Chapter 15
The Reset
Robyn
The patient’s room is bright with the overhead fluorescents flattening everything into sharp edges.
Another week’s gone by, and even though everything’s changed for me, nothing has at work.
Morning rounds still go the way they go, some call it necessary training, others trial by fire.
For me, it’s a bit like an intentional chipping away at your confidence by jabbing, painstaking questions designed to make you fail in front of an audience.
While the long window at the far end frames the city in glass and steel, white coats, clipped voices, and the soft shuffle of pens scribbling over paper wait in front of me.
I stand at the foot of the bed, tablet in hand, presenting the case the way I’ve done a hundred times before, voice steady enough to pass, even as something in me feels out of sync.
“Thirty-two-year-old female presenting with recurrent episodes of vertigo—” I begin, eyes flicking once, just once, toward the window, where the light catches on a familiar facade. The stone of the Chicago Tribune building cuts through the skyline with ornate and deliberate quality.
I’m yanked to a date with Nate, four, maybe five months into our relationship.
We were walking downtown, shoulder to shoulder.
When the Chicago Tribune came into view, he drifted a step ahead without realizing it, hands already moving as he talked, because he couldn’t help himself when it comes to things he loves.
He pointed up at the tower, tracing lines in the air, mapping it out like I should be able to see what he saw.
Then he caught himself, glanced back, and slowed, stepping in close again until our arms brushed, and without looking, he found my fingers and threaded them like it was instinct. He lifted our joined hands slightly as he kept going, using them to gesture toward the building.
“It’s not just decorative,” he said, angling our hands upward. “It’s Neo-Gothic—like full commitment. Limestone, vertical piers pulling your eye up, and then that crown—those flying buttresses? Modeled after Rouen Cathedral.”
I tipped my head back, squinting at the details he was pointing out. “And why’s that important?”
“Well …” Nate paused, not annoyed, just thinking, his thumb brushing absently over mine as he worked it out.
“People assume it’s just aesthetic, but it anchors everything visually.
It’s like—okay, think of it like a spine.
You don’t just stack vertebrae, you balance them, give them structure so the whole thing holds under pressure.
” He shifted closer as he spoke, shoulder nudging mine.
“And all the Gothic elements?” He went on.
“That’s a statement too. They’re borrowing from churches on purpose. In this building, journalism’s sacred.”
“So the building’s a church?” I asked, glancing at him.
“Architecturally? Kind of.” He grinned, warming into it, free hand sketching shapes in the air again.
“It’s steel frame underneath—all modern, early twentieth-century efficiency—but they wrapped it in this historical romanticism, so it feels permanent.
Powerful. Like it’s always been there. It’s basically the Tribune saying they take themselves more seriously than anyone else. You see?”
I didn’t, not really. Not the way he meant it.
His whole face lit up when he talked, and he drew me into it without even trying, like understanding mattered less than sharing it—and it felt like he was building something between us every time he translated his world into terms I could hold onto.
And I felt it then, not for the first time with him, but with certainty. Nate was it for me.
“Dr. Hollis.”
The room snaps back, everyone around me is full of hard edges, nothing like the curves Nate described. I’m still smiling from the memory, and nobody appreciates it.
Dr. Steinberg stands across from me, her presence cutting clean through the space, copper hair falling in dry, uneven waves around a face that doesn’t soften for anyone. Her red-manicured nails tap once, sharply, against the edge of the chart in her hand.
“Are you happy that you don’t know the answer?” she asks, voice cool enough to freeze the air between us.
Heat rushes up my neck, my face, the smile dropping too late, too obviously. “No, I—”
“I asked you a question, Dr. Hollis.” Steinberg, the neurology chief, fists her hand at her hips.
“The differential could include—”
“Could?” Her brow lifts, precise and unimpressed, one lacquered nail lifting as if to underline the word. “We are not in the business of ‘could’, Dr. Hollis. We are in the business of knowing.”
