I walked the familiar hospital corridors toward Dr. Marcus Avery’s office, the antiseptic smell usually a comfort, now sharp and alien. Julian’s words from the physician’s lounge still burned: the veiled threat about my past, the casual dismissal of Leo’s life.
Marcus, our residency friend, was a steady hand. He’d understand.
I found his door ajar. Inside, Marcus sat hunched over a microscope, his usually jovial face tight. A half-eaten bagel lay beside his elbow, forgotten.
“Marcus?” I said, stepping in.
He looked up, startled, his eyes wide. A flicker of something crossed his face—pity, maybe, or discomfort.
“Maya. I didn’t hear you come in.” He pushed his chair back, slowly.
“I need to talk to you about Leo Bennett’s heart allocation,” I began, moving toward his desk. “Julian… he manually overrode the UNOS registry. He moved Leo down the list for some other kid.”
Marcus held up a hand, stopping me mid-sentence.
“Maya, slow down.” His voice was soft, too soft. “I just got out of the review committee meeting.”
My stomach dropped. Julian had already moved.
“What meeting?” I asked, a cold dread spreading through my chest.
Marcus sighed, running a hand over his close-cropped hair. “Julian called an emergency session this morning. He expressed… concern.”
“Concern about what?” The phrase felt hollow, manipulative.
“He said you’ve been under extreme stress lately,” Marcus explained, his gaze avoiding mine. “He told us about your history, your time in foster care. About losing your sibling, you know… during that period.”
My jaw tightened. Julian had twisted my past, my vulnerabilities, into a weapon.
“He thinks you’re having a trauma-induced burnout,” Marcus continued, picking up a pen and fiddling with it. “That you’re projecting your own childhood grief onto Leo’s case.”
“Projecting?” My voice came out a strained whisper. “He stole a heart from a seven-year-old boy!”
“He presented a compelling case, Maya,” Marcus said, finally meeting my eyes, his own filled with genuine worry. “He talked about your intensity, your singular focus on Leo, almost to the exclusion of other patients. He said it was a pattern he’d noticed developing for months.”
Julian had been laying the groundwork, subtly, for weeks.
“He said it’s a common psychological reaction,” Marcus insisted, leaning forward. “That it’s impacting your judgment, making you see things that aren’t there.”
A knot formed in my throat. This wasn’t just a threat anymore. This was a full-scale character assassination.
“He told you I was delusional?” I asked, my voice flat.
Marcus shifted uncomfortably. “He said you were experiencing paranoid delusions tied to your unresolved childhood trauma. That you needed to step back for a while.”
He looked at me, a deep crease forming between his brows. “Maya, he’s genuinely worried about you. We all are.”
“You believe him?” I stared at him, unable to grasp the betrayal.
Marcus hesitated, then nodded slowly. “It sounds… plausible. The committee agreed.”
“And Leo?” I demanded, my hands clenching at my sides. “What about Leo Bennett, who has less than 24 hours until cold ischemia limits expire for that heart?”
Marcus looked down at the bagel, then back at me. “Julian assured the committee that the new recipient is a compatible match. He said it was an automated system calculation, a complex algorithm beyond our immediate understanding.”
He repeated the lie Julian had initially fed me, word for word.
“So you’re just going to let this happen?” I felt a surge of pure disbelief.
Marcus stood up, his posture stiff. “The committee’s recommendation, which Julian seconded, is that you take a leave of absence, effective immediately. For your own well-being, Maya.”
He reached for a small, laminated badge on his desk.
“You need to step away from the surgical line,” he said, holding out a temporary badge that was conspicuously missing several access codes. “Just for a little while.”
My hands felt numb as I took the badge. The weight of it, light as it was, pressed down on me like an anvil. Julian hadn’t just moved; he’d barricaded the entire department against me.
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