Chapter 38
Isabelle
My mind was stuck replaying on a loop all the work-related activities I’d missed the last few weeks—optional lectures, staying
late so I could maybe get some additional OR time, networking. I was acting like I’d forgotten all of my ambition.
I sat on my couch with a blank stare until the slight creak of my door opening jarred me from the daze.
I looked around the room. It was dark.
“Isa?” Austin’s voice was heavy. A good heavy. A stabilizing heavy. “Are you okay?”
I blinked a few times. I looked to my side to see him walking in. Moonlight streaked over the steep cut of his jaw and sparkled
in his eyes. He turned on a light, closed the door behind him, and made his way to me. “What are you doing here?” My mind
moved slowly, stuck in the sludge of everything that just happened. I glanced at the clock. “It’s ten.” My heart fell into
my stomach. “Dinner.”
“It’s okay.” Austin sat beside me. His eyes landed on the Voulez Magazine copy on my coffee table before moving back up to me. “You weren’t answering; I got a little worried.”
“I’m sorry,” I blurted. My ribs ached at the mental image of him realizing I wasn’t coming. “After work, I got here and I . . .”
I stammered, standing up and pacing, hoping it would relieve some of the pressure building in my stomach. “I should have called
you.”
“Hey . . .” He followed a step behind me, grabbing a hand and pulling me into him. When I was flush against his chest, he
stroked the back of my head. “It’s okay.”
I breathed him in and sighed. My eyes closed for an extended moment. My muscles relaxed and allowed him to support me.
That was all I wanted.
My eyes shot open, body tensed. The realization went off like a siren in my head.
That was all I wanted? In his arms, I forgot about everything else, a blissful state of amnesia that had me trading away all the
things I’d previously wanted without realizing.
“I’m really sorry for missing dinner and making you worry.” I spanned a hand over his chest and pushed myself back.
He didn’t deserve to be stood up. I didn’t deserve someone being here for me like this when I knew it would happen again.
He deserved someone who could give him the type of life I was sure he wanted.
Quality time spent together during daylight hours.
A family. Children. I could barely make enough time to keep a plant alive or cook myself a meal.
That wasn’t going to change in fellowship.
And I wasn’t even sure I wanted it to. I needed to dedicate time to my legacy, and kids needed so much more than a half-absent parent.
“Isa . . .” He tried to pull me back, but I took another step away.
“But I . . .” I looked down. We didn’t need to wait until he eventually saw it and made the decision on his own. It was better
to draw the line clearly, the one we’d blurred so much that it was gone. “You should probably go.”
This was likely how it went for my mom. When she went from the Mercado who should have had an entire methodology named after
her to a regular person. At first, a forgone fellowship, then a new baby who needed someone at home for a few years. Then
an uphill battle to regain any of the traction she’d lost when she took time to raise me—a battle she’d lost. A soaring career
cut down not in one swipe, but in a thousand tiny decisions. Like a moth to a flame, she flew too close to something alluring—a
life, a family—and those wings just melted off.
“Isa,” Austin pleaded calmly, taking a few steps closer. “It’s just dinner. I don’t care that you missed it.”
“It’s not just that.” The foreboding that followed all day swelled. “What are we even doing?” I continued. I walked to my
door and reached for the handle, unsure. “Why are we pretending this will work?”
His jaw set on edge, cemented down. I wasn’t looking to strike a nerve, or maybe I was, but I hit one. Hard.
“What we’ve been doing the last few weeks isn’t pretending.”
“No . . . obviously not. But it doesn’t .
. .” I couldn’t put it into words, which made me even more frustrated.
“I had a plan, and the last few weeks I’ve let it fall to the wayside.
” I could hear myself not making much sense, but the stream of consciousness poured out of me.
“I know who I am, and I know what I want. And I’m choosing that. ”
Why drag this on? I did it with Blake for years only to end up where I started. Now I was at the precipice of everything I
was chasing in my career, and it didn’t feel like it was supposed to. The Winthrop fellowship felt like an afterthought. And
that was the problem. At the core of it all, that was what hurt.
Nothing felt like it was supposed to.
I felt too much for Austin and suddenly not enough for the interview I had in two days. One that I didn’t even deserve. The
clear vision I had for myself was blurry. I didn’t know which direction to go. The guiding light that I ran toward for years
was dimmed.
