Chapter 25
CUTMAN (LIZ)
The ambulance bay is already alive when I step out of the staff entrance, Leo’s coffee warming my palm.
The morning ran its usual rails—smoothie, shower, Huberman Lab low in the car. The only difference is the part we keep pretending doesn’t count.
Like we’re still faking it.
Which is how I know we aren’t.
“Go save some lives, Flash,” he said at the curb, brushing a loose strand of hair from my face. The kiss he gave me was quick and steady—and dangerous, because it made me want to turn around, climb back into his car, and disappear with him for the day. “See you at five.”
Now sirens fade in the distance, then swell again. Gurneys clatter over the seam in the concrete. The air smells of exhaust, summer humidity, and antiseptic.
A paramedic is laughing too loudly by the doors. Someone in scrubs is running past me with a bag of saline. A security guard sips coffee and looks bored, which means nothing has exploded yet.
I adjust my badge at my hip and push inside.
The ER swallows me. Fluorescent light. The constant beep and hiss of machines. Voices layered over each other—quick, sharp, overlapping. A kid wailing. A man swearing. A nurse calling out a blood pressure.
And underneath it all, the familiar hum of adrenaline that makes me feel useful.
I wash up, tie my hair tighter, and step into triage.
Marco is at the charge desk with an iced coffee in one hand and a clipboard in the other, running the place the way a conductor runs an orchestra—sharp, smug, and mildly terrifying.
He looks up. Narrows his gaze.
“Oh,” he says slowly. “You look… rested.”
I keep my face blank. “Thanks, I guess?”
He watches me lift the coffee. The ring catches the light, bright and unapologetic.
“That is not the complexion of a woman who spent her day off color-coding med school notes.”
I hate that the comment lands at all, and more that Marco notices.
“It’s called sleep,” I say dryly.
“Sweetheart.” He settles back, “I’ve worked nights with you for three years. I know your version of sleep. This isn’t it.”
I smile before I can stop it. Small and traitorous.
He grins. “You’re glowing.”
“I’m not.”
He hums, satisfied, and nods at my hand. “Okay, Miss Fiancée. I see you.”
“I’m on trauma bay,” I cut in before he can turn it into a TED Talk.
“Yes, you are,” he says, unbothered. “But before you sprint away, I want details.”
I stare at him. “Get yourself your own boy toy.”
“Working on it,” he says cheerfully. “But I don’t know if I can beat Lionheart.”
Marco gets to watch that land, which is its own humiliation. I take a sip of coffee to buy time, because I’m not discussing Leo Carver’s anything in the middle of the ER.
Marco’s grin goes feral. “Oh my God. You spent your day off getting laid.”
He raises his hand for a high five. I look at him like he’s insane, then laugh despite myself and meet it.
“One more word,” I warn, “and I’m reporting you to HR.”
That’s the part I hate.
Not Marco clocking that I got laid.
The way the ring flashes once, and suddenly I’m not just Liz Adler, nurse on trauma bay, future med student, woman with a shift to get through.
I’m somebody’s fiancée. His. The label settles on me so fast it feels preloaded, as if all the work I’ve done to make myself legible on my own terms can be swallowed whole by one bright stone and the wrong set of headlines.
I move past him fast, because if I stop, I’ll think about yesterday. The way I let Leo touch me. The way he didn’t reach for anything I didn’t offer. The space he gave me, the steady devotion, like I’m not a problem to solve.
Like I’m the only thing in his world that matters.
I don’t do well with feelings like that.
I do better with vitals.
The first three patients blur together: a teenager with a busted lip who keeps insisting he’s fine, a man with chest pain who looks like he hasn’t slept in a week, and a woman apologizing before I even touch her.
By eight twelve, we’re behind.
By eight thirty-seven, the first trauma comes in.
“Incoming,” someone calls. “MVA. Two minutes.”
The whole ER changes temperature. The air crackles. People move faster without thinking. It’s not panic. It’s muscle memory.
I grab gloves, check the cart, and take my position at the side of the bed. Dr. Patel steps in a second later, gray-streaked hair still damp from his own rushed morning, face already in that controlled mask.
We do this without speaking.
The doors slam open and the stretcher comes through with a body strapped to it, blood on their forehead. A collar around the neck. Unfocused stare.
“Twenty-eight-year-old male,” the paramedic rattles off. “T-boned at an intersection. Airbags deployed. Brief LOC. Complaining of abdominal pain. BP ninety over sixty enroute.”
“Okay,” Dr. Patel says calmly. “Let’s work.”
