That lands where I want it to. She holds perfectly still before making a note on the chart. I watch the way her fingers squeeze the pen. Those same hands spent four hours inside my body last night, pulling metal from my organs, and stitching me back together. The thought of what else her hands could do runs through my mind before I can stop it, and another grunt works its way out.
“You saved my life,” I tell her.
“That’s my job.” She shrugs.
“Perhaps. Though I suspect that wasn’t an easy decision on your part.”
The pen stops. She stills, and I see her weighing how much to acknowledge. When she speaks, her voice is even. “You were brought into my emergency room with life-threatening injuries. I treated you. That’s the beginning and end of it.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.” She picks up the clipboard and heads for the door.
I should let her go. Close my eyes, let the morphine pull me back under, and figure out how to explain my absence to a father who measures everything in blood.
But my father isn’t here. She is.
“Doctor.”
Her hand rests on the door handle. She doesn’t turn around, but she doesn’t leave, either.
“Thank you.”
Two words. That’s all I give her. Not because I don’t have more, but because I learned early that the right amount falls somewhere between silence and a speech.
She hesitates just briefly before pulling the door open and walking out.
I lean back against the pillow and stare at the ceiling. My shoulder is throbbing, my gut feels like someone took a blowtorch to my insides, and my hand aches every time I flex my fingers.
None of that matters.
Polina Kozlov was given the choice between saving my life and staying loyal to her family, and the woman I’ve been obsessed with for the past two years chose me.
She’ll come back. She has to. I’m her patient, and she’s too good at what she does to hand me off.
And when she does, I plan to make that blush happen again.
