Chapter 10
Owen
Ace comes up behind me,clamping a hand on my shoulder. "You ready for this, buddy?"
"You bet," I mumble grumpily. That shit with Autumn last night was a mindfuck. We finally come back together only for her to pull a typical Autumn and run away without a word.
Ace settles in beside me at the silver metal basin and pumps soap into his hands. We scrub and scrub, then we scrub a little more, under our fingernails and up to our elbows. I’m so mad at Autumn that I scrub my fingernails harder than usual, but I need to rein in my emotions because today is a big surgery.
When we're finished, an operating room nurse slides on our gloves. They are tight, almost suffocating, but after a minute I forget they are there.
Ace and I are sitting in on a surgery today. It's a tough case. A tumor wrapped tightly around a liver. The patient is a ten-year-old girl…
Ten years old. It always messes with me to see kids that are the same age as the child Autumn and I decided not to have. It’s my biggest regret in life and the darkest weight I carry on my soul. Truthfully, I wanted the baby, but Autumn made her choice and I wanted to be supportive, so I swallowed my opinion and held her hand through it all. That swallowed opinion has eaten me up inside for a decade.
“Doctors…” a different nurse nods in greeting, and gets the door for us as we step into the OR. I blink twice at the bright lights, eyes slowly adjusting. The patient is already there, lying on a gurney in the center of the room. She is tiny compared to other patients I've seen in this same room.
My heart lurches and my step falters. Ace gives me a quick elbow to the side.
"You going to be okay?"
He knows the weight I carry, what Autumn and I went through.
I nod, swallowing my emotions and propelling myself forward. Dr. Maple stares us down from her place beside the patient. I can't see much of her besides her eyes, but those are steely and narrowed, watching me. Dr Maple is a hardass. She's been a surgeon for thirty years; her knowledge is extensive. Being a surgeon in a smaller town means learning to perform an array of surgeries. I'm lucky to study under her, even if she is mostly unpleasant to be around.
"Are you ready, Dr. Miller?" Her tone is laced with impatience.
"Yes, Dr. Maple," I say with confidence I don't feel. From the corner of my eye, Ace dips his chin just slightly. I hear what he isn't saying.
You got this.
And I do. I manage to pull myself together. The air in the room becomes heavy, thick with our fierce desire for the best possible outcome. We all know the stakes. If we aren't successful, the little girl will be air-vac'ed to Phoenix Children’s Hospital. Right here, right now, we have the best possible chance of saving her liver; otherwise she goes on a transplant list.
I love watching Dr. Maple work. She is precise, calm, and if she has nerves, she doesn't show them. Not even a twitch of her hand.
We reach the end of the surgery and Dr. Maple looks up at me. "Close her up," she instructs. I freeze for the shortest second, then move into action. I know what to do, so I push any emotions I have for my patient to the back of my mind and rely on my training. An OR nurse hands me a threaded needle as Ace looks on. I'm aware of the eyes on me, on the needle I'm holding.
I take a deep breath, but I do it slowly, trying not to let anybody see the telltale rise and fall of my chest. Just as I've been trained to, I slip the needle into the skin, telling myself it istheskin and notherskin. She is a patient. Amorphous. Not a little girl. I push away the details of who is lying here and focus solely on what I'm doing. When I finish, I tie off the sutures and step back.
"Perfect sutures," the anesthesiologist says from her place near the little girl’s head.
"Thank you," I nod at her. She's been around the hospital for fifteen years longer than me. Her compliment means something.
The nurses take over, and Ace and I leave the OR. We strip down and discard our gloves, washing our hands again.
"You did great, man. Really." Ace pats my shoulder as we walk away from the sink. "I know kids are tough for you."
I nod. "Yeah."
"Is it harder than usual because Autumn's back?"
Last night floods my mind. I can't get a handle on what happened on the side of my dad's house. So many emotions swayed between us, each one fleeting. Desperation, attraction, anger, none of them getting the air time they need.
Bottom line: Autumn and I need to have an honest conversation. And soon.
"Maybe. But it's hard every time it's a kid."
"Especially one that age," Ace points out, forcing me to face that fact.
