Page 34 of Dr. Roz Harrington
Roz arched a brow, her lips pulling into a faint, condescending smirk. “That,” she said coolly, “was me saving a life.”
Sam’s jaw tightened, her eyes narrowing. “That wasn’t saving a life. That was gambling with it.”
Roz flinched, but the reaction was subtle, her mask of composure snapping back into place almost immediately. She tilted her chin up, refusing to let Sam see the sting behind those words. “I did what I had to do,” Roz shot back. “The surgery was risky, but it worked. She’s stable, which is more than I can say for how you’re acting right now.”
Sam took another step forward, her voice rising despite the quiet of the hallway. “You could’ve lost her. Don’t you get that? She’s not just another patient to me, Roz. She’s a person, a young woman who needed someone to care about more than just proving something.”
Roz’s lips parted slightly, her green eyes flashing as she processed Sam’s words. “Prove something?” she repeated coldly, her tone cutting like glass. “You think I did that to prove myself?”
Sam didn’t falter. “I think you did it because you refuse to take the safe route. Because you’d rather gamble and show off how brilliant you are.”
“Careful, Quinn,” Roz interrupted sharply, stepping closer. The faint tremble of anger curled in her voice now, her walls locking firmly into place. “I’ve spent my entire career making the calls no one else has the guts to make. If you want someone to blame for how scared you are, fine, but don’t you dare question my integrity.”
Sam’s face flushed with frustration, her breathing heavy as the silence stretched between them. The tension was palpable, thick and charged, every word between them a spark.
“You can justify it however you want,” Sam said finally, her voice low and simmering. “But that doesn’t mean you were right.”
Roz’s jaw tightened. “And yet, she’s alive because of me,” she shot back. “So forgive me if I don’t feel like I owe you an apology for doing my job.”
Sam opened her mouth to argue, but Roz’s expression stopped her cold. There was something in Roz’s face, something raw beneath the steel, though it vanished almost as quickly as it appeared.
“I don’t expect you to understand,” Roz said finally, her tone softer now, though her posture remained defensive. “But don’t you ever question my commitment to my patients again.”
Sam exhaled sharply, shaking her head as if to clear her thoughts. “You don’t get it, Roz,” she said quietly, her voice taut with emotion. “It’s not just about you. People like me, we have to trust people like you. And when you act like the risk doesn’t matter, it, ” She broke off, her voice catching briefly before she steeled herself again. “It makes it damn hard to believe in what you’re doing.”
For the briefest moment, something flickered in Roz’s eyes, guilt, maybe, or something close to it. But instead of addressing it, she pulled herself back together, letting her carefully constructed armor fall into place.
“You don’t have to believe in me, Sam,” Roz said, her voice icy and detached. “Because I’m not asking for your approval. I don’t need it.”
Sam stared at her for a long beat, her chest rising and falling with controlled breaths. “You’re impossible, you know that?”
Roz smirked faintly, though there was no real humor behind it. “I’ve been told.”
The silence stretched again, but this time, there was something deeper beneath it, an unspoken ache, a collision of pride and vulnerability that neither of them wanted to name.
Roz took a step back, her gaze flickering briefly to the observation window where Sam had been standing just hours before. “She’ll be in recovery,” Roz said, her voice softening just slightly. “The next forty-eight hours will tell us more.”
Sam didn’t reply immediately, her eyes locked on Roz as though searching for something, anything, behind that stubborn façade. Finally, she nodded, though the tension never left her shoulders.
Roz turned away first, striding toward the nurse’s station without another word. Her footsteps echoed against the tile, but even as she walked away, she could still feel Sam’s gaze on her back, hot, frustrated, and so much more than either of them could admit.
Roz pushed open the door to her apartment, the familiar click of the lock sliding home echoing through the empty space. She dropped her keys into the small dish by the door, the sound sharp and jarring in the silence. The apartment was dark, save for the faint glow of the city lights filtering in through the living room windows.
She hesitated for a moment, standing motionless in the doorway as the weight of the day pressed down on her shoulders. The argument with Sam. The surgery. The text she still hadn’t answered. The emotional chaos had been chasing her all evening, nipping at her heels like a predator she couldn’t outrun.
With a sharp exhale, Roz flicked on the lights. Her apartment felt sterile tonight, too large, too empty, too devoid of thewarmth she’d seen flickering in Sam’s eyes, even when they were at odds. The spacious living room, with its exposed brick and leather furniture, had always been a refuge after long shifts, but now it felt cold. Lifeless.
Tugging off her blazer, Roz draped it over the back of a chair and poured herself a glass of wine. The deep red liquid swirled in her glass as she stared at it, her mind churning. She dropped into her armchair, sinking back as she sipped and let the warmth of the wine spread through her chest.
Work. That’s what she needed.
Roz leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, and grabbed the stack of patient files she’d brought home. She flipped one open with practiced precision, her eyes scanning the medical jargon and numbers, her world, her armor. Her mind tried to settle into the comfort of it, but the words blurred together on the page.
“I just… I need to know you care as much as I do.”
Sam’s message echoed in her mind, soft and yet so sharp it cut through everything else. Roz slammed the file shut with more force than she intended, the sound startling even herself. She pinched the bridge of her nose, inhaling deeply as she tried to push Sam out of her thoughts.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
