Page 79 of Broken Dream

But as I finish the cut, I feel the weight of someone’s gaze. My stomach twists, and I know before I look that it’s him.

Jason is watching me from across the room, his expression unreadable, but his eyes—his eyes tell a different story. They linger on me for just a second too long before he turns back to his students, resuming his explanation as though nothing happened. As though the look wasn’t loaded with the same tension I’ve been trying to bury all week.

I exhale and grip the scalpel tighter as I move to the next layer of tissue.

I can’t afford to think about Jason. Not here, not now. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t ignore the way my body reacts to his presence, the way my heart races every time I catch him looking at me.

This is dangerous, and I know it.

But even as I force myself to make the next cut, I can’t help but wonder how much longer we can keep pretending nothing happened before the tension between us becomes impossible to hide.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Jason

I’ve been staying away from Angie and Tabitha’s table as much as I can. I don’t want to seem like I’m hovering.

Plus, I can’t show any favoritism.

Just being in the same room with Angie is difficult. All I want to do is touch her, run my fingers over her flesh, feel her heart beating next to mine.

She’s probably angry with me for leaving late in the night. And rightfully so.

But too much is going on in my life right now. I have a chance to become a surgeon again. To take back some of what life has taken from me.

While I’ll never get Lindsay or Julia back, perhaps I can at least get my livelihood. I was a talented surgeon—quickly becoming one of the best in the field.

And then?—

It all came crashing down.

For so long I didn’t care. I never wanted to wield the scalpel again. Because the accident cost me two things I valued more than my ability to cut into human flesh.

The grief never goes away. The loss is always with me.

But it does begin to hurt less.

I didn’t believe anyone at the time. I certainly never believed that idiot psychiatrist who promised me she could help Lindsay.

Day by day, I’ve learned to cope, to exist.

To exist in a world without Julia and Lindsay.

To exist in a world where I can no longer perform surgery.

Of course, that was all it was. Existing.

But now I have hope.

But I have something else as well.

Something I’m not keen to give up.

I’ve met a woman. A woman who speaks to me in ways I never imagined I could hear again.

A woman who is different from Lindsay.

But a woman who almost makes me believe I can feel again.