Page 5 of Broken Dream (Steel Legends #3)

Chapter Four

Jason

Angie turns and walks out of the room.

Yeah, my bad.

I shouldn’t have made that snide remark about psychiatry. This woman obviously has a calling, and who am I to try to change her attitude?

Just because psychiatry didn’t work for me doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for millions of others.

She mentioned an aunt of hers.

For a moment I think of calling her back in, getting the name of her aunt, looking into her work.

Then I realize something.

I don’t give a rat’s ass who her aunt is or what she may have accomplished in her life as a psychiatrist.

I’m simply looking for excuses to pull Angie back into the room with me.

God, she’s fucking beautiful. A classic beauty, with nearly perfect features—large and long-lashed eyes, high cheekbones, full pink lips. Her figure…

Long luscious legs, broad shoulders, succulent tits.

Her nipples were showing through her T-shirt.

Every guy in the room noticed.

I didn’t like them looking at her.

But I’m a teacher. I’m her teacher. Trying anything with her would be unethical.

Besides, she can’t even be twenty-five years old.

And she’s probably younger, if she went straight from college to med school.

That would make her only twenty-two or twenty-three—at least a twelve-year age gap between us.

Plus… She stands for everything I hate about medicine. Psychiatry.

Psychiatry fucked me over. Cost me a lot more than anyone knows.

I clench my fist around the pen in my hand, a futile attempt to control the storm inside me. It snaps in half, blue ink splattering across my hand and the desk.

Shit.

I grab a tissue to clean up the mess.

I look up. The door to the classroom is still ajar. I watch Angie retreat, her brown ponytail swaying against the small of her back, until she disappears from view. It somehow feels like losing a part of me—a part I didn’t even know existed until today.

The silence in the room is overwhelming, each tick of the clock on the wall echoing in my ears.

Hmm.

Angie’s voice clouds my mind. Her words. About psychiatry being important, about it being a way to heal people. Even though I know she’s wrong about it in my case, maybe she’s right overall. Maybe I’m being too harsh.

Until an image slams back into my head.

My own experience with psychiatry, the countless sessions spent on a leather couch, dissecting my dreams and fears, only to be left more confused and lost than before. The constant popping of pills that dulled my senses but never soothed my soul. And the loss…

No, psychiatry didn’t help me.

It only made things worse.

I rub my forehead with my ink-stained hand, hoping to ease the headache that’s beginning to pulse in my temples.

Angie’s face flashes in my mind once more—her eyes filled with conviction, her lips curved into a defiant smile. I can’t help but feel drawn to her. Something about her passion for psychiatry captivates me, regardless of my own contempt for it.

As much as I hate to admit it, Angie has sparked something in me.

Something I haven’t felt in a long time.

I sigh, leaning back in my chair and massaging my temples. The headache is only getting worse, but there’s a part of me that likes the pain. It’s an annoying throb that just feels real.

Teaching anatomy lab was certainly never my calling.

But it’s what I’m stuck with now.

A surgeon who can’t cut.

A surgeon who can’t cut is like a bird that can’t fly, a fish that can’t swim. It’s a paradox, an anomaly. I let out a bitter laugh.

I open the box and stare at my scalpel—a memento from an era when I had the power to heal with my hands. I close my eyes and remember the OR. The metallic smell of blood, the steady beep of the heart monitor, and the adrenaline rush that came with every cut.

Then a knock on the cracked door.

I snap my eyes open.

Standing in the doorway is Angie, her face flushed from what must have been a hurried walk back to the classroom.

“I forgot something,” she says softly, avoiding eye contact. She walks over to her desk and picks up a small notebook.

“Angie,” I begin, unsure of what to say next.

My mind is a whirlpool of thoughts and emotions that threaten to swallow me whole. Something about this woman pulls at a thread inside me and threatens to unravel the tightly woven defense I’ve built over the past years.

She pauses, her hand still clutching the notebook. “Yes?” Her voice is light, but there’s a slight tremor in it.

I won’t read anything into it. She’s embarrassed. That’s all. She left her notebook, and I’m her professor.

I want to apologize for my insensitivity regarding her chosen field. But the words don’t come.

