Page 5 of Eight Naughty Notes

4

TORI

When I finally made it out of the conference room, down the hall and into the locker room, I headed into one of the bathroom stalls, locked the door and stood there staring at the wall. Hand to my thumping chest, I tried to process seeing Christian here after all these years, looking good as ever in those damn scrubs.

“Breathe, Tori. Breathe, girl.”

I knew I had been a tad dramatic in my exit. It wasn’t as if he’d been unkind to me. In fact, it was the other way around. I had been unkind to Christian before he left the hospital. I ended it, and then immediately went back to treating him as if meant no more to me than the other residents in our program. I would see the wounded look in his eyes and would be tempted to give in, since my heart was still tied to his, but I held on. Love had no place in this job. People, children, died when a doctor wasn’t focused. But given my treatment of him, I couldn’t understand why he was even here. That’s all I wanted to know at this moment. I would deal with my traitorous heart doing black flips when I saw his brown eyes staring back into mine.

I heard the door to the locker room open and then footsteps moving towards the bathroom stalls.

“You okay?” It was Stephanie.

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

“You didn’t look it when you went scurrying out of there.

“I thought I did better to hide my emotions.”

“Chile, please.”

I groaned.

“If it’s any consolation, I think he was happy to see your face.” It wasn’t.

“How long are you going to hide in there?” She asked after I remained silent.

“How about the rest of the day?”

I heard her chuckle. “I’ll be sure to bring your patients to you, although I don’t think that would be very sanitary.”

“Oh I guess not,” I grumbled.

I straightened my posture and smoothed down my white jacket before opening the door to the stall and exiting. Stephanie was leaning back against the counter in front of one of the sinks. Her eyes held no judgment.

“I was here when you were that young resident ready to change the world by helping to heal one child at a time.”

“Where did that young woman go?”

I searched her wise eyes because I truly sought an answer. Some days I felt defeated. Not that I did not still have a gift for medicine. It had been one of my first loves and I’m grateful my parents encouraged my path and made sacrifices for it too. But some days weighed heavy.

“She’s still in there. You’ve just had several disappointments and setbacks. Some losses. We all have if we were to be honest.”

I nodded, too emotional to get any words out from my tightened throat.

“But you can’t stay stuck there, Doll. None of us can. There have been hundreds more children helped by you, walking out of here with a new opportunity at life they didn’t have when they walked in here. That’s because of you.”

“Maybe. There are tons of reasons they got better, most of all God’s protection.”

“Absolutely, and who did God put in charge of their care?”

I smiled. “Me.”

“Damn right. You. Out of all the doctors in this hospital, God chose you to care for those babies and the ones you couldn’t heal, He brought them closer to Him. “

I thought about how my PaPa would say that death was only the beginning of the closest time with our Creator. Nothing could be better than that is what he would say.

“Now you go on out there and show him what he’s missed all these years.”

---