Page 94 of Vital Signs
My pulse thundered once in my ears. I placed the next stitch carefully, deliberately, proving to myself that my hands were steady. “I’m not in over my head,” I said quietly. “It’s stitches, Frank.”
He glanced at Desmond, at the way Desmond watched me — too closely, too protectively — and something ugly sharpened in his expression. “You’re emotionally involved. That clouds judgment.”
I felt the air leave my lungs in a slow, controlled exhale. “My assessment is clinical,” I replied. “He requires closure, monitoring, and modified weight-bearing until swelling decreases. If you have a specific medical concern, state it.”
Frank’s jaw tightened. “You’ve made mistakes before.”
“Yes,” I said. “And I learned from them. Just like everyone else in this room.” The words didn’t tremble. They didn’t apologize. They simply existed — solid and undeniable.
Silence rippled through the room. Someone behind him shifted their weight. A nurse handed me fresh sutures without a word.
Desmond’s voice cut through the tension, rough but calm. “She’s doing fine.”
Frank shot him a look. “You’re not part of this conversation.”
“I’mliterallythe patient,” Desmond said dryly. “It’s stitches, Patel. She’s doing fine.”
A tiny spark of humor tried to break through my chest and failed — swallowed by the pounding of my heart.
I finished the last stitch, tied it off cleanly, and covered the wound with a sterile dressing. Only then did I step back, peel off my gloves, and meet Frank’s gaze head-on.
Another attending called his name from down the hall. A trauma rolling in. A reason to leave without admitting defeat. He stared at me for one long second — searching for hesitation, for doubt, for the girl who used to fold under his voice.
She wasn’t there anymore.
“Document everything,” he said finally.
“Already done,” I replied.
The curtain snapped shut behind Frank, but the air he’d stirred up didn’t settle right away. It lingered — thick and metallic, as if he’d left a ghost of his anger in the room. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Someone laughed too loudly out in the hall. A monitor chirped twice and went silent again.
My hands started to shake.
So I kept them busy. Pressed the gauze down carefully over the line of sutures. Smoothed tape that was already smooth. Checked the dressing edges like they might unravel if I stopped paying attention for even a second.
Desmond watched me in that quiet, analytical way he had — it wasn’t quite the same as a patient might watch a doctor. It went deeper than that. Deep enough that it sent my heart a little haywire.
“For the record,” he said finally, voice low and tight, “thisisjust stitches.”
I let out a quick breath that almost passed for a laugh. “Yeah,” I said. “It is.”
His gaze flicked toward the curtain, jaw tightening as if he could still see Frank standing there. “He made it sound like you were performing open-heart surgery with a butter knife.”
“Mm,” I hummed, adjusting the bandage with deliberate precision. “That sounds about right.” A beat passed. Maybe two. “Well… yeah,” I added quietly, shoulders lifting in a small, tired shrug. “He’s always done that.”
The words settled between us heavier than I meant them to; it wasn’t dramatic. There wasn’t even anger in my tone, just exhaustion and truth, built from months of living under Patel’s thumb.
Desmond went very still. “Done what?” he asked, even though I knew he already understood.
“Turned everything into a catastrophe,” I said, keeping my eyes on the dressing. “Made every decision feel like I was one misstep away from killing someone. Even when it wasn’t.” My fingers pressed along the tape line again, grounding myself in the familiar texture. “Especially when it wasn’t.”
His hand curled slightly against the sheet — a reflexive motion, like he wanted to push himself upright and couldn’t. The muscle in his jaw twitched. “And what made today different?” he asked.
I paused long enough to feel my pulse thudding in my throat, then finally looked at him. “Today I knew he was wrong.”
Something fierce flickered across his face — not just pride or anger, but a complicated, restless combination of both. His gaze dropped briefly to the limb, to the dressing, to the sutures I’d placed, and when he looked back up at me, there was something almost reverent in the way he studied my hands.
“It was clean work,” he said quietly. “Efficient. Controlled. Exactly what I would’ve done.”
