Page 2 of Intense
“Do you still think I bought my way in? Do you think you’re a better surgeon than me, Dr. Miller?” His tone is laced with a threat.
“I bet I got higher grades than you. I know I nearly killed myself to be here. That this is my passion. But no, I’m not better than you… yet. Although I might not be now, but one day I will be.”
He chews on his lip, pulling out a small black notebook from his pocket, and starts scribbling in it.
“Hmm,” he mutters, deep in thought.
I shake my head and go to open the door, he steps right behind me. I can smell him. Feel him all over me.
“I don’t like you much either, Stephanie.”
He leans in closer. I hold my breath as his heat settles against the shell of my ear.
“Perhaps find another place to hold your passions. Because today, you saved the life of a sex trafficker, Dr. Miller. Not everything we do is gratuitous nor right. If that were me, I’d have made sure he didn’t wake back up from that operating table.”
He backs away, and my chest almost closes in on me.
I shake my head and turn to him. A menacing grin is on his lips. My eyes are wide.
“W-what?”
He lets out a deep chuckle.
“I’m fucking with you. I’d never break our sacred code. But seriously. There is more to life than work. And a lot of these patients don’t deserve our sacrifices.”
He has no idea how right he is.
“Anyway, good work saving the life of a complete cunt today.” He winks at me and strolls past, straight out of the room and whistling as he goes down the hallway.
Every single interaction I’ve had with him over the last four years leaves me either furious or confused.
But his words hit me deep.
As I walk down the hallway, I stop outside Mark’s room. Taking a deep breath, I peer in through the glass. A single tear slips down my cheek, thinking about the eighteen-year-old Stephanie. And what I’d do now to protect her. What I could do to protect other girls like me.
As if on autopilot, I walk in.
I stand at the foot of his bed, the potassium syringe still hidden in the sleeve of my gown. I took it earlier during surgery. Why? I don’t know. It felt right.
He’s alive because of me.
I swallow hard, the memory of the pre-op consultation crowding out everything else.
He smiled at me. Sat there in the too-small gown with his chart in his lap and looked me dead in the eye like he knew exactly who I was. Like he knew he’d wrecked me and was curious to see how much was left.
The same smile he gave me when I was eighteen and too desperate to leave to notice he was never going to let me go.
My chest tightens until I can’t breathe.
I saved him. I fixed the heart that has always been black and hollow. I did my job because everyone expects me to be the surgeon who saves lives, no matter who they belong to.
But standing here now, I can’t bear the thought of him opening those eyes again. Of him walking out of this hospital with a stronger heart, free to hurt another girl the way he hurt me.
I step closer, my hands shaking so badly I nearly drop the syringe.
He doesn’t deserve the life I gave back to him.
He doesn’t deserve a second chance.
