Page 78 of Duty Devoted

“I’ve been back with Compass.” She changed tactics with characteristic grace. “Just finished six weeks in Alaska. Mobile clinics for remote villages. Brutal cold but incredible people.”

“That sounds perfect for you.”

“It was good. Challenging in different ways than Corazón.” She pulled out her phone, scrolling through photos. “Look at this—we set up a dental clinic in a community that hadn’t seen a dentist in two years. Did over one hundred extractions in three days.”

I looked at the images—Sophia in heavy winter gear, surrounded by smiling faces. The makeshift clinic. The grateful families. The work that mattered.

“I’m heading to Haiti next month,” she continued. “Six-month assignment doing surgical support in Port-au-Prince. The need there is overwhelming.”

“Of course it is.”

“Come with me.”

The offer landed between us, simple and impossible.

“Soph—”

“They need doctors. People with trauma experience. People who can work miracles with limited resources.” She leaned forward, intensity in every line. “People like you.”

Six months ago, I would have been mentally packing before she finished the sentence. Would have been calculating how quickly I could wrap up loose ends, which vaccines I’d need, whether my rusty Creole would come back with practice.

Now, the thought of leaving the safe, sterile bubble of Chicago made my chest tighten with panic.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m different now.” The words tumbled out, each one a small admission of defeat. “Because maybe Logan was right when he called me naive. Maybe my parents—and thatdamned hospital psychologist—were right that the medical missions were just my extended rebellion, playing at being noble while real life waited.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it.”

“Do I?” I pulled my hands back, wrapping them around my cooling mug. “I was so sure about everything. My purpose, my calling, my ability to read people and situations. But look where that certainty got us.”

“It got Miguel through emergency abdominal surgery. It got Lucia’s baby safely delivered on the brink of a hurricane. It got hundreds of people treatment they wouldn’t have received otherwise.”

“And it got Carlos killed.”

“No.” She reached across the table, but I pulled back. “A vicious man’s choice got Carlos killed. Not your dedication to your patients.”

“My dedication.” The words tasted like ash. “Was it really about the patients? Or was it about me feeling important? Feeling special? The great white savior bringing medicine to the masses?”

“Stop it.”

“Maybe I never understood myself at all. Maybe the work was just ego dressed up as altruism. Or me running to where I felt important because an ex-boyfriend called me fat.” We’d talked about that over our months working together too.

“Lauren, stop.” Her voice carried the authority of someone who’d seen me at my best and worst. “This isn’t you talking. This is trauma and grief and whatever that asshole Logan did to make you doubt yourself.”

“He saved my life. Multiple times.”

“And then he left you without a word. That’s its own kind of violence.”

As she spoke, that familiar sensation started at the base of my neck. The feeling of being watched. Observed. I glanced around the diner, trying to be casual. The businessman in the corner booth, absorbed in his laptop. The couple by the window, deep in whispered argument. The teenager at the counter, scrolling through his phone.

Anyone. No one. Everyone.

“You okay?”

I forced my attention back to Sophia. “Fine. Just…this has been happening more lately. Feeling like someone’s watching me. Following me, maybe.”