Page 63 of Obeying

You sound just like him.

The look on her face when she said it wasn't anger. It was fear. Disappointment that somehow, I was like him.

I would rather lose everything I have than be that man.

After my last case, I text her.

Logan

Can we talk?

Three minutes pass. Then her reply comes in.

Kristen

Garden out back.

She's sitting on a bench with her jacket pulled around her, even though the evening is warm. She looks up when she hears me coming.

"Is it ok to talk?"

She nods. I sit down next to her, but not too close. The garden is quiet. A few birds chirp, and the distant sound of traffic on the road is a low hum. The air smells like cut grass and something floral I can't identify.

I don't know where to start. I can walk into a trauma bay and make split-second decisions that save lives, but I have no training for sitting on a bench and admitting I'm wrong. So I get straight to the point.

"I was wrong," I say. "Not wrong but justified. Not wrong, but I had good reasons. Just wrong. I went behind your back and handled it on my own when I told you we'd do this together."

She's quiet. Her hands are in her lap.

"You said I sounded like him," I continue. "And maybe you're right."

"Logan, you're not⁠—"

"I am," I cut her off. "In a way, I'm controlling too. Not toward people, but toward situations. Outcomes. I've spent my whole life making sure everything goes exactly the way I plan it. Surgery, my career, the department. If I can control it, I do." I look at my hands. "When I saw those photos, I didn't think about what you needed. I thought about what I could do. What I could fix." I look at her. "But you're not something to fix. And I can't control my way into deserving you. I'm sorry. Genuinely."

She stares at her hands for a long moment. The bench creaks when she shifts. When she speaks, her voice is quiet.

"I'm sorry too. For what I said this morning. You're nothing like him. I know that. The words came out, and they weren't for you. They were for him. For me. For a version of myself I'm still trying to leave behind."

"You don't have to apologize for that."

"I do." She looks at me. "Because you're not Miguel. And you deserve to hear me say that clearly."

We sit with that for a minute. The sky is turning that deep blue it gets right before the streetlights come on. A nurse comes out the back door, sees us, turns around, and walks back inside. Smart.

"For what it's worth," I say, "I did learn something from going to his office."

She looks at me sideways. "Besides the fact that you shouldn't have gone?"

"Besides that, yes." I adjust my glasses. "He's not as untouchable as he thinks he is. He's good at performing. The charm, the reasonable voice, the wounded boyfriend act. But underneath it, he's scared. He can't handle someone who doesn't buy the performance."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I watched it crack. Twice, I pushed back when he didn't expect it, and twice his whole composure fell apart if only for a second. He covered it fast, but I saw it." I look at her. "He's dangerous, but he's not invincible. And at the hearing, when he's in front of a board that's trained to ask hard questions, that crack is going to show. We just need to know where to push."

She's quiet for a moment, processing. Then she nods slowly. "You really did learn something."

"What can I say? I'm a surgeon, a lawyer, and a body language expert."