Love between two heartbeats

eighs approximate

s to kick in before her hands would steady enough for sutures, that her father's tem

precision of a conductor leading a symphony. The patient-a forty-three-year-old male with a perforated bowel-lay

through the sterile air without l

me. "Irrigation and debridement of the peritoneal cavity, followed by pr

tissue is

emove the compromised section

ave been approval. Around the table, the other medical students shifted uncomfortably. Heav

en dissected problems with surgical precision. While they fumbled with patient interactions, she delivered n

behind, studying the suture lines with the intensity of someone reading sacred text.

om her younger brother Marcus: Dad's asking

r gloves, gown, and mask. In the hallway mirror, her reflection stared back-angular cheekbones sharp enough to cut

ly like what she

iagram labeled in handwriting so perfect it could have been printed. She closed it, secured it in her bag, and walked toward the hospital's main

d herself. But some days, hers felt heavy e

e was too short for uncomfortable shoes, bit

e found himself balanced precariously on the back of a bench in the hospital's main lobby, tr

udents who had stopped to watch the spectacle-"in my defense, I was ai

ggested the blonde nursing student, whose name tag read '

ward the offending airplane. "Anyone can throw away trash. It

surface. For a moment that felt suspended in amber, Draven Callahan-heir to a pharmaceutical empire, future doct

d specta

found himself sprawled on the marble floor, the paper airplane clutched triumphantly in his fist, his dark hair falling acros

hing the kind of grin that had gotten him out of tr

r expressions ranging from amused to exasperated. Draven leveraged himself to his feet with the fluid grace of

nce, "for my next trick, I'll actually manage to throw some

ardson, the chief of internal medicine, stood in the lobby entrance with the expression of a man who had jus

hat was all charm and zero apology. "I was just providing some impromptu enter

require me to visit confession afterward." Dr. Richardson

bank. As he walked, he could feel the weight of his last name like a stone in his chest. Callahan

ture about "appropriate behavior befitting our family's position." His mother would have reminded him

ital, Draven felt something his parents' carefully orchestrated world ha

limpse of his reflection in the polished steel-hair disheveled from his dramatic

tly like what

weeks, that felt like exac

d him, the hospital lobby slowly returned to its normal rhythm, but the

even spectacular failures