all, you know?”
He smiled, and she followed him to the operating room. There, a nurse helped her into scrubs and she meticulously cleaned her hands. After two pairs of gloves, Isabella was ready to watch.
She watched in awe as James helped another surgeon carefully make incisions in the patient’s abdomen. He worked with perfect precision, like a robot programmed to understand every delicate feature of the human body.
His face was mostly covered by his mask, but his eyes showed great intensity and focus. It was evident that he lived for this—to go inside the human body and solve any problems that he may encounter. To him, surgery was no different than taking apart a computer and putting it back together to make it run more efficiently. The body was a machine that he had the skills to improve.
“There’s balloon number four,” James announced, plopping a rubbery mass in the tray. “One more to go. Dr. Carter, will you come forward, please?”
Isabella looked around like there was another Dr. Carter that he was referring to.
“Dr. Carter?” he asked again.
She stepped forward from where she was observing until she was within arm’s reach of the patient.
He looked her directly in the eyes. Their faces were so close that she could smell his hair product from underneath his scrub cap.
“I need you to reach into the bowel there and carefully grab that last balloon.”
“Really?”
“Would you rather I find another intern to do it?”
“No, no, I’ll do it.”
“Good. Careful, now. You don’t want to break it.”
Isabella inserted her hand into the patient’s open cavity. It was a rush. She had sliced cadavers to no end in med school, but being inside a real, living human was so exciting. She felt around until she found the foreign object and slowly pulled it out.
“Excellent work,” James said gently.
“You can take it from here, Dr. Johnson,” the other masked surgeon said, returning to the scrub room.
There were nurses and anesthetists around, but to Isabella, it felt like she and James were the only two people in the room.
“Now, all we have to do is close him up,” James said.
She watched him with great intensity as he closed the body with graceful precision.
“So, how was your first surgery?” he asked without looking up from his work.
“Amazing,” she gushed. “It was truly incredible.”
“I’m glad you had fun. The best surgeons still have that spark, even during the most routine procedures.”
He handed his instruments over to Isabella. “Want to finish up? I know this is about all you guys are allowed to do, but all the practice really helps.”
She took them in her gloved hands, expertly stitching the tissues back together. She had spent more free time than she would care to admit practicing.
“You’re a pro,” James noted. “Don’t let that go to your head,” he added quickly. “You still have much to learn.”
Isabella hid a shy smile under her mask. When she finished, she handed the instruments back over to James, brushing her hands against his. A jolt of electricity shot through her stomach.
“It’s about time for you interns to leave,” he said, looking up at the clock. “What do you have planned for your weekend?”
“The group is going to a bar tonight, and then I’m just going to study for the rest of the weekend.”
“Try not to have too much fun tonight,” he said.
“I’ll be in bed by midnight,” she said coyly.
On the drive home from this hospital, Isabella felt buzzed. Not only did she get to take part in a surgery, something that no other intern had done yet, but her attending complimented her on her work. Once home, she took a quick shower, applied a light coat of makeup, put on a blouse and skirt she never seemed to have an occasion to wear, and drove to the bar to meet her colleagues.
She found the group of them sitting around a table, two dripping pitchers of beer halfway gone.
One of the interns, Justin, slid an empty