Page 48 of Obeying

He turns onto a private road that winds up through the trees. The gravel crunches under the tires, and the branches hang low enough to brush the roof of the car. Then the trees open up, and a house appears at the top of a clearing.

From the outside, it looks like something out of a magazine. A mountain cabin, but not the rustic kind. Wooden panels stained dark, a sloped roof with exposed beams, a wraparound porch with two chairs facing the valley below. The whole thing is surrounded by trees, and the only sounds are birds and the wind.

"This is your escape?" I say, still looking at it through the windshield.

"Everyone needs one."

"We're clearly in different tax brackets."

"It was my grandfather's cabin. He left it to me."

We get out. He unlocks the front door, and when I step inside, it's even better. The living room is open and warm with hardwood floors, a stone fireplace on one wall, and a bookshelf that takes up the entire opposite wall, packed full. Well-read paperbacks sit next to medical texts and a few novels I recognize. There's a worn leather couch facing the fireplace, a dining table by the window, and a small, clean kitchen. The whole cabin smells like cedar and pine; something old and lived-in, like it's been standing here breathing quietly for decades.

But the best part is the back wall. It's almost entirely glass, floor-to-ceiling panels with a sliding door that opens onto the balcony. I walk toward it and just stop.

The view is breathtaking. Mountains covered in thick green forest stretch out in every direction, and at the far end, tucked between two ridges, there's a lake. The perfectly still water is dark blue. The whole thing looks like someone painted it and hung it outside his window. I've seen beautiful places before, but this is something else. This is the kind of view that steals the words right out of you.

"Logan." I turn to look at him. "This is incredible."

He's standing behind me with his hands in his pockets, watching me look at his view, and there's something on his face that I can't quite read. Like he's pleased that I see what he sees.

I turn back to the window. I already love this place. It's not mine, it has nothing to do with me, but standing here looking at those mountains and that lake, I feel something I haven't felt in a long time: peace. If I lived here, I'd never leave.

"I could stay here forever," I say, mostly to myself.

"Most people would say that." He pauses. "Then they'd get bored after two days because there's no cell service."

"But that's not a flaw. It's the entire point."

He looks at me. I look at him. For a moment, neither of us says anything. The quiet in this house feels different from the quiet at the hospital. It's softer and safer.

But we're not here to relax. Not entirely.

We sit at the dining table and we work. He brought files, notes. I brought everything I have on Miguel. Financial records from our shared accounts, dates, details, text messages I screenshotted before I left, the ones where he threatened me, where he reminded me what I owed him, where he told me I'd be nothing without his help. I've kept all of it. Every word.

We lay it out between us, and for the first time, I'm not just surviving this. I'm strategizing.

We go through the complaint point by point. For every allegation, Logan plays devil's advocate. He pushes back hard.

"The residency allegation," he says. "They'll say Miguel Cruz pulled strings to get you into St. Andrew's. What's your answer?"

"That I was qualified. My med school record was excellent. The gap was the issue, not my ability."

"But he did make calls."

"He did. I didn't ask him to. I was applying on my own and getting rejected, and he went behind my back and made it happen. I didn't find out until after he told me."

"Can you prove that?"

"I have the rejection emails from other programs—all timestamped before St. Andrew's accepted me. That shows I was trying to get in on my own merit."

He nods, then writes something down. "Good. What about the inappropriate relationship allegation? Between you and me."

"There is no relationship."

He looks up from his notes and holds my gaze. "Right. There isn't. But they'll point to the fact that I drove you home, that I was involved in the Miguel confrontation, that I've been personally engaged in your situation beyond what's expected of a department head."

"So how do we explain that?"