I swallow, grip tightening slightly on the tablet as I try to pull the information back into place, but it’s like reaching for something that’s already slipped too far out of reach. “Given the recurrent presentation, we should consider—”
“Should,” she repeats, sharper now, stepping closer, the faint click of her heels echoing in the silence that’s stretched too thin. “You should have considered it before you opened your mouth.”
A few heads tilt, attention sharpening, the weight of the room pressing in.
“Intractable vertigo with no clear etiology after multiple visits,” she continues, eyes locked on mine, unblinking. “Tell me why that is concerning.”
I know this. My mouth opens but nothing comes. I’ve frozen again.
The second stretches, then another, and I can feel it happening—the unraveling, the slow, unmistakable realization that I am standing here in front of all of them with nothing.
Steinberg’s gaze doesn’t waver. “If you don’t know, Dr. Hollis, say so. Do not stand here and waste my time.”
My throat tightens. “I don’t know.”
“Obviously.”
She turns away before I can recover, redirecting the question to someone else.
The room shifts around me, voices picking back up, my pulse still loud in my ears, and the echo of her words settles somewhere deeper than they should.
Later, when she finds me in the hallway, it’s not with raised voices or theatrics but something far worse—control.
She stops just close enough that I have to turn, her gaze sweeping over me once before she speaks.
“I’ve heard,” she says, each word measured, “that you’ve had reasons to be this … distracted.”
My stomach drops, but I keep my posture straight.
“You have raw talent.” She lifts a hand, examining the immaculate red of her nails. “But I have seen better doctors than you lose everything because they mistook potential for immunity.”
Her eyes lift to mine, sharp, unyielding.
“This is not a place for divided attention, Dr. Hollis. Patients do not care about your personal life, and neither do I. If you cannot keep it from interfering … the stakes are higher in this profession.”
The words don’t rise in volume, don’t need to.
“Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” I say, flat but steady.
She studies me for a beat longer, then nods once, curt. “Good. Decide what kind of doctor you intend to be before someone decides for you.”
She walks away without another glance, the click of her heels fading down the hall.
I stand there for a moment, sharpening the sting of her words into something useful—a scalpel to cut out this part of me swimming in grief. When I finally move, it’s with purpose, structure, and control.
Lunches with Julian aren’t a distraction. Going out, maybe once a week, is okay. Everything else belongs to the work, to the hours, to the version of me that does not hesitate, does not drift.
And Nate—
The thought presses in, sudden and unwelcome, the memory of sunlight on stone, of his voice, of the way I felt standing next to him, and the future I’d felt we’d have if I could just shape it.
I shut it down, hard. There’s no room for that part of me. I can’t let that part of me have a hold on me. Not if I want to be the kind of doctor who would have saved my mom.
The chief resident let me borrow this small conference room for a virtual call. The cubicle looks more sterile than it smells. All walls and surfaces are stripped of any personality; the only decoration is a pencil holder with no writing utensils and a Keurig machine with an inch of dust.
My laptop screen reflects my face—hair in a relaxed bun, tendrils framing my cheeks, enough makeup to disguise that I haven’t slept in eighteen hours.
There’s that signature professional tiredness that goes with being a doctor, and somehow, self-assuredness.
It feels strange, this calm that comes from knowing I can project competence without breaking a sweat.
The woman on the other end of the call leans forward, clasping her hands. “Your references are excellent, Dr. Hollis. We’re impressed with your casework. We’re also excited to see publications to your name, especially the post-stroke rehabilitation study you coauthored.”
I shouldn’t be surprised she’s looked beyond my résumé and cover letter.
Of course she wants to know every candidate inside and out.
Neurology is competitive, only five percent of candidates find a placement of their choosing.
I should woo, charm, and bring up my strengths rather than having her look for them.
She glances down at her notes, then back up with an approving lift of her brows. “And I have to say, we were intrigued by your elective diagnostic fellowship. Not many neurologists choose to step into that environment.”
My breath catches, and I hold it in. This is when her innocent question forces me to air out my underwhelming performance on my board exams, in case she missed the disclaimer on my CV.
Instead, there’s almost warmth in how her eyes wrinkle at the corners. “It speaks to your initiative to understand the full continuum of patient care.”