My Boyfriend and Friends Stole My Heart Surgery Fund for Their Trip novel · Chapter 12 of 32

Chapter 12: After the Board

The board filed out one by one, and nobody looked at either of us.

The door clicked shut.

Lorcan stood at the end of the long table with both hands flat on the wood.

"Say it," I said.

"Vicky."

"Bree said nine years ago. A Tuesday, at three-nineteen. Say what she meant."

He did not look away, and I think that was the first thing that frightened me.

"Your mother came in with a torn valve," he said. "The attending on her case retired the next spring. I was twenty-nine. I was a fellow, and I assisted."

"You were in the room."

"I was in the room."

The air conditioner clicked on above us.

"What happened?"

"The repair failed on the table. We could not restart her heart."

"That's what they told me. A complication."

"It was a complication." His voice stayed flat, and his hands did not move. "It was also a decision. The attending took a shortcut with the clamp because the schedule was behind. I saw it. I said, once, quietly, that I didn't think it was right. He told me to hold the retractor."

"And you held it."

"I held it."

I could hear my own pulse in my ears.

"Then there was a review," he said. "The hospital sealed the record. I was asked whether I had any concerns. I said I had none."

"Why?"

"Because I was twenty-nine years old and I wanted to be a surgeon." He said it in the same plain voice. "That's the whole reason. I've had nine years to find a better one."

I sat down in the nearest chair, because my legs had left.

I looked at his hands on the table, the same hands that had held my wrist outside the bank.

"You saw my name on the schedule," I said.

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