping open notebooks, powering up tablets. I take a seat near the middle this time, somewhere I can disappear if I need to.
Blake strides to the front. His posture is stiff, his jaw set in that overconfident way I’ve already decided I don’t like. He starts laying surgical instruments across the table, naming them one by one as he does.
Scalpel handles. Forceps. Clamp. Scissors.
“These are your tools for the next month. Learn them. Know them better than your own hands. Because when you’re standing over a patient in the OR, fumbling isn’t an option.”
My pulse quickens. Patient in the OR. That’s what I want. That’s what I’ve always wanted. Not just medicine.
Surgery.
To hold the knife, to make the cut, to repair what’s broken with nothing but skill and precision. To be the one who changes the outcome when no one else can.
So why does my mind keep slipping to Grand Junction, to Henry’s parents in the waiting room?
Blake lifts a Kelly clamp and holds it high. “Someone tell me what this is.”
My hand goes up before I can think. “Kelly clamp. Smaller than a Crile. It’s used for clamping blood vessels or manipulating tissue.”
He nods. “Good.”
The rush of relief is ridiculous. I shouldn’t need affirmation for something I already knew, but I do. Every small victory steadies me, grounds me here instead of there.
“Now,” Blake continues, “pair up. Practice passing instruments to each other as if you were scrub nurse and surgeon.”
The room stirs with motion. Desks scrape. Students shuffle.
Eli appears at my side before I can even stand. “We’re partners,” he says.
“Fine,” I mutter, and we move to a side table where a neat row of instruments waits.
He picks up a scalpel handle and offers it to me with the practiced flourish of a scrub nurse. “Scalpel, Doctor.”
I can’t help it. I smile. “Thank you, nurse.”
We switch, trade, correct each other. My fingers fumble once, and I curse under my breath.
Eli just smirks. “Relax, Tab. You’re gripping it like you’re about to stab someone.”
“I might,” I shoot back.
He laughs. “Now that’s the Tabitha I know. Did you end up talking to Henry?”
Way to get me back in the dumps, Eli. I don’t say it, though. I only shake my head, hoping he takes the hint.
He does.
We continue the exercise. Pick up. Pass. Receive. Lay down. Again. Again. The repetition drowns out the noise in my head until all I can hear is the clink of metal and Eli’s steady voice.
When Blake calls time, my palms are damp, but my mind is clearer. This is where I belong. I can’t let anything shake that. Not even Henry.
Especially not Henry.