Something dimmed it. He dimmed it.
And I didn’t have a plan for that.
Nausea worked its way up my throat.
He took a controlled breath. “What part of this”—he pointed between us—“gets in the way of your plans?”
I had to be the best.
If I wasn’t, all I’d be was the disappointing sequel to Dr. Felix Mercado.
If I wasn’t, my mom’s sacrifice in her own career would be for nothing.
If I wasn’t, then I proved every one of those men in surgery who assumed I couldn’t hack it right, and everything I’d given
up till now was for nothing.
“All of it.” The words collapsed along my breath. “How can you not see that? I don’t skip lectures. I don’t compromise—”
“Who asked you to compromise?” he snapped, the force in his words pushing me a step back. “I sure as hell never have.”
My heart threw a tantrum in my chest. I thought it might jump out of my mouth. “You make me want to.”
That was the scary part. In the time we’d been together, the fellowship lost its luster. One day, my ambition would go so
dark I’d give it up without any argument. In service to this feeling I had for him. And I’d be warning my own daughter not to make the same mistakes I did.
“So, you’re going to pretend this didn’t happen? Pretend you don’t need anything, that we aren’t—”
“It was never that serious.” I tried to convince him . . . or myself. Because it had only been a few weeks, yet I’d never felt this way before.
He took a step back, let out a frustrated huff, and ran a hand through his hair.
“You know, I was wondering why you were so broken up about Blake. It didn’t make sense until I saw it that night at Versailles.”
He closed the space between us. “He didn’t break your heart, Isa. You broke his. And he had the audacity to recover, make a new plan, when you didn’t.” He ducked his head down, so I had to look at him.
When I stayed silent, he went on. “What actually hurt you is that he couldn’t stand up to the gale-force-fucking-wind that you are. And you’ve decided that nobody else possibly
could.” His razor-sharp glare softened. His voice did, too. “But I want to. And that scares the hell out of you.”
My words got caught in my throat, pushing tears so close to the edges of my eyes that I sucked in all the air I could to keep them back. Like a screw that had been turned too many times, my heart was stripped. It couldn’t deal with the fallout of one day losing him.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” he whispered.
He’d reach his breaking point. He didn’t see it now, but he would. One day when he wanted a family that I wasn’t ready to
give him or when he’d ask for something that would put a barricade in my path, and I’d have to knock it down.
Then either he’d be gone or he’d resent me for everything he didn’t have.
And I would be broken beyond repair. Not the tiny cracks that Blake left, but shattered because I’d never felt like this before.
I couldn’t get used to this only to lose it.
“Blake has nothing to do with this,” I spat. “I can’t give you what you want and I’m not going to pretend that I can.”
That’s what I’d been doing the last few weeks—pretending I could have it all.
In actuality, I was completely untethered to my work, and my dad had to come in for the save. I didn’t log those cases; I
didn’t think about the fellowship.
Austin was pulling back the curtain on all the other things my life could be, but I didn’t have the luxury of getting distracted.
I had to be focused.
He was too alluring, too bright, he cast shadows on all the things I wanted—making me wonder if I ever wanted them to begin
with. What if one day my own goals went so dim that I wouldn’t even care I’d given them up?
“Why can’t you give us a shot?” His voice cracked.
“Because I . . .” My words faltered. In the last few weeks, I’d put the fellowship on the back burner because he made me want
to put my time in other things—in him. I’d never done that before, and we were only a few weeks in. What would a few months
or years do to me if I felt like this now? How deep in love would I be then? How much would I be willing to sacrifice to never
feel what would be the insurmountable pain of losing him? “I need to protect myself.”
“From me?” Disbelief drew out the last syllable.
I shook my head.
“From everything you make me want,” I whispered. I looked at the floor but braced my entire body, so it came out strong and
together, despite how my willpower was disintegrating. “Please go home, Austin.”
Austin took a step back.
He laughed humorlessly to himself. “If you were half as smart as you think you are, you’d realize that the only person standing
in your way is you.”
The words sank into my skin like pushpins.
I knew that. But if I didn’t keep a vise grip on my goals, then maybe I’d let someone convince me to let them go. And then
I’d lose myself.
For the second time that night, the door slammed shut and I stood there alone.