Page 5 of His to Protect
"Page her anyway. Tell her it's critical."
Because it was critical.
When someone's heart was failing, when every second meant the difference between life and death, I needed hands across from me that I could trust without question. Mireya Rosen had those hands—they didn't shake, didn't miss, and didn't hesitate when it mattered most.
The drive to the hospital usually took twenty minutes with traffic. At three in the morning with empty streets, I made it in ten, speeding down the 405 and running every yellow light that threatened to turn red. The ER was frantic when I arrived, nurses prepping trauma bays and techs shouting updates to each other as word of the incoming pileup spread through the floor.
I cut through the chaos toward the surgical wing, nodding at a few familiar faces but not stopping to talk. My mind was already running through the procedure before I even reached the doors. Cardiac contusion from blunt force trauma could deteriorate rapidly—progress to tamponade, arrhythmia, even cardiac arrest. Depending on impact severity, we might be looking at myocardial rupture, valvular damage, or coronary artery dissection.
I pictured the heart bruised and swollen, struggling to keep pumping. The image settled into my brain as I scrubbed in alone, letting the hot water wash over my forearms. It made my skin red, but it didn’t matter. I thoroughly worked the betadine foam up to my elbows, the way I'd done a thousand times before.
The OR doors swung open behind me.
“Patient’s two minutes out,” one of the nurses called. "Dr. Cross, your first assist just arrived."
Mireya walked in looking like she'd been pulled straight from sleep. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders, but her eyes were sharp, alert, and already assessing. She stepped up beside me at the sink and started scrubbing, water running over her hands in the same rhythm I'd just finished.
Professional. Reliable. Exactly what I needed. I kept my eyes on my hands and not on the way the surgical light caught the amber in her eyes above her mask. That observation was irrelevant. I filed it away and didn't examine it.
She didn't complain or ask why I'd called her specifically. She just got to work.
"Twenty-eight-year-old male, unrestrained driver. Steering wheel impact, anterior chest wall," I said, keeping my focus on my hands. "Vitals unstable. Suspected cardiac contusion, possible progression. We need to move fast."
“Understood,” she replied, voice even and firm. Calm as ever.
Not a trace of resentment at being called back in.
The patient arrived on a gurney with paramedics and ER staff calling out vitals and trauma assessments. I blocked out the noise and focused on the monitor showing the erratic heart rhythm, the irregular chest movement, and the bluish tint to his lips.
Oxygen wasn't reaching where it needed to go.
We transferred him to the operating table. Sarah helped me into my gown and gloves while Mireya took her position across from me, already gloved and gowned. The anesthesiologist called out numbers that didn’t sound promising.
“Let’s open him up,” I said.
I cut clean through skin and tissue. Mireya had the retractor ready before I asked, holding it with the right tension while I worked deeper. The heart was swollen and bruised from the impact, fighting to keep beating despite the damage.
“There.” I pointed to a small tear in the left ventricle that was leaking with every struggling beat. “We need to repair that before he arrests.” —
“Suture,” Mireya said.
She placed the suture in my hand before I reached for it. I didn't react. In the OR, I never did. But I registered the precision of her, the way she read me without being asked, and I found I didn't want to examine why that felt like more than competence.
This. This was exactly why I called her in despite the hour or her fatigue. She was efficient and always anticipated what I needed before I said it.
But if I was being honest with myself, it wasn't just her skill that steadied me.
It had been six months of this. Six months of her hands across the table from mine, anticipating every move before I made it. Six months of telling myself it was professional respect and nothing more.
She was my first assist. My employee. The power gap between us was wide enough to make any other truth completely off the table.
So I kept my eyes on the patient and said nothing.
I stitched the tear carefully, each pass of the needle counted and controlled. The room fell into the rhythm I preferred during surgery, only the sound of the monitors and the ventilator's mechanical breathing filling the space.
No wasted words. Just focus.
The heart responded. The tear sealed. The monitor showed improvement—rhythm stabilizing, blood pressure climbing incrementally but steadily.
