I hear her whisper desperately, ‘The tests are just a formality anyway,’ and I feel again what I don’t want to feel: that these tests could change my life forever.
Damn it. What I’m doing out here makes absolutely no sense.
I take the next curve more slowly. There’s no rush, my knee isn’t even close to the ground. There’s no adrenaline in my chest, no forced freedom; instead there are unmistakable shadows and a truth I can no longer ignore.
My attempt to run from what happened yesterday has failed.
I know that without Nyla I can never be whole again, that I will always miss her, will long for her with every breath I take, but I don’t know how this could possibly end well for us.
I know there’s more than just this moment, but not what that ‘more’ could look like.
And I also know that the thought that I might actually be sick scares the shit out of me, but not how I’m supposed to deal with it.
Chapter Forty-One
NYLA
He’s going to die.
That’s the only thing I’ve been able to think about since Jaden left me standing in the treatment room yesterday. Even now there’s no room for anything else in my head as I sit in Dr. Franks’s office for a feedback meeting.
He’s going to die. Because he’d rather call me crazy than face his truth. Maybe I’ve been wrong more often lately when it comes to suspected diagnoses, but this time I’m not.
Or am I?
No. Any doctor would suspect the same thing I do.
‘So the exchange program between EMS and the ER has come to an end. What have you taken away from it for yourself?’
‘Over,’ echoes inside me and I nod.
Everything is over.
My boss says something, I don’t hear it. I just sit on the chair, wrapped in cotton wool.
Jaden could live. And still he’s going to die.
‘Dr. Moore.’
Completely independent of me or of us or of what we could have had together, this is wrong.
‘Dr. Moore!’
In his job, nothing is more important to him than saving lives, yet he’s throwing his own away. Why?
A loud noise makes me flinch.
Dr. Franks.
His brow furrowed, he sits across from me, his hands lying flat on the desk. That must have been what made the noise just now.
‘Sorry.’ I slide forward on my chair. ‘What was the question?’
Now he gets up, walks around the desk, and takes the seat next to me. With the expression of a worried grandfather, he studies me. ‘Is everything all right physically?’
I give him an open smile. ‘My last checkup was a few days ago. I’m healthy.’
Unlike Jaden.