The hospital was the only thing I could still count on. I liked the schedule and the noise. I liked the way the job demanded everything and left no room for anything else. Between three cases on Friday, a consult on Saturday, and a resident who needed constant watching, I had plenty to do. I gave it all my attention because the alternative was sitting at home in the quiet, looking at my phone.
His text sat there, unanswered.
Still on for Friday? Lily wants to watch the sequel.
I read it twelve times and responded to none of it. It wasn't a decision exactly—more of a deferral. I would answer. Of course I would answer. I just needed to figure out what I was going to sayfirst, and I hadn't figured that out yet, so until I did the text could sit there.
Reasonable. It was all completely reasonable.
I scrubbed in for the first case at seven, came out at nine-forty-five, and ate a protein bar standing over the break room sink. Then I went back for the second. I moved through the building fast and with purpose, my shoes squeaking on linoleum that never quite stayed clean. I knew this place. I knew which nurses had the real answers, which residents were going to choke, and which vending machine would swallow your dollar. I knew which attending would be late for rounds every single morning.
I had built this career. I’d done it carefully, over two years here and ten years in Baltimore before that. My whole adult life had been about building things.
But I also knew how to leave them.
The thought hit me during the second case. I shoved it into a corner of my mind where it couldn't do any damage and focused on the work. My hands stayed steady.
His name appeared on my phone twice more. Not texts this time—calls. I was in surgery for the first and I let the second go to voicemail without listening. I told myself it was fine. I was a surgeon; I was busy. He knew that. There was nothing urgent about a movie night.
Friday was still one day away. I had time.
I finished my last case at four. I scrubbed out and stood at the sink for a long time, letting the cold water run over my wrists. Marsh was somewhere behind me, scratching out notes. I was aware of him the way I was aware of the equipment in the room—he was just part of the background. He wasn't what I was thinking about.
I was thinking about Jack through a bar window, leaning toward a woman I didn't know, on a day he’d told me he was at the garage.
I thought about the bruise on his jaw. The unanswered calls. The way he’d seemed "managed" lately. Then I thought about an alley on Calloway Street twelve years ago, and the way the shadows had shifted until I recognized the shapes.
I dried my hands.
I wasn't going to be this person. I wasn't going to build a case out of coincidences and old scars. It wasn't fair to him, and it wasn't fair to me. We’d both come too far to let a Thursday afternoon rewrite everything.
I picked up my phone. I looked at his name. I put it back down.
Then I went back to work.
By seven o’clock, I’d done everything that needed doing and a few things that didn’t. Marsh had gone home. The ward had settled. I had no reason to stay except that the hospital was easier than my apartment. It was easier than the unanswered text and the question of Friday.
I picked up my bag. I put on my coat. I took the elevator down.
I sat behind the wheel for a minute without starting the engine.
I knew what I was doing. I’d always known. This was what Cassie and Tom and Jack had all seen in me. When things got hard, I didn’t run. I worked. I filled every hour with something useful and I kept moving so the thing behind me couldn't catch up. I’d built a whole life on that instinct.
It had served me well. It had moved me from a kitchen floor in a bad apartment to Johns Hopkins to here. It had never let me down once.
But now, sitting in a dark parking lot after a twelve-hour shift I’d dragged out on purpose, I realized I’d run out of work. I’d run out of ways to fill the time. And the thing I’d been keeping at arm’s length all day was still there, waiting.
I started the car.
I didn’t have a destination. I just needed to move. I needed the road and the radio and somewhere to put my hands that wasn't my phone. I told myself I just needed a drive to clear my head. One trip to shake this loose before I made a decision I couldn't undo.
I pulled out of the parking lot and drove.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Jack
She hadn't answered all day.