Page 71 of Obeying

"I agree. But order matters. Lead with your timeline. Your dates, your documents, your texts. Let them see your truth first. Then bring Carmen in as corroboration."

"So she confirms the pattern after I've already established it."

"Exactly. Your story is the foundation. Carmen is proof that it's not an isolated incident."

"And the ward incident?"

"Security footage speaks for itself. A man entered a hospital ward, physically grabbed a resident in front of patients, and endangered an elderly post-surgical patient. The footage shows him grabbing you. It shows Walter falling. It shows me intervening." He adjusts his glasses. "I didn't threaten anyone. I told a man who was assaulting my resident to let go. The footage will confirm that."

"You said you'd break his hand."

"I said I would if he didn't let go. There's a difference between a conditional statement and a threat."

"That's very lawyer-ly of you."

"I've been spending too much time with case files. It's rubbing off."

We work for another hour. When the case is as tight as it's going to get, I stand up, stretch, and look at the table. The whiteboard with the timeline, the color-coded folders, the tabbed documents, the cross-referenced testimonies, Carmen's statement next to the security footage request, next to the financial records, next to Logan's annotated notes in his careful handwriting.

I start laughing.

Logan looks up from his chair. "Oh no. Don't go crazy now, Portland. Not when we have a hearing in three days."

"I'm not going crazy." I wave my hand at the table. "Or maybe I am. But look at this. Look at what we did."

He looks at the table. Then back at me. "What about it?"

"If we weren't doctors, we really could be lawyers. Look at this case. Every detail accounted for, every argument mapped, every loophole covered. We even found a corroborating witness. We built a timeline with financial documentation. We have cross-referenced testimonies." I shake my head. "We spent years competing against each other, and now, the first time we actually put both our brains on the same side?" I gesture at the table again. "This. This is what happens."

He leans back, then adjusts his glasses. "We are annoyingly good together."

"We're terrifying together. Miguel has no idea what's coming."

"You sound excited."

"I am excited," I say, and I realize I mean it. "I've been scared of this hearing for weeks. Dreading it, losing sleep over it, but right now, looking at this table, I'm not scared anymore. I'm actually looking forward to it." I pause. "So yes, maybe I am going a little crazy."

"I'd argue you've always been a little crazy."

"And I'd argue you liked that about me."

He doesn't deny it. He just looks at me with that quiet expression, and his eyes say everything. I hold his gaze, and I think, we did this. Together. And on Friday, we're going to finish it.

"Thank you," I say. "For everything." And everything means a lot. For helping me build this case. For finding Carmen. For sitting through four hours of me going through the worst years of my life and never once looking at me like I was a victim. "You didn't have to do any of this."

"You don't need to thank me."

"I want to. Let me."

He stands, then comes around the table until we're a few feet apart in his quiet apartment with the case files closed and the work done. There's nothing left to prepare. Nothing left to prove. Not tonight.

"You're going to be incredible in there," he says.

"You're just saying that because I pepper-sprayed you and you're afraid of me now."

He takes a step toward me. I take one toward him. My whole body is ringing.

He's looking at me. His glasses are off, left on the table somewhere, and without them, his gaze is direct and focused and warm enough that I can feel it on my skin.