Her eyes were so damn full of emotion that she couldn’t even blink. He wasn’t reading anything wrong. She felt all of what he felt, and it wasn’t something you could have once without craving it again. Allowing herself to have him one time would make her want him forever. He reached for her, and she exhaled. There was so much release in that breath as he held her face in his hands.
Her medical pager went off loudly. Sloan gasped as if she was coming up for air as she swiped her tears and snatched the pager off her purse strap.“Oh, no,” she whispered to herself as sudden dread consumed her.“I can’t do this right now. This is a patient, and it’s 911. I’ve got to go.”
Cassidy caressed the side of her face and the look on his face was so conflicted as she clung to him, gripping his jacket as she closed her eyes. There was so much hurt between them. She felt it. Their souls were tearing in opposite directions.
“I’ve got to go,” she insisted. He took a step back, and she rushed out of the house, headed to the hospital. This was why she couldn’t keep a man. Moments just like this interrupted pivotal instances in her personal life, but it was what she had signed up for. It came with the job, and as much as she wanted to stay and have this conversation with Cassidy, she had to put her feelings on the back burner and put her career first.
Chapter 16
Sloan hated this part of her job. Most of the time, childbirth was beautiful. It was full of happy moments and grateful parents. She got so much fulfillment in being the one to bring life into the world, but on days like this, her job felt like a burden. She rushed through the hallways of the hospital, peeling out of her street clothes as she passed them off to one of her interns.“Where is she?” Sloanasked.
“She’s in emergency room 3. Fetal heartbeat is faint. Her blood pressure is 141/98.” The intern ran off the stats, and Sloan knew she didn’t have time to spare.
“Let the operating nurse know I need OR 5 prepped and ready for an emergency cesarean; now!” Sloan shouted. She kicked off her heels, leaving them in the hallway as she ran to the doctor’s locker room. She came out of her clothes as quickly as she could and was barely in scrubs as she rushed to see her patient. She was terrified, but she was trained to steady her voice and present a confident front to keep her patient calm.
“Hey, girl, hey. I thought we had an agreement. That baby wants to make his debut for Christmas, I see,” Sloan said, smiling as she walked into the room.
“I’mscared, Dr. Sloan. There’s so much pain, and I…aghh.”
Sloan washed her hands and then pumped hand sanitizer in them for good measure before she gloved up.
“Let’s see what’s going on,” she said.“Don’t be afraid, Monica. I’m right here with you.” She sounded more confident than she was. She pulled the stirrups up, and as soon as she inserted her fingers for a vaginal exam, she knew something was wrong. She snapped the glove off and spoke to the nurse.
“Hand me the ultrasound gel,” she said.
Within thirty seconds, Sloan identified a deadly problem.“This is a placental abruption,” Sloan announced.“Monica, we’re going to be delivering this baby today via C-section.”
“Wait! But we had a birthing plan! My husbandisn’t here. I wanted to do this naturally!”
Sloan grabbed her patient’s hand and looked her in the eyes.“We must detour from the plan, Monica. The plan can only happen under the very best of circumstances. Thesearen’t the best of circumstances, and we cannot wait for your husband.” Sloan didn’t want to scare her patient, but time was of the essence.
“Is my baby going to be okay?”
Sloan knew that there was no way she could make any promises to this woman. There were no guarantees when it came to surgery. She had years of experience in this field, and she had to rely on her dedication, knowledge, and commitment to her skills to try to deliver this baby safely.
“I am going to do my very best in that operating room, Monica, and I am the absolute best in my field,” Sloan stated. She meant that shit. She was confident in her abilities. There was no other OBGYN in the state who could trump her professionally. She knew that God would have the final say, however, but she was going to do her part. If it was humanly possible, Sloan was going to bring this woman and her child through this surgery.
She ran ahead of the gurney so that she could make it in time to scrub into surgery properly. There was never a time that she stepped in the operating room that nerves didn’t fill her, but today she was distracted. Today, she felt Cassidy in the back of her mind. She felt his kiss on her lips, his hand on her cheek. He was infiltrating her soul, and she couldn’t walk into this woman’s surgery anything less than focused. She needed her heart settled. A surgical intern stood next to her scrubbing as well.
“Stop scrubbing and pull out my phone,” Sloan said.
“But Dr. Martin, I won’t be able to scrub back in, in time to participate in this surgery,” the intern said.
“And I won’t be able to focus on this surgery the way I need to if you don’t make this call,” Sloan stated.“Get the phone.”
The intern reached into Sloan’s pocket and pulled out the phone.
“Siri, call Cassidy Whitlock,” Sloan announced.“Put it on speaker.”
Sloan was scrubbing her hands, under her nails, and her forearms to death as her gut tightened, and she listened to the phone ring.
“Hello?” Cassidy answered.
“I’m about to cut into this woman’s body, Cass, and I can’tfocus,” she said, panicking.“I can’t focus because my entire body is aching over you. I can’t stop thinking about you. I know how to do this. My hands are the best surgical hands in the state, but I’m distracted, Cassidy. I keep playing the look on your face back in my mind, and the words of our argument keep ringing back in my head. I can’t operate with that being the last thing on my mind. Please say something to calm my nerves. Please tell me that I can do this because my patient’s baby is in trouble, and she’s expecting me to enter this operating room and save her child. Cass, pleasecalm my nerves.”
She had never felt a love that consumed her this way, and she didn’t like it. She was sick to her stomach.
“I love you, Sloan. That’s all you need to know. That’s enough to get us through any argument, any misunderstanding, any obstacle that keeps us apart.” Sloan closed her eyes and swallowed the lump in her throat as he spoke.“That’s what Papa used to say when he would fight with my mama. My mom would be ready to pack her shit, she would be cussing his ass out, hell, cussing me and E out too, justcuz we was in the house looking like his ass. E would cry and tell Papa to fix it, and he would say,‘When you love a woman like I love your mother, God fixes it.’He said all he had to do was wait. And I love you like that, Sloan. I’ve always loved you. Meet me at the party after you’re done,” he said.
