Page 24 of Yours to Keep

Mercedes smirked. “You’re saying this to the wrong crowd, babe.”

I sighed, slumping back into the booth. “I just want him to stop making everyone miserable.”

Ellora reached over and squeezed my hand. “You’re doing good work, Bree. The best you can. Sometimes, that has to be enough.”

I nodded, but doing my best wasn’t going to make Mrs. Oyama sleep any better tonight. I decided against telling them that, though. There was nothing any of us could do about it in this moment and they’d heard enough of my venting.

We ended up staying until the crowd at the restaurant thinned out, my cheeks hurting from laughing so much and the knot in my chest finally gone. As I walked home after, I thought about the flyers, the phone calls, and the ripple effect of small rebellions.

I wasn’t falling for Sullivan Crowne, but I was definitely not done with him. Maybe Mrs. Oyama wasn’t sleeping comfortably tonight, but one day, in the not-so-distant future, my patients would sleep well again—no matter how many more small acts of pettiness I had to perform in order to make it happen.

10

SULLIVAN

The phone in the conference room started ringing again. I stared at it from the far end of the table, my hands braced on the polished wood as I contemplated shoving the whole damn over if it rang again.

At this point, the shrill, insistent beeping cut straight through my skull. The soft trill no longer seemed gentle and there was no civilized pause between calls. Just relentless noise that hadn’t stopped since yesterday.

Although I glared at the phone, I didn’t answer it. I hadn’t answered it all day. By one, I’d stopped listening to the voicemails. By two, I’d started fantasizing about throwing the phone out the window and watching it shatter on the sidewalk five floors below.

It rang again and my teeth ground together. Fucking paper gowns.

That was what this was about.

Apparently, the entire patient population of Saint Raphael’s had decided, collectively, to start airing their grievances directly to me. One woman had accused me of running a torture experiment while another had asked if I’d ever actually worn one. A man demanded to know if this was some kind of hazing ritual.

Someone had given these people a number they shouldn’t have, and while I told myself it didn’t bother me, the fucking phone kept ringing. When it cut out only to start again, I stood so fast, the chair legs scraped sharply against the floor. I crossed the room in long strides, snatched the whole phone up, stared at it for half a second, and yanked the cord straight out of the wall.

The ringing died instantly and blissful, blessed silence flooded the room. I exhaled slowly, flexing my fingers and appreciating the utter lack of sound for just one moment, but then sanity prevailed.

My reaction had been impulsive and inelegant, and that annoyed me almost as much as the calls had. I didn’t lose my temper or get caught up in theatrics. I solved problems. Plain and simple.

Todd came racing in, his eyes as wide as if he was about to tell me that the building was on fire. “Sir, your phone⁠—”

In his wild rush to look around the room like he was making sure I hadn’t been injured, his gaze finally landed on the unplugged phone and lingered for a beat. He went very still before finally looking back at me.

I didn’t wait for him to ask or draw conclusions. “Call IT. Have them disable that line and issue a new number. Immediately.”

He nodded, his eyes flicking briefly to the limp cord hanging off the side of the table before he looked away. Smart man.

“Also, cancel my next meeting,” I snapped. “I need to take a walk.”

Todd hesitated, his eyes widening again. “Sir⁠—”

That was the end of it. I didn’t wait for him to tell me what life-threateningly urgent meetings I was supposed to have had, just brushing past him out of the conference room. My footsteps echoed down the hallway as I gulped in deep breaths that tasted like antiseptic and something faintly sweet—flowers, maybe.

Someone had told me once that people found the smell of hospitals either comforting or unbearable. I’d never noticed before, but now, I noticed everything.

When I passed a pair of nurses near the elevators, their conversation stopped abruptly. One of them glanced up, her eyes widening a fraction before she looked away. The other didn’t even bother to look up, her mouth just flattening into a thin line, presumably as a result of my mere proximity.

I kept walking without acknowledging either reaction. Whatever. They don’t understand and that’s fine.

All they saw was policies without context and decisions without the numbers attached. They never had to pore over balance sheets or projections, and they didn’t realize how costs ballooned if they weren’t cut early.

As I turned down another corridor, I caught my reflection in a glass case that housed an ancient piece of medical equipment. Usually, that was what would irk me—the mere existence of these outdated machines in a facility located in the greatest goddamn city in the world.

This wasn’t a third-world country or some rural corner of Hicksville. Saint Raphael’s was near the center of Manhattan. The use of such backward technology should be fucking illegal here, but as strongly as I felt about all that, it wasn’t what I thought of today as I watched myself walk past in that reflection.