Chapter 1 #2
It was the strangest sensation. Eight years removed, I still felt an immediate sense of worry, a plea forming on my lips that he would be okay. That whatever happened, his doctors would be able to fix him. Make him whole again.
Maybe we don’t ever stop caring about people we once loved, the echoes staying with us long after the actual feelings have faded.
Even though I wasn’t participating in the surgery, I knew I couldn’t leave until it was over and I knew Theo was okay, so I waited and watched the board and listened for any updates coming out of the OR.
Eventually, I managed to work up the nerve to seek out his twin—I knew Carter would be somewhere in the hospital.
Sure enough, I found him in a private waiting room with his wife and another teammate.
Our conversation wasn’t quite the closure I craved in the years right after the breakup, but it was close.
Theo is happy. Emergency surgery aside, he’s doing okay. That was good to hear.
I reach the OR and do a quick check, making sure everything is prepped and ready, then I meet Emily, the circulating nurse for the upcoming surgery, in the anteroom to scrub in.
“Hey,” Emily says, much too brightly for so early in the morning. I tuck my long hair into a surgical cap. “You ready for this one?” she asks. “I hope you peed.”
I let out a little chuckle. Emily is a Georgia native, and her Southern accent makes me smile every time we talk.
“Only just,” I say as I step up to the scrub sink. The surgery on schedule is a lumbar spinal fusion which will take at least three hours. Maybe more. “Who’s operating today? Novac?”
“Yep,” Emily says. “And she must like you. She requested to have you on her service specifically.”
I reach for the nail brush in my scrub kit and start working on my hands. “Really?”
“That’s what I heard. Good for you,” Emily says. “She rarely cozies up to travelers.”
“I’m flattered,” I say.
“Flattered enough to stay in Atlanta? Cause I bet they’d hire you for a permanent position once your contract is up, and I’m still looking for a roommate.”
I smile. “Tempting, but Mia might never forgive me.”
“Fair enough. Let me know if you change your mind. Actually, speaking of Mia,” Emily says as she helps me into a sterile gown. “Remember the other day when she was acting all cagey at lunch? Like she didn’t want to tell you where she was going?”
I turn around so Emily can tie my gown. “I absolutely remember.” It doesn’t always work out with our schedules, but if Mia and I are working the same shift and we’re free for lunch at the same time, we try to eat together. More often than not, if Emily’s around, she’ll eat with us too.
Emily leans a little closer. “So, I was talking to Caroline who heard from Vivian that she saw Dr. Rivera in the stairwell with Mia, and they looked very cozy.”
I spin around to face her. “Wait. Mia? My Mia?” Mia cozying up to anyone feels like something her best friend should know, and she hasn’t said a word to me.
“I mean, it’s obviously secondhand information,” Emily says. “But that’s what I heard. She hasn’t said anything to you?”
More like fourth-hand information, but still. “Not a word. Dr. Rivera. He’s an OB, right? The young one with the swoopy hair?”
“That’s him,” Emily says. Her voice changes a little as she adds, “I mean, I can’t really blame her. He’s so pretty.”
I think back over the last couple of weeks.
Suddenly, so many things about how Mia has been acting make sense.
Skipping lunches, hiding her phone. But why wouldn’t she just tell me?
I was thinking about using our lunch break to map out a break-up strategy for Rory and me, but this suddenly feels much more important.
Before I can ask Emily anything else, Dr. Novac pushes into the anteroom and steps up to the scrub sink. “How are we today, ladies?” she asks.
We make small talk for a quick minute, then I push my way into the OR to finish prepping, forcing myself to shelve thoughts of Mia and Rory until after the surgery is over.
Fortunately, the lumbar fusion is routine and easy, and the rest of my surgeries for the day follow the same pattern.
After a quick lunch (without Mia—she claims she’s laboring a patient and can’t get away, but who knows anymore?), I scrub in for a gallbladder removal and an emergency appendectomy, finally finishing my workday just after seven.
When I get to my phone, there’s a message from Mia saying she’s heading to the OR for a C-section and will be a while longer, so I head to the cafeteria and grab a soda, then settle into a corner booth to wait for her.
I pop in my AirPods and pull up Instagram, needing my daily fix of baby animals, lemon dessert recipes, and at least one of those ASMR videos where people do spa treatments on their dogs.
The first reel is a recipe for a citrus pound cake that only requires five ingredients. Perfect.
But the next one makes my heart rate quicken the slightest bit. It’s a Jaguars video—one of those social media ones they film for fun, asking the players questions in the locker room. I quickly hit pause and set my phone face down on the table.
I have rules for a reason.
Because I don’t want to think about Theo. I don’t want to remember that he’s close by or be reminded that once upon a time, he used to belong to me.
So why am I suddenly itching to watch?
Right after we moved, I used to get Jaguars reels in my feed all the time. It took some very intentional scrolling to convince my algorithm I wasn’t a hockey fan, and it eventually caught on, but they still show up every once in a while.
Usually, I’m so good at scrolling on by, master of my rules and my algorithm.
I’m blaming it on the billboard this morning. It dropped Theo into my brain with all the grace of a sledgehammer, and now I can’t seem to stop thinking about him.
I glance over at a family having dinner at the table next to mine.
The youngest is wearing a Jaguars jersey, her blonde hair in long pigtails down her back.
She’s talking loudly, gesturing with her hands as she tells a story about a goal and the way she used her stick and isn’t hockey the best thing ever?
Choosing to take it as a sign, I pick up my phone, find the reel, and push play.