Page 17 of Crossing the Line
Instead, she found herself staring at the cardiac scans while her memory replayed the moment of recognition in devastating detail. Harper's face going pale, that flash of panic before professional composure kicked in. The way she'd said "Dr. Méndez" like the name was strangled in her throat.
Carmen's stylus slipped across the tablet screen, marking the wrong section of the imaging. She deleted the annotation with more force than necessary and tried again.
Mrs. Rodriguez needed a clean arterial graft, careful suturing to minimize scar tissue, and precise timing to reduce surgical trauma. Carmen's notes should have reflected detailed surgical planning, contingency protocols, and post-operative considerations.
Instead, she kept typing "Hailey" and having to delete it.
The surgical suite door opened behind her, and Carmen's entire body went rigid before she recognized Dr. Hassan's voice checking on afternoon scheduling. Professional conversation, normal hospital routine. Carmen managed appropriate responses while her internal world continued its controlled demolition.
"You seem distracted," Dr. Hassan observed, her tone gentle but professionally concerned. "Everything alright for the Rodriguez procedure?"
Carmen's professional mask snapped into place with visible effort. "Just reviewing the imaging. Complex case."
It wasn't complex. It was routine. Dr. Hassan's slight frown suggested she knew that, too, but she didn't push. "Let me know if you need a consultation. The patient's family is anxious but confident in your abilities."
The casual faith in her professional competence felt like mockery. Carmen nodded and turned back to her tablet, waiting for Dr. Hassan's footsteps to fade before allowing her composure to crack again.
Harper Langston. Natalie's daughter. The brilliant intern her best friend had been so excited to introduce. The woman who'd looked at Carmen like she was worth taking risks for, then disappeared without a trace.
Carmen tried to focus on surgical angles and graft placement, but her mind kept circling back to the fundamental question that threatened to destroy everything: How much of Friday night had been real?
The attraction had felt genuine. The conversation, the laughter, the way Harper had looked at her like she was simply interesting rather than damaged—all of it had seemed authentic. But it was built on lies so complete that Carmen couldn't separate truth from performance.
"I work in healthcare administration." Smooth as silk, delivered without hesitation. How long had Harper been rehearsing those lies? How many other details had been carefully constructed fiction?
Carmen's stylus moved across the tablet in precise strokes, marking surgical entry points and suture locations. The familiar technical details should have grounded her, but instead they felt like another lie—pretending she was the controlled, competent surgeon everyone expected rather than someone whose world had been shattered by a twenty-six-year-old intern's deception.
Twenty-six. Not twenty-nine. Young enough to be reckless, old enough to know better. Young enough to think lies were consequence-free, old enough to understand the professional damage they could cause.
The surgical imaging showed Mrs. Rodriguez's heart in stark detail—chambers and valves, arteries and blockages, everything visible and quantifiable. Carmen could map every intervention, predict every complication, control every variable.
Unlike her own situation, which felt like performing surgery blindfolded.
Her phone buzzed with a text from Julia:“How are you? You seemed more relaxed Friday night than I've seen you in months.”
Carmen stared at the message until the screen went dark. Julia had been right; she had felt relaxed Friday night. More than relaxed. She'd felt alive in a way she'd forgotten was possible. For twelve hours, she'd been someone who laughed spontaneously and brought strangers home and fell asleep beside someone who made her feel worth knowing.
Now she felt like a fool.
Carmen minimized Julia's message without responding and tried to focus on Mrs. Rodriguez's surgical plan. The woman needed her to be present, competent, and completely focused on saving her life. That was real. That mattered. That was what Carmen was good at when she wasn't making disastrous personal decisions.
But as she reviewed the final surgical notes, Harper's face kept intruding on her concentration. Not the polished professional intern from this morning, but the woman who'd stood beside her at Lavender's railing and said, "Life's too short for anything else."
Even that had probably been a lie.
Carmen closed the surgical planning application and sat in the empty prep room, surrounded by the equipment and protocols that usually provided structure and purpose. For the first time in her career, medicine felt inadequate—a technical skill that could repair hearts but couldn't touch the kind of damage Harper had inflicted with a handful of carefully chosen lies.
Mrs. Rodriguez would be fine. Carmen's hands were steady, her training impeccable, her success rate proven. She would perform the surgery flawlessly because that's what she did.
But afterward, she would still have to figure out how to work with Harper Langston for the next year without either of them destroying their careers.
Or each other.
Carmen had managed exactly forty-three minutes of deep focus before the inevitable interruption arrived.
"Dr. Méndez?" The voice belonged to one of the surgical coordinators, clipboard in hand and the particular efficiency that meant Carmen's afternoon was about to become more complicated. "Dr. Mars asked me to remind you about the intern observation scheduled for your two o'clock procedure."
The words hit Carmen like ice water. She'd completely forgotten about the teaching requirement—first-year interns rotating through cardiac surgery, observing procedures as part of their surgical education. Normally, she enjoyed the teaching aspect of her work. Today, the thought of performing surgery while being watched felt like torture.
