Page 102 of Sweet Heart

Riley freezes in the doorway and stares at me with a puzzled look on her face. I give her the same look in return because why the hell is she in my office?

“Riley?”

“You threw up?”

I stare at her with a blank expression as she steps inside, takes one look at the trash bin, picks it up, and places it outside the door. She closes the door behind her, walks to the window, opens it, and then grabs some wet wipes from her bag. She hands two to me before sitting down on the chair in front of me. I am still holding them in my grasp as I stare at her.

“What… are you doing here?”

“Oh,” she says softly, with a crease forming between her eyebrows. “Right. So. Your patient, Susie Jenkins? I was assigned to her case, and Carmen filled me in on what happened in the OR.” She pauses for a moment and then hesitantly puts her fingers on my arm. “Are you okay, Catherine?”

I shudder at the sound of my formal name, as if it pulls me back into a reality that is no longer my own. Riley instantly withdraws her hand even though she keeps her eyes steady on me.

“Cat? Are you okay?”

Her voice is soft and tender, almost like Mary’s when she soothes me, and at that thought, my eyes drift shut. Hot tears well behind my eyelids, threatening to spill, but I swallow them down hard as I shake my head. My breath trembles on the inhale and shudders when I answer her question.

“No. I don’t think I am.”

“Yeah, I thought so. When people suddenly turn against you professionally, it can still feel incredibly personal. Especially when your work matters as much as it does to you. Do you want to tell me what part is hurting you the most?”

When I open my eyes to look at her, the tears immediately spill over, blurring my vision. Dios, Katherina, you are a grown woman. Grown women don’t cry at work.

“This is who I am,” I say almost apologetically.

Riley doesn’t smile or nod. Instead, she just keeps quiet and looks at me with an open, nonjudgmental stare. The silence stretches thickly between us until it becomes unbearable.

“How did it all slip away from me, Riley?”

“Well… You’ve built a whole life around your profession, Cat. You are used to feeling in control,” she offers tenderly while I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Maybe that’s why this feels so catastrophic. You are not in control when it comes to her, and now you’re terrified people will reduce you to that one part of yourself.”

I feel myself frown at those words. She isn’t wrong, but that isn’t all, either.

“And I am scared I’ll start to believe them.”

“That’s the heart of it, isn’t it?” she says more softly than I have heard her before. “This situation has stripped away all your certainties, and now you feel exposed. But, Cat…” She waits until I look at her. “That exposed woman is the same woman who walked into med school. The same woman who led her first surgery. The same woman who became the first Latina Head of Trauma in this hospital.”

She pauses and then squeezes my hand softly while rummaging through her bag again. She fishes out a bottle of water.

“I only drank a little of it. I hope that’s okay,” she says. “But you should really hydrate, and I doubt you want to go out there right now.” She gestures toward the door with her hand.

“Thank you.”

“That’s what friends are for.”

Friends. My heart feels warm when she says it, safe. Yes, she is my friend.

“Celeste struggled with it, too, you know?” she hums, a bit darker now. “The constant wondering if her judgment was tainted, if she was still making the right calls. Is that what you ask yourself as well?”

I nod, feeling that tug in my stomach again. It cramps uncomfortably, and I tighten my grip on the bottle of water.

“Just because you fell in love doesn’t mean your capabilities have changed. The only thing that did change is the politics around you. Not your skills, not your judgment, and certainly not who you are as a person.”

The moment she says it, the tight feeling in my chest eases up a little. I draw in a deep breath, maybe my first full one of the day, and let the cool flow of oxygen rush through my body. It’s true. I am still the same person I was a year ago. If anything, my skills have sharpened because of new medical experiences. They certainly did not weaken because I fell in love with Mary. If people choose to second-guess me now, it is only because they sense I am in a vulnerable position. If I really were a bad surgeon, they would have questioned me long before.

“Thank you, Riley,” I whisper, and I squeeze her hand.

She looks at me for another moment, studying my face before nodding in satisfaction.