Page 12 of Crossing the Line
"Surgery? No." Carmen caught Hailey's wandering hand, interlacing their fingers. "Everything else? Sometimes."
"Like what?"
Carmen stared at the ceiling, weighing how much truth to offer this woman who'd already seen her more vulnerable than almost anyone in years. "I'm thirty-nine years old, and this is the first time in months I've had a conversation that wasn't about surgical procedures or hospital politics."
"That's not true. You talked to Julia tonight."
"Julia doesn't count. She's..." Carmen searched for the right word. "Safe."
"And I'm not?"
"No." The admission came out rougher than intended. "You're definitely not safe."
Hailey propped herself up on one elbow, studying Carmen's face in the silver light. "Good. Safe is overrated."
"Says the woman who doesn't have to perform life-saving surgery in the morning."
"What time?"
"Seven a.m. Cardiac repair. It’s routine, but nothing's truly routine when you're literally holding someone's heart in your hands."
"That's beautiful," Hailey said softly. "The way you think about it. Most people would just see it as a job."
"It's never just a job." Carmen felt the familiar passion creeping into her voice. "Every surgery is someone's entire world. Someone's parent, child, partner. You can't forget that, even when you're exhausted and it's your fifth procedure of the day."
"You're extraordinary," Hailey said, and the simple sincerity of it made Carmen's chest tighten.
"You don't know me well enough to say that."
"I know enough."
They lay in comfortable silence, the harbor fog horn calling again across the water. Carmen felt herself drifting, pulled under by exhaustion and the unfamiliar comfort of another body beside hers. For once, her mind wasn't racing through tomorrow's procedures or analyzing today's mistakes.
"Stay," she heard herself whisper, already half-asleep. "Please."
Hailey's lips pressed against her temple, soft as a promise. "I'm not going anywhere."
Carmen let herself believe it, just for tonight, and slipped into the deepest sleep she'd had in months.
Carmen woke slowly, consciousness seeping in like honey. Her internal clock, usually precise to the minute, felt wonderfully broken. Warmth surrounded her—not just the physical comfort of her bed, but something deeper: the satisfied ache in her muscles, the lingering scent of perfume on her sheets, the memory of soft laughter in the darkness.
She reached out without opening her eyes, seeking the warmth that should’ve been beside her.
Her hand met cold sheets.
Carmen’s eyes snapped open. Morning light, harsh and unforgiving, illuminated the empty space where Hailey had been. The pillow still held the impression of her head and the sheets on that side of the bed twisted as if from recent movement, but the woman herself had vanished like smoke.
She sat up too quickly, scanning the room for any sign that last night had been real. Her clothes from yesterday lay scattered on the floor, evidence of her complete loss of control. But Hailey’s clothes were gone. No note on the nightstand, no number scrawled on the mirror, nothing.
Carmen pressed her palms against her eyes, trying to process the hollow sensation expanding in her chest. When was the last time she’d woken up with someone? When was the last time she’d wanted to?
The bathroom mirror reflected a stranger. Her usually perfect hair was tangled, falling in waves she had forgotten it could make. Her face, bare of the minimal makeup she wore even at home, looked younger but also more exposed. There were faint marks on her neck that her surgical scrubs would cover but that she’d feel burning on her skin all day.
She looked thoroughly fucked. The crude thought surprised her. Carmen didn’t usually think in such terms, but there was noclinical language for what had happened last night, no medical terminology that could capture the way Hailey had taken her apart and put her together differently.
Her morning routine felt like a betrayal. The shower washed away Hailey’s scent from her skin but not the lingering memory of her touch. Her coffee maker gurgled its familiar rhythm, but the kitchen felt too large and quiet. Even the coffee tasted wrong—bitter where it should have been rich, thin where it should have been full.
Carmen stood at her kitchen island, staring at the spot where Hailey had set her water glass last night. The coaster was still there, slightly off-center from where Carmen would’ve placed it. She reached out to adjust it, then stopped.