I lean in and start doing what I do best. Pressure cuff. Pulse ox. IV access. Call out the numbers. Anticipate the next move before it’s asked for.
The patient groans when I palpate his abdomen. There’s something deeper in that kind of pain.
I catch Dr. Patel’s attention.
He’s already thinking the same thing. In the ER, you learn to speak in micro-expressions. It’s a language built from emergency.
Twenty minutes later, the patient is on his way to CT, stabilized enough to breathe without screaming. Dr. Patel peels off his gloves and looks at me.
“Good catch,” he says, like it’s casual.
It isn’t. Compliments in this place are rare and usually earned in blood.
Dr. Patel glances at my ring briefly.
“Go take five minutes before the next disaster arrives,” he says dryly.
The praise lands. The glance at the ring lands harder.
Not because he’s rude.
Because he wasn’t looking at my hand last week.
By ten forty, I catch a lull—one of those thin ER pauses where you chew a protein bar and pretend you’re not still vibrating. I’m at the counter with almonds in my mouth when a woman walks in on her own.
She keeps her sunglasses on and is wearing long sleeves in July. Her hair is yanked back so hard it looks like it hurts. She gives her name in a whisper, trembling like she’s cold.
Marco meets my gaze.
Take this one.
I step out from behind the desk and keep my posture soft while my presence stays steady. “Hi. I’m Liz. Come with me.”
In the curtained room, the fluorescent light makes her look washed out, almost unreal. She keeps her arms folded across her chest.
“What happened?”
She stares at the curtain. Then, “I fell.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“Where does it hurt?”
She points to her ribs without looking at me.
I take vitals. She flinches when the cuff inflates. When she shifts, I catch the bruise creeping above her collar and the swelling at her cheekbone.
I’ve seen this a hundred times. Every nurse has.
I keep my tone even. “I’m going to ask you something. You don’t have to answer.”
She reacts before she can hide it.
“Do you feel safe at home?”
“Yes.” It comes too fast. But her fingers dig into her own arms like she’s trying to hold herself together.
I don’t challenge her. If I push, she’ll bolt.
“We can do X-rays. Manage your pain. And if you want, we can have social work talk through options.”
“Will they call the police?” Her voice is barely a whisper.
“No. Not unless you want that.”
For one second, she stops holding herself quite so hard.
I stand with her a moment longer than I need to. The room is very quiet. She’s still holding herself, wrists crossed, fingers pressing in. I know that shape. The careful containment of it. The way it looks like composure from the outside.
When I step out, Marco is waiting. “Domestic violence,” he says quietly.
“Yeah.”
A name flashes through my mind. Travis. Like a sour taste I can’t spit out. The way charm turns into control. The way you start managing your own breathing to keep the peace.
I shut it down hard.
Leo isn’t him. I know that.
But knowing it and trusting it aren’t the same thing yet.
At noon, I finally get a real lull. I sit in the break room with my phone, thumb hovering over his name.
Text him first, I tell myself.
It’s small. It’s stupid.
It’s proof I’m not running.
LIZ
Your smoothie tastes like lawn clippings
I hit send before I can overthink it.
His reply comes less than a minute later.
LEO
Drink it anyway
A second message follows.
LEO
I’ll see you in a few hours
Feelings are embarrassingly physical when you’re out of practice. I set the phone face down on the table and stare at the ceiling.
Then it pings.
NATE
Still on Fire Island
Back in the city the day after tomorrow
If you’re around tomorrow, can you grab our farm-share veggie box from St. Stephen’s?
EDEN
Translation: Russo needs his bougie vegetables
Probably zucchini blossoms
LEO
To feed you, little ungrateful brat
I’ll get it
NATE
My man
EDEN
Leo, book your camp tune up slots through the link I sent
They are filling up fast
LEO
Will do
I stare at the screen for a second, weirdly grounded by how normal it all sounds—errands, vegetables, schedules.
That’s the dangerous part.
Not the drama. The normal.
By five-twenty, my body is done.
My shift ended at five, but I’m slow to leave. Someone always needs something—one last chart, one last set of vitals, one last reassurance—and it gives me permission to stay a few minutes longer.
My last month here is almost gone. Every shift is one step closer to med school. I’ll miss the pace, the adrenaline, the brutal simplicity of knowing how to stop other people’s pain, and I make a quiet promise to myself that I’ll come back, someday, in a different capacity.
Marco catches me at the lockers as I’m shoving my phone into my pocket.
“Walk you out?” He hooks his arm under mine. “Is your fiancé waiting at the curb like the world’s most expensive Uber?”