Instead, I settle on, “You left quite an impression today.”

She turns to face me, her eyebrows furrowed. “Do you mean that in a good way or a bad way?”

“The jury’s still out on that,” I reply, leaning back into my chair.

“Oh,” she says softly, her face falling.

Silence stretches on uncomfortably long.

Until I can’t help myself.

I stand, close the distance between us, pull her to me, and crush my lips to hers.

The world around us seems to fade as I lose myself in the taste and feel of her. Her lips are surprisingly soft. They melt against mine with a slight hesitation.

But only slight.

Within a few seconds, she’s kissing me back with a fiery passion. She wraps an arm around my neck.

Heat rushes through my veins, burning away the icy wall I’ve built around myself. My heart hammers.

How long has it been since I felt this alive?

I inhale. She smells of something sweet. Apples. Blossoms. Simply Angie.

I’m dizzy with longing.

But as quickly as the kiss started, reality comes crashing down.

What the hell am I doing?

I pull away from her and break the kiss.

Her cheeks are flushed, and she’s breathing just as heavily as I am.

“Oh, God,” she whispers, her eyes wide and stunned as she takes a step back and shakes her head. “We… We shouldn’t have done that.”

“I know.” My words come out in a rough rasp.

My stomach is knotted with guilt.

But damn…

Her taste lingers on my lips. I reach up to touch my mouth.

She looks at me, her eyes wide and confused, the notebook clutched in her hand. She takes a deep breath, composes herself, and without another word, she turns and marches out of the room.

What the fuck have I done?

Three years earlier…

“Jay,” Lindsay yells to me, “don’t forget the frog!”

Of course. Julia just turned three, and Lindsay’s mother got her this ridiculous stuffed frog. She takes it everywhere. Calls it Fwoggie.

“Where’s Fwoggie, sweetie?” I ask my daughter, holding her on one hip.

She points.

I follow her finger and find Fwoggie stuffed underneath a pillow on the couch. Julia’s not a big talker yet, but she’s the most observant kid in the universe. She knows where she leaves everything.

I grab the frog. “Daddy’s got a big surgery, and he’s going to be late.” I push the frog into Julia’s hands. “Let’s go, sweetheart.”

“Love you!” I call to Lindsay.

“Love you both!” she calls back.

And I’m out the door, where I quickly secure Julia in her car seat and start my SUV. It’s raining. Ugh. People around here don’t know how to drive in the rain.

Lindsay is a teacher, and she has parent-teacher conferences today. Julia stays at the daycare center at my hospital most days, but today I’m taking her to Lindsay’s mother’s house for a day with Grandma.

She’ll probably give her another ridiculous stuffed animal.

My high-risk Whipple procedure is scheduled for nine o’clock sharp, but traffic is a mess, and I’m so not in the mood.

I go over the steps of the Whipple in my head.

First, the incision—a deep cut across the abdomen, which gives me full access to the pancreas and the surrounding structures. I pull the edges apart gently. The head of the pancreas comes into view.

I begin by separating the head of the pancreas from the nearby tissues.

I visualize each connection—vessels, ducts, and nerves that must be delicately severed, each one carrying life to and from these organs.

Next, I move to the duodenum, where I divide and remove a portion.

The bile duct is next, disconnected from the pancreas so it can be rerouted later.

I work meticulously, envisioning the margins, making sure every section is clean and free of any tumor cells. It’s a slow, deliberate process, moving piece by piece, unraveling the?—

The tires skid.

Hands tight on the wheel.

Too tight.

Can’t stop.

Can’t steer.

Rain streaking the windshield, blurring the road.

Brake.

Why isn’t it stopping?

The car spins. My heart pounds, slamming against my ribs.

Everything moves in slow motion but too fast.

Control slipping.

Can feel it slipping.

This is real. This is happening.

Impact coming. Can’t stop it.

I brace. Muscles locked. Shoulders tense.

Hold on. Just hold on.

Flashes. The crunch of metal. Shattering glass. The scream of something breaking—inside or outside, I can’t tell. Body jolting. Air forced from my lungs.

Is this it?

Julia! Julia!

My mind screams a thousand things, but only one thing really matters.

Julia!