Page 13 of Crossing the Line (Phoenix Ridge Medical #6)

HARPER

H arper's apartment felt like a disaster zone when she finally dragged herself through the door at six-fifteen.

The boxes that had seemed full of possibility yesterday now looked like evidence of her own stupidity, like cardboard containers holding the remnants of a life she'd systematically destroyed in one weekend of spectacular poor judgment.

She dropped her medical bag beside the door and stood in the center of the chaos, still wearing her pristine white coat that felt more like a costume than professional attire.

The silence pressed against her eardrums after twelve hours of hospital noise: monitors beeping, pages crackling overhead, the controlled chaos of medical professionals who belonged exactly where they were.

Unlike her.

Harper pulled off the white coat and hung it carefully on the back of a chair, as if treating it with respect could somehow undo the disaster of wearing it.

The fabric still carried the antiseptic smell of the hospital, but now it felt contaminated with her own deception rather than purified by medical purpose.

Her phone buzzed against the kitchen counter. A text from Alice Knight, one of her fellow interns: “ Drinks at Murphy's? Piper and I are comparing war stories from our first day. You looked like you needed a drink during lunch.”

Harper stared at the message until the screen went dark.

Alice and Piper Barrett had been friendly during orientation, the kind of eager, accomplished women Harper recognized as her natural peer group.

They'd probably spend the evening analyzing their supervising physicians, sharing amusing anecdotes about hospital politics, and bonding over the universal experience of being new surgical interns.

All things Harper desperately wanted and couldn't have.

She typed back: “ Rain check? Exhausted and need to prep for tomorrow.”

The lie came as easily as breathing. Harper was becoming a virtuoso of small deceptions, each one building on the foundation of the massive lie that had started this whole disaster.

Her reflection in the bathroom mirror looked like a stranger wearing her face.

The professional makeup she'd applied with such care this morning was still intact, but her eyes held a hollowness that cosmetics couldn't cover.

She looked like someone who'd spent the day pretending to be someone else while watching the person she actually wanted to be slip further out of reach.

Under the scalding shower spray, Harper finally allowed herself to replay the worst moments of the day: Carmen's face when she'd seen Harper in the surgical prep area, that flash of something raw and wounded before professional composure snapped into place like armor, the careful way Carmen had addressed her as "Ms. Langston" that created formal distance where there had been breathless intimacy just three nights ago.

"Dr. Méndez," Harper whispered to the shower tiles, testing how the formal address felt on her tongue. The words felt foreign and wrong.

The worst part wasn't Carmen's anger or disappointment.

It was the professional courtesy and the way Carmen had explained surgical procedures during the observation session with perfect clinical detachment, as if Harper were just another intern rather than the woman who'd made her laugh in the darkness and traced patterns on her bare skin.

Harper dressed in comfortable clothes: soft jeans and a sweater that made her feel like herself.

Outside her window, Phoenix Ridge was settling into evening routines.

Normal people having normal problems, none of them facing eight weeks of forced professional interaction with someone they'd lied to, slept with, and abandoned without explanation.

She opened her laptop and stared at the blank screen for twenty minutes before closing it again.

She'd planned to research cardiac surgical techniques, but she couldn't focus on anything except the growing certainty that she needed advice from someone who might understand the complexity of her situation.

Someone who might have wisdom about love and lies and the mess she'd made of both.

Her phone buzzed again. Another text from Alice: “ We're here if you change your mind. Piper says the trauma attending made her cry twice today.”

Harper smiled despite herself. If Dr. Parker had made Piper cry, maybe Harper's disaster wasn't the worst first day in medical history. But she still couldn't join them. She couldn't pretend to be normal when her world had tilted so far off its axis that she wasn't sure which way was up anymore.

Twenty minutes later, Harper found herself walking through Phoenix Ridge's winding streets as evening settled over the city.

The familiar route to Lavender's felt different tonight—less like adventure, more like seeking safety.

The harbor fog was rolling in early, wrapping the edges of buildings in soft white silence that made the rest of the world feel distant and muffled.

