Her heart had stopped for almost a full minute before we got a rhythm back, and there would be questions later about how close we had come.

But she was alive.

I placed the patch on a sterile tray, sealed it, labeled it, and gave an order I have given perhaps three times in my career: that no one — no one — was to touch it.

Because I already understood that it was not a medical finding.

It was evidence.

And I understood something else, sealing that tray, that took me a moment to fully absorb: that if I was right, then I was not only Jessi’s physician that night.

I was the only friend she had left.