Triage

Maren Liu is a first-year surgical resident who hasn't slept more than four hours since July. Dr. Owen Vaughan is the attending who has signed every one of her charts. Fifty-one. Exact. Unreachable. The night Maren catches a bleed six other doctors missed, Owen starts watching her the way he watches a monitor — constantly, without expression, waiting for the rhythm to change. Eleven months in a supply closet. No dates. No dinners. No name for it. Then a complaint is filed, and Maren is subpoenaed as a witness. She can protect him with a lie, or protect herself with the truth. She tells the truth. He loses everything but his license, and lets her go. Six months later, one patient dies on her table — not her fault, but hers — and the only person she calls is the man she was never supposed to love. He answers on the first ring.