Page 101 of Caught Up In You

And it served me well. It meant I made it to state champs in baseball, then snagged the valedictorian spot. It got me through college, then med school, then residency.

Until the day I wasn’t as good as I needed to be.

And somebody died.

I know Eden will be fine.

Iknowit.

But my body doesn’t.

My body is back in that emergency room three years ago, listening to a mother wail. My body is in a hospital conference room, answering questions about all the choices I made that led to Dylan Anders’s death. My body is sitting across from the chief, hearing her tell me I needed to seek treatment or take a leave of absence.

And I did. I did the therapy. I took the risk management classes. I finished my residency.

I followed the rules, and I succeeded.

And I vowed never to make that kind of mistake again.

Never to let my guard down again.

Never to get distracted again.

I know what I have to do if I want to be the best possible doctor. I know what I need to do to take care of the people I love.

And I love Wyatt. I know that for sure.

But I can’t love her the way she deserves. I can’t do it all. I just can’t.

Back in residency, my therapist told me that I had to learn to notice when I was juggling too many balls. When that happened, I needed to figure out which balls were glass and which balls were plastic. It was okay to let plastic balls drop. They wouldn’tbreak. She told me to focus on juggling the glass balls and pick up the plastic ones when I had space and time again.

Dylan Anders was a glass ball.

My ability to practice medicine? The thinnest glass. I have to focus on that first.

But Wyatt?

Wyatt is the finest crystal.

And she doesn’t deserve to be juggled at all. Even knowing how careful I need to be with her, I still risk dropping her.

Shattering her.

All I can do now is set her down gently.

The knock at my door is soft, but it may as well be a gunshot for how I jump at the sound.

And standing on my doorstep is the most precious person in my life. The person I would do anything to protect.

“Why didn’t you use the key?” I ask, thinking back to all those nights she slipped into my bed, molding herself around my sleeping body. I can already tell I’m going to be holding those memories close, revisiting them often.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d be here,” she says. She sounds like she’s trying to cajole a frightened dog out from behind a dumpster. There’s a little line etched deep between her eyebrows. She’s trying to take care of me. I’m just one more person in a long line of people Wyatt has stepped up and tried to take care of. “You left without saying anything.”

Right. Just another way my scrambled brain has hurt her.

I hold the door open, and she comes in.

“Sorry,” I say, following her into the living room. “I figured you’d want to stay with Hazel and Eden.”

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