She passed couples walking hand-in-hand, their easy intimacy a reminder of what she'd lost before she'd even understood what she'd found.

A woman helping her partner navigate the uneven cobblestones, their movements synchronized without thought.

Two women at a coffee shop window, heads bent together over a shared tablet, one absently stroking the other's hair.

This was what she'd been searching for without knowing it had a name: a place where being herself didn't require justification or performance and where love was as ordinary as breathing.

But Harper had turned love into just another lie, and now she didn't know how to find her way back to anything real.

The purple door of Lavender's glowed warmly, spilling golden light onto the cobblestone street. Through the large windows, Harper could see the community she'd only glimpsed on Friday night.

Harper stood on the sidewalk, hand poised over the purple door handle, and felt the weight of choice.

She could turn around, go home, spend the evening researching cardiac procedures and preparing for tomorrow's performance as the competent intern.

Or she could open this door and seek guidance from the one person who'd shown her genuine warmth without asking for anything in return.

The laughter from inside reached her through the glass, warm and inviting and completely without judgment. Harper took a breath that tasted like salt air and hope, and pushed open the purple door.

She needed advice about impossible situations and the kind of mistakes that felt too big to fix.

She needed Lavender.

Harper had barely stepped inside when she heard familiar laughter from the corner table near the window. Alice Knight's distinctive voice carried over the ambient conversation, animated in the way that meant she was deep into storytelling mode.

"Oh my god, Harper!" Alice looked up from her wine glass, face bright with surprise and wine-induced enthusiasm. "I thought you were dead to the world tonight."

Piper Barrett waved her over with a grin. "We abandoned Murphy's after an hour. Too loud, terrible wine, and way too many finance bros. Alice remembered this place from orientation week."

Harper felt a flutter of panic mixed with relief. Of course they'd ended up here. Lavender's was exactly where thoughtful, progressive medical professionals would migrate after discovering Murphy's wasn't their scene.

"Change of heart about prep work?" Alice asked as Harper approached their table. "Or did you decide you needed alcohol more than studying and research?"

"Something like that." Harper slid into the empty chair, grateful for the dim lighting that might hide whatever her face was doing. "How long have you been here?"

"About twenty minutes. Long enough to establish that Piper's supervisor is a nightmare and mine thinks I'm twelve years old." Alice signaled toward the bar. "Lavender—that's the owner—makes incredible recommendations. Very motherly in the best possible way."

Harper's chest tightened slightly. She'd been hoping for private time with Lavender, but now she'd have to navigate around her colleagues. "What did you think of your first day? Overall?"

"Terrifying and exhilarating," Piper said immediately. "Dr. Parker is incredible but intense. I definitely cried in a supply closet, but I also got to assist with an actual trauma repair. You?"

Harper took a careful sip of the wine Alice had ordered for her, buying time to construct an appropriate response. "Dr. Méndez is...very accomplished. The cardiac surgery observation was incredible."

"Méndez…that's the one your mom recommended, right?" Alice leaned forward with interest. "You're so lucky. I heard she's one of the best cardiac surgeons on the West Coast."

"She has a reputation for excellence," Harper said carefully. True enough, though it skirted the complexity of her actual situation.

"Did you get to interact with her much, or was it mostly observation?" Piper asked.

"Some of both. She's very thorough in her explanations." Harper felt like she was performing surgery with mittens on. Every word had to be precise, sterile, and empty of the emotional weight that made normal conversation possible.

"I'm so jealous," Alice said. "My attending barely acknowledged I existed except to critique my suturing technique. What's she like as a person? Professional but approachable, or more of the intimidating genius type?"

Harper's mind flashed to Carmen's laugh in the darkness, the way she'd looked when she admitted she was lonely, the soft vulnerability in her voice when she'd talked about her grandmother's piano.

Then she remembered this morning's clinical detachment and the careful way Carmen had maintained professional distance while teaching surgical techniques.

"Professional," Harper said finally. "Very focused on surgical excellence."

Alice and Piper exchanged a look that Harper couldn't quite read.