“I didn’t choose anyone over anyone,” I say with a roll of my eyes. “You guys did what you did and I was along for the ride, like some kid caught between divorced parents.” I laugh, shaky and grateful. “Thanks for talking it through with me. I’ll talk to Nash when he gets home.”
“Probably a good idea. He might surprise you with what he has to say.”
I smile again, but it fades as I nod, already bracing myself for the conversation I know I need to have.
CHAPTER FORTY
Nash
“Nash!” Justin Frank’s voice echoes down the hall just as I hit the exit.
I don’t stop right away. Just close my eyes and keep walking another two steps, like maybe if I ignore him, he’ll disappear.
No such luck.
I turn, shoulders heavy, throat dry. It’s been a long damn day. Started at midnight when I woke up with Russ Calder’s voice in my head, and all the questions about what happens next. I know she loves to dance, but she also craves security. Heading back out west with no job, no apartment? I can’t stomach the thought of the struggle waiting for her. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep. Just rolled around in a haze of worry. The hospital called at four tocover a gap on the schedule. I said yes before they finished asking.
Anything to outrun my thoughts.
Justin smiles like a man who’s never lost a night of sleep in his life. That alone makes me want to punch him. “I’m glad I caught you.”
“Can’t imagine I’m that hard to catch. I’ve been here since before sunrise.”
“We’ve been trying to reach you for a week or so,” he says, falling into step beside me, “but you’re not exactly the easiest guy to get ahold of.”
“Probably because I live here.”
“True.” He laughs, like we’re old friends. “Which is actually part of the reason we’ve been trying to talk to you.”
Justin steers me toward the nurses’ station like I don’t have somewhere better to be. My hand itches for the door. My keys. This better not be about flu shot compliance. Or a mandatory ‘wellness seminar.’ I swear if they try to sell me on yet another miracle drug again…
“As you know, Marilyn left us a few weeks ago for a job in Miami.”
“Did she?”
First I’ve heard of it. But I stopped keeping up with hospital gossip almost as soon as I started working here.
Justin produces a thick manila envelope from under his arm like a magician revealing a card I didn’t ask for.
“Her absence left a hole for us to fill,” he says, “and we’ve been thinking about who could step intothat space with authority, leadership, and clinical expertise. The more we thought, the more clear it became. We’d like to offer you the position of Assistant Medical Director. You’re basically holding this place together already. We just want to make it official.”
Justin places the envelope in my hand like it weighs nothing. It doesn’t. It weighseverything.
“Take all that talent and drive and help us fix what’s broken here—inside the system. Better pay. Better hours. Predictable shifts,” he adds, glancing at me like he’s doing me a favor.
Which makes me think the last six times they yanked my schedule around were less about “coverage” and more about conditioning.
“You’d have your life back,” he says, “and we’d still be better off because of you.” He taps the envelope. “It’s all in there.”
I stare at the thing, unsure what to say. No, that’s not true. I know exactly what to say, but I also know better than to say it.
Justin chuckles, claps my shoulder like my silence is awe and wonderment rather than disillusion. “Go home. Sleep on it. We can talk Monday.”
And just like that, he’s gone.
I make it halfway to my truck before I realize I’m still holding the envelope like it might explode. I toss it onto the passenger seat and slam the door harder than I mean to. The envelope slides off the seat and lands face-up on the floor. All that promise. All that polish. And it makes mystomach twist. They want to take me off the floor and park me behind a desk to “fix the system” from the inside.
I’ve been trying to fix it from the inside for fifteen years.
