She watches me, eyes shining, waiting.
But I turn around and walk out. Every instinct in me screams that it’s wrong and that I should go back. I should sit beside her, and I should let myself be human for once instead of competent.
But I keep walking. I know what it will cost me. I also know it’s the only choice I’m capable of making right now.
The rest of the day passes in a blur. I move through it like muscle memory, my body doing what it’s been trained to do while my mind stays carefully locked away from everything else.
This is why I don’t do relationships—because they don’t stay contained.
They bleed into the work. Into the moments where clarity matters. Into the spaces where hesitation can cost lives.
I can’t afford that.
So, I keep my head down and refuse to make eye contact with anyone but my patients for the rest of the day … including Melissa. She knows it’s intentional.
That night, I sit alone in my apartment, lights off, city glowing outside the windows. I replay the moment in the locker room over and over again, each time feeling the weight of what I chose settle heavier in my chest.
I pull my phone out before I can talk myself out of it.
I type.
Erase.
Type again.
What I want to say is complicated. Messy. Full of things I don’t have words for yet.
What I send is all I can manage.
Me: I’m sorry.
Nothing else.
No explanation. No justification.
Just an apology I don’t know how to expand on without unraveling completely.
I set the phone down and stare out at the city, jaw tight, chest aching in a way that feels dangerously close to something I buried a long time ago.
This is the cost. This is why I keep my walls high. Because when you let someone in, you don’t just risk losing them.
You risk losing yourself. And tonight, I can barely breathe as it is.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Melissa
Frank’s room feels wrong without him.
It’s too quiet, for one thing. The machines are gone, the bed stripped down to clean sheets that will never hold his weight again. The whiteboard on the wall still has yesterday’s date written in a hurried hand, like someone assumed there would be a tomorrow to update it.
There won’t be.
I stand in the doorway longer than I need to, my badge heavy against my chest, my fingers curling into the hem of my scrubs. I’ve seen death before, more than most people my age, but this one lands differently.
Frank was never just a patient.
He filled space. He made the room warmer by being in it. He had a way of seeing people and making it impossible to hide behind small talk or professional distance.