“Likely,” I mutter.
Marco makes a satisfied sound. “Liz. Baby. Consistency. Structure. A man who knows where you are. I’m obsessed.”
Outside, the air is thick and hot, the city too bright after ten hours under fluorescent lights.
Leo is at the curb with his arms folded, watching the entrance. He takes me in first, then clocks Marco.
Marco stops dead. “Holy shit,” he whispers.
I elbow him. “Behave.”
He doesn’t. He steps forward and sticks out his hand. “Marco. Charge nurse. Congratulations on your engagement.”
Leo takes the handshake, firm and brief, his mouth twitching. “Leo.”
“Lionheart,” Marco says, reverent for half a second, then wicked. He looks Leo over. “God. You’re hotter in person. I’m furious about it.”
“Marco,” I hiss.
“I’m just saying,” he continues, unapologetic. Then, bright-eyed, “Also, I’m single. Emotionally available. Excellent with my hands. I literally tend wounds for a living.”
Leo pauses like he’s deciding whether to be offended. Then, deadpan, “Good to know.”
Marco leans in. “So… any single friends? Big ones. Preferably good cardio, low commitment issues.”
Leo’s expression doesn’t change. “Let me ask around.”
Marco beams like he just got accepted into a program. I point down the sidewalk. “Go home, Marco.”
“See you tomorrow, Liz. And Lionheart, please use protection. She has big plans.”
“Leave,” I snap.
Marco salutes and disappears down the block, still cackling.
Leo reaches for my bag without asking. I let him take it, which tells me more than I want to know.
“You’re late,” he says.
“I’m exhausted.”
He guides me toward the car, steady presence at my back.
My phone buzzes.
A push notification from some sports account I don’t follow, but the algorithm knows my name now.
CARVER brINGS FIANCéE HOME — INSIDE THE PARK SLOPE DINNER
There’s a photo beneath it. Me in his parents’ living room. Leo beside me. His mother’s hand mid-gesture. Brick and books and old Brooklyn in the background.
Confirmation, neatly packaged in high resolution.
I click through, and the comments roll in—less cruel than curious, still invasive.
He’s never brought anyone home.
They look right together.
This one feels different.
He’s gone soft.
Strangers taking one dinner, one room, one ring, and slotting me neatly into the story of Leo Carver’s life as if I came pre-captioned.
As if that version of me is already more legible than the one I built by hand.
Leo opens the passenger door. I get in.
He shuts it, leans down slightly. “Stop reading that.”
I tighten around my phone and force a breath out. “They’re turning it into a story.”
“It is a story,” he says calmly. “Let them.”
I blink. “That’s it?”
Leo’s palm closes over my knee, firm enough to anchor. “That’s it.” He holds my gaze. “What matters is what we do when no one’s watching.”
The car starts to pull away from the curb.
Then Leo’s phone rings.
His expression shifts, the way it does when the outside world arrives. “Jessica.”
He answers without hesitation and taps the console. “Speaker. Liz is with me.”
Jessica’s tone fills the car, crisp and controlled.
“Hi. I’m not calling to ruin your life. I’m calling to keep it from being ruined by other people.”
“Talk.”
“I saw the Park Slope piece. It’s good. It has momentum. Which means we decide how the next few weeks look before the internet decides for us.”
Her words drop into the car and change the air.
“There’s going to be more ‘candid’ coverage,” she continues, checklist-calm. “More congratulations. More photos. Camp’s coming, sponsors are twitchy, and everyone loves a storyline.”
Leo doesn’t change his tone. “What do you need.”
“A check-in. Not now. In a few days. Both of you—together—for fifteen minutes. We talk next steps. We stay consistent.”
The word consistent sits heavy.
Jessica’s tone softens just a fraction. “Before camp starts, I need you aligned. This stops reading well if you don’t control it.”
Then, “Liz, are you okay with that?”
I glance at Leo, expecting him to jump in, to manage it. He doesn’t. He keeps driving, giving me the space to answer.
“Yeah,” I manage. “I’m fine.”
“Good,” Jessica says, back to business. “I’ll text you options. Leo, don’t agree to anything Elliot throws at you until we talk.”
Leo’s focus stays on the road. “Noted.”
“Great. Enjoy your evening.”
The call ends. The car is quiet again.
Leo’s thumb strokes once over my knee, absent and grounding.
“We’ll handle it.” Not a promise to the universe. A decision.
The certainty in him is exactly what scares me.
Because he’s not pretending anymore.
And neither am I.