Page 12 of Careless Whisper

Elias obviously knew that, which was probably why he’d done what he had.

God, how he must hate me to do this to meagain? Did he really believe I was a threat to the life of a patient?

“Shrug it off, Reggie, and get to work,” Cindy advised. “I’ll make sure you stay clear of him until he cools down because if he keeps at it”—she let out a long sigh—“we will have no choice.”

I gave her a tight smile. “I understand.”

“No more screw-ups, Reggie.”

I swallowed. She’d never said this to me. No one had at Harper Memorial. Elias had been here less than a month, and I was getting officially written up, my boss was saying that I should stop making mistakes.

“I understand,” I repeated, but I didn’t.

Everyone knew that the mistake I made in the OR was one everyone made—it happened so often that there were protocols for it, and yet…

I went to the nurse’s station, trying to keep my face blank and my posture steady, like a fault line hadn’t just split open inside me.

Luther, another nurse and a friend, pulled me aside almost immediately. “What the fuck is goin’ on?”

I shrugged, not wanting to get into the tragedy of my life since Elias came to Harper Memorial.

“You’ve just been taken off all surgical cases.”

I stared at him, incredulous. “What?”

He nodded grimly. “It’s on the schedule. You’ve been pulled from the next three weeks of rotations. And the new assignments you’d usually be on are all going to Delaney.”

Delaney was pushy but competent. However, she wasn’t me. She didn’t have the same experience. She’d never scrubbed into a Bentall or assisted with a triple bypass at two a.m. on a coding patient.I had.

This was deliberate and surgical. This was Elias punishing me for sins I never committed.

“It’s what it is,” I prevaricated.

“You’re being sidelined, Reggie,” he unnecessarily explained my fucked-up situation to me.

“It’s just a bump on the road,” I lied, the words tasting like rust.

“Is this about the sterile field thing?” Luther asked, incredulous. “That’s—Reggie, come on. That’s like Code Blue 101. Everyone slips. You corrected it before anything was compromised.”

“Dr. Graham was right that it took me longer than it should have.”

I wasn’t going to bad mouth an attending,ever, not in the hospital where there were too many ears. It was one thing for me to be honest with Cindy in a closed room but never out in the open.

Luther let out a breath and ran a hand over his close-cropped hair. “I’m sorry, Reggie.”

I squared my shoulders. “It’s fine.”

He looked at me like I was nuts. “No, it’s not.”

But it had to be because there wasn’t much I could do about the situation. Once a surgeon like Elias decided you were a liability, no amount of experience, good standing, or quiet excellence mattered.

“Have you ever known me not to be fine?” I changed my tune and broke into a smile that didn’t quite reach my eyes or my heart.

Luther bought it. “You always fall on your feet, Nurse Reggie.”

“Exactly.” I patted his shoulder and escaped, happy that I was off duty.

I’d go to the gym and see if I could exhaust myself to release this awful knot inside of me.

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