Page 6 of Obeying

"And I'm seventy-three. I'm allowed to ignore you." He watches me check his incision, his expression softening despite himself. "My daughter does the same thing, you know. Comes in all wound up about something and then pretends she's fine until I pull it out of her."

"Maybe she just has a stubborn father."

"No maybe about it."

I finish the check and mark it in his chart, and he is quiet for a minute before he says, "You're a good doctor, Kristen. Whatever's got you looking like that, don't let it eat you."

I smile at him because I don't know what else to do. "I won't. Same time tomorrow for your walk?"

"Like I have a choice."

I make it through the rest of the shift by keeping my head down and my pace up, but it stays with me—this low current running under everything I do. He called me out. He looked at me, and even if he didn't match the face to the name, he noticed me, and for someone who's spent the last few years perfecting the art of not being noticed, that's enough to make the ground feel less solid under my feet.

I keep catching myself straightening my badge, so my last name faces inward. But what if he already knows? What if he saw my name on the roster the first day and just doesn't care? It's been almost ten years. People forget. Maybe I was four years of his life that didn't stick, and I'm over here hiding in utility closets over someone who wouldn't even remember which side of the library table I sat on.

That's almost worse. I shake my head.

Stop it, Kristen. You are a grown woman spiraling over a man you used to throw flashcards at. Get it together.

My break comes around two, and I'm heading toward the cafeteria when I see him at the far end of the corridor, maybe forty feet away, walking toward me. His white coat flaps, there's a coffee in one hand, and he's reading something on his phone with the other, his glasses catching the overhead light. He hasn't looked up yet.

My body decides before my brain does. I pivot, drop my eyes, and start walking the other direction like I've suddenly remembered something critical on the opposite side of the building. Casual…normal. Just a busy resident with somewhere to be.

Three steps, then four. And I'm almost at the corner, my pulse just starting to settle, and my brain already mapping which stairwell will get me to the cafeteria on the floor below when his voice comes.

"You. Stop."

I stop. Just like that. He didn't even say my name, and my body obeyed him, feet planted, spine straight, like his voice has some kind of hold on me that bypasses every rational thought in my head. Two words and I'm frozen in the middle of a hospital corridor like a first-year who got caught running in the halls.

I don't turn around. The ward hums around me, call bells and monitors chime, and someone's shoes squeak on the floor above, but none of that makes me want to break into a run. His footsteps, steady, unhurried, and getting closer, do.

He stops right behind me, close enough that I can smell his coffee and something clean, his soap maybe. I stare straight ahead at the far wall like it's the most interesting thing I've ever seen in my life. Oh, what's that stain? It looks like a work of art⁠—

"My office. Now."

He doesn't wait for a response. He walks past me, and I catch his profile for half a second—jaw set, glasses catching the light, not a single glance in my direction—and then he's ahead of me, moving down the corridor like this conversation is already over and the only thing left is for me to follow.

I stand there. My legs won't move. Smart appendages. He knows. He has to know. He saw my name on a roster, or he recognized my voice during rounds, or he put it together the second I answered that question about the splenic laceration with the same precision he drilled into me about a decade ago. And now he's walking toward his office, and I'm supposed to just follow him in there and, what? Explain myself? Explain the last few years? Explain why the girl who used to outscore him is hiding behind a tablet and whispering her answers?

Every nerve in my body says to run. Turn around, take the stairs, call in sick tomorrow, transfer rotations, and never stand in the same room as Logan Maxwell again.

But I can't. He's my attending, this is my service, and he just gave me a direct order in the middle of a hospital hallway. If I don't follow it, that's a different kind of problem, one that goes on a record instead of just living in my chest.

I glance down the hall leading to the cafeteria, then sigh and follow him. One foot, then the other, preparing for the worst.

3

LOGAN

Med school graduation day

We're standing outside the auditorium, and she's got her cap on crooked because she caught it wrong after she threw it, and she's arguing with me about something, which is how we spend roughly ninety percent of our time together. I don't remember who started it. Probably her.

She's talking about her five-year plan and her ten-year plan and how she's going to be running a department before she's forty. I'm leaning against the wall, watching her talk with her hands the way she always does when she's fired up. Big gestures. Pointed fingers. She uses her whole body to make a point, like words alone aren't enough to contain what she's feeling. I've spent four years watching her do it, and I'm not tired of it yet.

"Good plan," I say. "Only, I'll become the head of a department first."

I push off the wall and cross my arms. She mirrors me instantly. She always does that: matches me. I don't think she notices.