Free Pressure (Valley Hospital Series Book 1) by Lillian Bryant

worked for my whole goddamn life.”
    She gasps and a tear falls from her eye. “W-what?” She stutters as her lips begin to quiver. I want to still them with mine, but I can’t. “The trauma?”
    I nod.
    “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have come to your work, but that doesn’t mean—”
    “I’m fucking suspended for a week, Bailey. A goddamn week.” My tone is harsh, and her tears start to fall harder. I want to tell her that I’m just being crazy, that I need her in every capacity. But that rapid beat of my heart is a reminder of what she does to me, and as my mind clears, I can see straight again, so I make my choice.
    “This isn’t what I want in my life right now. You make me feel…you make me feel—”
    “Just fucking spit it out, Cole.”
    “You make me feel, and I can’t afford that. I deal with life and death every day. I can’t afford the heat you’ve poured into my veins. When you’re around, when you’re not, it controls me. You make it hard to think, breathe, sleep, eat. It’s not right.”
    She steps toward me, and I take a step back. “But it is. How can it not be? It’s not wrong to feel… it’s not wrong to want… it’s not wrong to love.” Her voice cracks on the last word.
    “I don’t love you, Bailey.” The truth is, I don’t know what I’m feeling. She makes everything chaotic, and I can’t tell if I want to fuck her or marry her. Even though she’s everything I need. What I need will ruin everything I’ve worked so hard for.
    “Then leave.” Her fingertips wipe the tears from under her eyes. I don’t move. In that second, I almost change my mind. Her heart is breaking in front of me, my hand the hammer, but this is what needs to happen.
    She’s poison.
    “Fucking leave!” She screams and the sound of her broken voice about does me in. Her chest is heaving, and her eyes are spilling over with tears. “Just leave.” She whispers in a plea and her gaze drops to the floor. I do as she asks, and once I’m in the hallway, nothing but a solid wall separating her from me… I linger. Remembering this… remembering how I broke this girl.
    I let this memory bleed into my retinas so I’ll never let this happen again.

 
    The morning sun is just poking above the top of the mountains as I walk out of the hospital doors after my shift. Last night was one of the worst nights I’ve worked at Valley. I had three mothers hemorrhage and a baby that tanked and ended up in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. All my patients survived, thank God, but I’m just so tired I can’t even care about anything right now. I’m numb. It’s how I’ve been since Cole left. I avoid everything about him; every place we ever went together is off my radar. It’s been a month and I’m still feeling cut open, and every time I see the fine, thin scar on my inner thigh, I cry. I fucking cry because no matter how hard I try, I can’t stop myself from thinking about him, caring about him, wanting him.
    It’s like he never existed, like those perfect few months were just a fantasy that I made up in my head. Trace and Becca have pretty much given up on me. I never really leave my apartment because something inevitably reminds me of him, and then my chest gets tight and my throat starts to hurt from holding back the tears that I know shouldn’t still be falling. I’ve picked up extra shifts to try to keep my mind off him. But when I leave, I have to walk past the ER, and I pray to the God of love-sick women that I never run into him. I’m pretty sure they’d have to call a Code Blue on me. Okay, that’s a bit dramatic, but really it’s been hard. I’m pretty sure my wine supply is at an all-time low, and my Blu-Ray player is starting to hate Mr. Darcy.
    The sliding electronic doors of the ER open, and I hide behind a tree. I’m being stupid, it’s probably just a patient, but then I hear it… and I freeze. Cole’s voice echoes in the ambulance bay and makes my stomach churn. The