Second First Kiss

There, on the screen was—oh. She should have guessed it. “Hey, Hayden here.” He still had that weird cowlick in the front of his hair. “Hiya, Sage.” He shrugged one shoulder, almost like it was an apology. “Looks like you found someone who gets your love of medicine. Sorry it couldn’t be me.”

Found someone. Did he mean Jasher? Sage opened her mouth to probe this little mystery, but Hayden wasn’t to be paused.

“Turned out, I really had no interest in medicine. I should have known it from the start, but I guess it takes some people longer to figure out what their real passion is.” He aimed a thumb behind him, and the camera zoom panned outward, showing a large warehouse with signage reading Thurgood Explosives and Removal Services. “Turns out destruction was much more my thing than reconstruction of organs and whatnot.” He grinned. “I’m just glad I quit med school during the first year and didn’t waste any more of anyone’s time and money where I seriously did not belong.” A loud rumbling came from the background of his footage, and a puff of smoke rose above the warehouse. “It’s a great life, now that I’ve figured out what I love. And hey, Sage. I’m happy you found someone you can really love. You deserve it. I’m seeing someone, too. Fingers crossed for both of us, eh?”

The screen paused, with just a play icon remaining.

Jasher was quiet, as if to allow Sage to process what she’d just heard.

Which she was doing to the best of her ability.

“You found Kyle, Ivan, and Hayden.” She blinked a few times, like she was some old-timey computer with lights blinking as the data crunched. “And they’re all …”

“Happy,” he said softly.

“Yeah.” That was the salient point of the whole compilation. None of them blamed Sage for ruining their lives. The turns their lives took while she happened to be dating them were happy turns, in the long run. “Happy.” Not cursed.

Moreover, they seemed to barely connect Sage to those shifts in their lives.

Slowly, a laugh crept up from her chest. It vibrated her throat and came out her mouth. “I guess I thought I played a larger role in their lives than they seem to think I did.” She giggled, unable to stop herself, each little laugh releasing something long trapped inside her.

Jasher’s mouth turned up in a half-smile. “You’re not upset that I sleuthed out your ex-boyfriends?”

Upset? Not at all. “It appears the world does not revolve around me nearly as much as I had assumed.”

“Maybe their lives don’t, but by now you can probably tell mine does.”

The laughter died, and Sage sobered. “But the surgery the other day.”

Jasher shook his head. “You’ve got that all wrong.”

Sage pulled away. She stood up and started walking around the trunk of the tree and paused on the other side. Twilight was falling fast, casting the world in a purple shadow. Jasher met her on the other side of the tree, stopping her progress. She ached, struggling against the rising pain of truth.

“But that’s just it, Jasher, I don’t have it wrong. The coincidence is far too strong.”

Jasher smiled at her. “Coincidence, yes. Causation, yes.”

“So you believe me.”

“Yes, but not in the way you think.”

What did he mean? The look in his eyes was one of both compassion and longing. Maybe even love. No—it couldn’t be. “Jasher, please!”

“Sage, please.” He smiled. “It’s definitely because of you I couldn’t finish that operation. I was thinking of you and was decimated by trying to perform an operation without you by my side.” He looked down at their feet, and then up into her eyes, taking a step closer. His nearness warmed her. “You need to know something important about my skills as a surgeon.”

“Oh?”

“They have everything to do with you.”

“Um, I’m pretty sure they have to do with you, and the fact you studied hard and worked hard in medical school.”

“I was never the surgeon I am now until you stood beside me in the operating theater, Sage. Whatever power you have, it’s for my good. Just like you set those other men in a better direction—on the right, happy road for them, whether you believe it or not—you also set me on mine. And I do believe it.”

There was a new path for Jasher? “You’re changing paths?”

“Until I worked side by side with you, I had no idea what a thrill medicine could be. Healing people—the whole person, not just one tiny part of them like their knee—is the second greatest journey I could ever imagine. Your being there made me take extra hours in the hospital, made me try new surgery techniques, attempt diagnoses.”

“And you’re good at all of those things. You could do them in Reedsville, or anywhere you chose to go. You’re free if you let me buy the clinic. You could get away from here.”