Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 76592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
A nurse practitioner enters then and runs me through a cognitive check, asking me the date, the time, the current president, what city I think I’m in. Then she makes me count backward by sevens. My tongue feels thick halfway through, but he smiles and says I passed with flying colors.
What the hell does that mean, anyway? Flying colors?
“Get some more rest,” Mom says when we’re alone again. “And tomorrow we’ll take you home.”
I nod. “And then?”
“And then you’ll sit on the porch and let me take care of you. Zach will sure be glad to have you home.”
“I miss the mutt.”
“And he sure misses you. We can’t seem to pry him off your bed.”
I roll my head to the side and stare at my phone on the night table.
I imagine a text from a number I don’t recognize that starts with Hey. It’s me. I’ll be there the next time you wake up.
I imagine her footsteps in the hall.
I imagine that smile that starts in her gorgeous eyes and ends in her gorgeous lips.
I imagine her staying.
Staying.
Staying.
None of it happens.
I close my eyes. Somewhere down the hall, nurses laugh. Outside a cart rattles past, and the woman pushing it hums three notes of a song I can’t place.
I breathe in, careful and slow. I breathe out.
I do not die of missing her.
I do not die of wanting to see her walk through the door.
I do not die of being the one who said we had no future and then wanting one anyway.
I do the thing the surgeon gave me back the chance to do.
I live.
And tomorrow, I go home.
Eleven
Tabitha
I wake before my alarm.
In the shower, I scrub my face and body until the last of yesterday, including the texts and talk with Marjorie, is gone. I exit the shower, towel off, and blow my hair dry. In the mirror, I pull my hair into a clean bun and tell my reflection the story I need for today.
You’re here because you worked for it. This is an opportunity you can’t pass up. No second thoughts, Tabitha. No second thoughts.
I glance at my phone.
Nothing from Marjorie.
Good. Bad. Both.
I shoulder my backpack and decide to walk to school today. Getting in my car could open a can of worms.
It would be too easy to start driving.
And not stop until I get to the Western Slope.
So I walk.
And I do not drive to Grand Junction.
Instead, I walk to campus, the streets still empty, the air already heating with the promise of August sun. I focus on the foothills, the scent of coffee in the air, on the ordinary. Anything to keep from picturing Henry lying in that hospital bed with his head bandaged and monitors beeping beside him.
Except it’s all crap.
He’s in my head.
Marjorie’s voice echoes in my head. I told Henry you sent your love. He smiled.
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.