Page 30 of The Love Operation

“Oh, and Cord?”

I pause at the door. “Hmm?”

She hesitates. Then, “Promise me you won’t revisit memories outside of what we do in the study.”

The ask hits hard. My stomach knots. “Why?”

“Because it’s outside the scope of the experiment. I need to isolate variables. If I’m going to figure out what’s happening to you, I need some kind of control.”

Her eyes are lit with more than clinical concern—there’s fear in them too. For me, for her, for the increase in risk this development brings.

I don’t remind her that I’m already an unofficial subject in an unsanctioned part of a trial. That the scope was blown wide open the second I became her off-the-books study participant.

Instead, I say, “Okay. I promise.”

At least . . . for now.

“I’ll see you after clinic,” I add, turning back to go.

“I mean it,” she calls. “Come as soon as you’re done.”

Clinic is a blur. Normally, I love patient interactions—solving puzzles, making people feel better, connecting. But today, I’m running on fumes, and my focus is fraying. My body’s here, but my brain keeps drifting, skimming over symptoms and surgical notes, always skittering toward one thought: I want to be inside a memory.

And every patient is a roadblock.

A man in his forties with severe spinal cord compression listens as I explain—for the third time—that he needs surgery. Not soon. Not eventually. Now.

He nods like he understands. And then: “I was thinking I might try a chiropractor first.”

I resist the very real urge to bang my head against the wall. Instead, I summon patience from a well I’m pretty sure is dry. “I have nothing against chiropractors,” I say. “But you are a sneeze away from being paralyzed. A chiropractor cannot fix this.”

He hesitates, still unsure. “What if I just—”

“No.” I don’t yell, but I do walk out. I send my surgery scheduler in behind me, like backup.

The next patient, a grandma in leather spandex leggings and a cherry-red tank top, looks like she’s on her way to audition for an ’80s rock revival band. She waves me off as soon as I try to hand her over to Dahlia, since she’s a med refill only.

“Sugar, just refill my meds,” she says. “And add some Valium. My grandsons are fraying my last nerve.”

Right before lunch, I want to scream—or dissolve. But then I walk into the next exam room, and everything stills.

A woman in her thirties sits with her hands clenched tightly in her lap. She’s two weeks post-op from a microdiscectomy. A single mom. She needs clearance to go back to work—early.

She knows the rules. No bending. No lifting. No twisting.

But she works in a warehouse. That is the job.

She’s not supposed to, but she’s going to. Because she has to.

Her voice trembles. “I . . . I already had to borrow rent money from my sister this month. I can’t ask again. I need to go back.” Tears gloss her eyes, but they don’t fall. She’s too tired. Or maybe too proud.

I stare at her chart, but I’m not really seeing it because I get it. My chest aches with something hot and helpless. This woman did everything right—followed instructions, showed up, healed. And it’s still not enough. The system wants more.

I want to scream again, but this time it’s not about me.

It’s for her.

I exhale through my nose, slow and sharp. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” I say, already writing. “I’m giving you a note for light duty—no lifting more than five pounds, no standing more than fifteen minutes at a time.”