After our morning meeting, I reviewed the few patients I would actually be seeing today. The whole time, I’d been trying to shuck the memories of Hope from this morning. Doing my best to rid myself of the impression she’d left on me, this feeling that I’d stumbled upon something significant when I knew better.

I didn’t have time to allow myself to get wrapped up in someone, and if I spent any more time with her, I got the feeling that I just might.

I needed to focus on what was important.

Why I was there.

The reason I lived my life.

When I signed on at Gingham Lakes Children’s Center, I already understood the load I would be carrying.

The burden I was accepting.

My patients would run the gamut, almost a reverse referral system from specialists who wanted their patients seen in-house for continuity. From easily controlled chronic illnesses that families barely considered once they walked out these doors, to the kids whose entire worlds revolved around their diagnoses.

Some of these kids? They were sick. Really fucking sick.

Looking at the scope of cases I’d be seeing broke pieces inside of me I tried to pretend didn’t exist.

Quadriplegia.

Cystic fibrosis.

Cancer.

I knew this was where I’d been being called all along.

But what made me almost stumble in my damn tracks was my first patient.

My first patient.

Of course.

Life was only a test, right?

As hard as I tried to stop the onslaught of memories, it was no use. They were there.

Emergency room lights glared from overhead. Panic. Fear. Compression after compression after compression. That fucking flat line.

I swallowed it all down. Knew this wasn’t even close to being the same, but it didn’t mean every single goddamned time I was presented with a heart patient of any kind, I didn’t crumble a little.

The reminder that I’d failed.

That I’d never be the hero.

God knew that I got up every single day and tried anyway.

I took a second to get myself under control before I gave a couple small taps to the door then pushed it open.

Josiah Washington.

An eight-year-old with a congenital heart defect. The defect had been fairly simple to treat with a balloon stent procedure when he was an infant. The boy was living without symptoms and bi-yearly cardiology visits.

See.

Not even close.

I shut down the shudder that rattled in my ribcage and put on a smile, introduced myself to him and his father, and went through the typical questions of any patient establishing care.

By the time I was in the middle of his exam, I knew without a doubt that this was in fact what I was supposed to do.

The kid so cool. Laughing. Joking. Living the happy kind of life every kid deserved.

“Are you pulling my leg right now? I think you’re really just making this up because you were picturing yourself behind one of those wheels. Looks like we have a future race car driver here,” I told him as he sat there telling me about what he’d witnessed last week that had definitely made an impression on him.

Josiah howled with laughter, holding his stomach as he sat on the edge of the exam table. I was on a low, wheeled stool, sitting right in front of him, basically distracting him as I did his well-child examination.

Everything seemed normal.

Especially his heart, which I’d spent an inordinate amount of time listening to.

Wasn’t about to take any chances.

“Not even. You should have seen it. It was a Ferrari and a Maserati. Both of them floored it at the light, right here in Gingham Lakes. Who has cars like that around here, anyway? Swear, they had to be going at least one fifty. Maybe one sixty. Right, Dad?”

He looked up at his dad for validation. His dad was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, watching protectively over his kid. “You got it, son. Right on the other side of the river at the end of town. Would have called the cops myself had they not disappeared five seconds later. Heck, they probably would have already been crossing the Georgia line by the time I made the call.”

“Whew, they were faaa-ast,” Josiah emphasized with a whistle.

Chuckling, I stood and grabbed the scope so I could peer into his ears. “So what else is it you like to do around here besides for dreaming about racing cars, Mr. Josiah?”

“Me and my best friend, Evan, like to go fishin’ at the lake. Dr. Krane introduced us because we both have bad hearts.”

Mine twisted again. I shoved it down, refusing to go down that path, and continued smiling as I listened to the cute kid go on about his friend. “He goes to a different school, our moms always take us to each other’s houses, so it’s no big deal. And my mom and dad finally let me get Snap,” he said with an annoyed roll of his eyes. “So now we can send messages on our iPads.”

“You know not to accept any requests from anyone you don’t know, right?”

Yeah, I went there. Too many freaks out there to let that one slip by.

He sighed in exasperation. “Of course, I know. My mom told me like a million times.”

“She sounds pretty smart.”

“Yup. Best part about me and Evan?”

“What’s that?”

Josiah grinned. “I’m taller.”