I met someone who made me reconsider.
“I realized I don’t want to live at that kind of pitch forever. Not long-term.” I inhaled. “This feels like the right size—smaller rooms and faces you remember, not just cases you pass off to someone else because the beeper goes off for the next crisis. And you do good work here.”
HR, silent until now, peered up from her notepad. “Do you worry this might feel like a step down?”
“No.” I glanced at the dry-erase. “This, here—it’s a chance to place greater focus on my patients, rather than just parachuting in and out. I’d still do good, clean surgery. There’s community here, continuity. And I’d go home with something left in the tank to care about who’s waiting there.” I held her gaze. “That’s not a step down, no. That’s the life I want.”
A second of silence followed. Too honest? Too heavy?
“So what you’re saying…”—Kent leaned back, brief humor twitching around his mouth—“is that you’d choose this modest chapel over a city cathedral?”
Ha, okay. I liked this guy.
“If you leave the door unlocked, I’ll bring the bake-sale pies.” I said it lightly to ease the weight of my earlier words. It worked—Kent’s smile formed fully this time and Rhee’s brows flicked up in amusement while both HR and head nurse Johnson relaxed by a fraction. For the first time, it felt less like I was being measured, and more like I was being heard.
I wasin.
Finn
II. April
Tessa kissed my cheek, Khai’s mouth, and dropped into a chair like a doll with her strings cut. “That’s it. I’m quitting.”
“That’s what you say after every twenty-four-hour shift,” I told her. Not that I didn’t know the feeling—my bones had that Jell-O thing going on, reality too bright and oddly soft at the edges.
“Know what’s gonna help with that, babe?” Khai slid a cappuccino and half a pistachio cookie in front of her. “This. Coffee and sugar.”
I nodded. “Doctor’s orders.”
She tossed us a tired smile and leaned into a sunbeam, bracelets clinking like wind chimes as she reached for the mug.
For a minute, we simply existed together. The café door was propped open, spring air sneaking in to mingle with the smells of espresso and almond croissants. A grinder whirred. A tattered magnolia tree outside the window wore the exact pink of Tessa’s newly dyed hair. A bowl just outside the café offered water to dogs “or people with low standards because we don’t judge.”
“All right, crew,” Tessa said after a few sips. “Research time.”
Khai tapped open his phone to pull up a shared note we’d started in the autumn titledCaffeine Trial, Devon Cohort. Our categories included cream, milk foam, vibes, baked goods, and bathroom-mirror lighting. “Ready and loaded.”
“Peer review is vital,” I agreed—only today, rating latte art wasn’t the only thing on my mind. Maybe it wasn’t ideal when all of us were two hours past human, but then, that was our usual. Came with the ritual of meeting up every time our night shifts spat us out half-chewed and blinking into the daylight.
“So.” Tessa snapped her fingers. “Milk foam. What’s the verdict?”
I tugged down the sleeves of my sweater. Not mine, technically—Jesse’s. But of course Khai and Tessa had no way of knowing that. “Actually,” I said, “I’ve got a new category: coffee confessions.”
“Intriguing,” Khai said.
Tessa clicked a nail against the tabletop, her nail polish as chipped as the wood. “Would this have anything to do with that mysterious guy you’ve been seeing?”
Huh.
“How did you know?” I asked.
Khai snorted. “You’re really not as subtle as you think you are.”
“Grinning at your phone is kind of a giveaway,” Tessa said.
“And you’re tired, but weirdly happy about it,” Khai said.
“Also”—Tessa again—“there’s the way you talked about your hiking weekend upstate. You clearly weren’t alone, but you also wouldn’t tell us who you were with.Highlysuspicious, dude. Although I have no idea how you even made time to meet someone.”
