Page 38 of A Prescription to My Heart

Soren exhales. “Well. That’s done.”

Yes. It is.

So why does it feel like I’ve just done something I can’t take back?

Chapter 8

Soren

Twoweekslater

I tell myself nothing has changed.

That’s a lie.

Talia’s name is on my marriage certificate. My second one. I signed my life into something absurd and reckless. And now, I’m supposed to pretend it means nothing.

I should be able to. Except I can’t.

She’severywhere.

I make my pre-surgery rounds, reviewing charts, issuing orders, moving from one patient to the next with the same measured precision I always have. Routine.

But then I hear her laugh.

It carries down the hallway, light and warm, like sunlight slipping through half-closed blinds. I pause, my grip tightening around the chart in my hands.

I hear her laughter again, closer this time. My feet move before I can think.

Through the small glass window into a recovery room, I see Talia. She’s crouched beside a bed, eyes crinkled at the corners as she grins at one of the kids. The patient—a little girl named Ella—giggles, clutching a stuffed rabbit to her chest.

Talia adjusts Ella’s IV like she’s done it a hundred times. I know she has her movements practiced, smooth. But it’s the way shetalksto them. No rush, no clinical detachment. Just warmth. Presence.

I should keep moving. Instead, I watch.

Talia says something that makes the boy in the next bed snort with laughter. And suddenly the recovery room is less like a hospital and more like a safe place.

I turn away, jaw tight.

She’s doing her job. That’s all.

So why does it unsettle me?

***

I don’t do the cafeteria. I grab coffee when I have to, but I prefer my office. Less noise, fewer distractions.

And yet, somehow, I find myself here.

Talia’s at a table near the window, stirring a cup of tea, completely unaware of the way half the room watches her. Not because she’s beautiful—though she is.Not because she’s new either.

They stare because she’s present.

She listens when people talk. She doesn’t just nod along, waiting for her turn to speak. She meets eyes, engages, cares.

That unsettled feeling returns.

I turn, heading for the exit.

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