Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
VIC
I’ve been at the hospital all night. Being on call offers no promise of rest. Of course, my pager went off at seven p.m. yesterday evening, as soon as my call shift started, and I have lost count of the hours since then.
I’d hoped to see Sonya and her daughter, Rose, at the soup kitchen, but I missed my volunteer lunch service there.
The staff knows I am sometimes on call, and while they need all hands on deck during those times, the volunteer pool is small.
When I do show up, they are appreciative, but they understand that if I’m not there, it’s because I am working or have been called in for surgery.
Instead, lost in a sea of blue sterile drapes and arctic temperatures that make up the sterile rooms of the OR and its inner core.
The hum of the machines and beeps of the heart monitors have been on a constant loop through my fourth case as I stand here suspended in time until each suture is tied and our end sign-out is completed.
The music is cut off abruptly as the circulating nurse performs the final count of all instruments, and I provide my estimated blood loss for the record.
After she confirms that it’s correct, I strip the blue gown from my shoulders.
The impermeable material feels stuffy, and my scrubs remain sweaty beneath it.
I discard the two sets of bloodied gloves, snapping them off like a second skin and throwing them into the trash.
My hands are white and wrinkled-looking from the long hours my skin has lain beneath.
The patient is now stable, left in the physician assistant's capable care as the last layer of skin is sewn and glued before a dressing is applied to the incision. I step out of the cold tank and into the corridor beyond, where the skeleton crew is sparse. Only the call teams are present today to handle cases requiring immediate attention before the regularly scheduled cases come in on Monday. Carrying the weight of the night’s events and faceless patients hidden underneath the drapes with only the prepped skin visible for the scalpel I've been trained to use with precision, I walk out of the operating room to speak with the patients’ family members, who look just as weary as I feel.
It’s time to go. I need sleep after being awake all night.
My car is parked in the on-call spot in the ER, so I have to cross the department to reach it.
I’m so tired that the corridor seems to sway with each step.
The fluorescent light emits a greenish hue, bringing the shadows to life.
I blink, and the images fade. Fuck, I’m seeing things.
Then…Dani? Or the shape of her standing at the nurses' station talking with Bethany, that woman who always gets under my skin. I halt mid-stride as Daniella walks away, and Bethany catches my double-take. She lights up, sure that I was looking at her. Nope. You’re still you, Bethany.
She breaks away, moving toward me in long, steady strides.
I move, but only in the opposite direction, hurrying away before she reaches me, disappearing across the hospital lawn.
“Dr. Flores,” she calls out, but I don’t stop.
I’m too tired and too unhinged to be confronted by her.
I practically sprint across the lot as I can see her searching for me in the ambulance bay.
Fingers fumbling with my key fob until the car unlocks, I drop into the driver’s seat and pull out of the spot without letting the car warm up.
I must be more sleep deprived than I thought, because Dani’s face is everywhere tonight. I know it isn’t her, but still a small, stubborn part of me wants to believe that fate finally nudged her back into my path after all those years apart.
I pull into one of the most coveted spots at my building and take the elevator up to my high-rise.
The door opens onto a silence that rings louder than any club or crowd.
I drop my keys into the little ceramic dish by the entryway, strip off my clothes, and stand under the hot spray of the water until the exhaustion of the day leaves my body.
Toweled off and half awake, I pull on joggers and a T-shirt.
I can’t take it anymore. I have to know.
I pull up my socials and type in her name, Daniella Andrande.
There’s nothing new. It's just her old account with no updates. The same photograph stares back at me, the one she took with her mother. Memories flood me with the sad look in her eyes, her brilliant light fading to low-burning embers. It’s similar to the photo of the last time I saw her, when I left her standing in her driveway, tears streaming down her face.
I can’t unsee that, and every time I wake from a nightmare of my father, this feeling is a close second to remembering her that last time.
The feed is covered with unanswered birthday wishes, each one a reminder of her continued silence.
I take a sharp inhale when I see a memory she commented on.
“No. No.” I stand when I see the picture of her and her mom, with the caption: "Until we meet again.
" With a date set—wait, what? Her mom fucking died? I pace the room back and forth, my hand atop my head, as I try not to hyperventilate. “How did I not know this? Fuck!” I throw my fist into the desk, and it groans as if a sentient being, feeling the rage from my fist. Then it clicks. I stop pacing, envisioning the conversation I had with Brandon, the one he told me I had to hear about from her. That was the reason she sold the house. The dots began to connect. She knew her mom was sick. Did she not get into Dartmouth, or was that a lie as well? I drop to the floor and sink to my knees, cupping my face in my hands. My selfless, selfless angel. She stayed behind to take care of her mom. I look up to the room’s ceiling, trying to stop the tears that threaten to spill from my eyes.
I stand, desperate to find out more, and eager to learn why she did this and anything else I can discover about her and her whereabouts.
I continue to scroll. Then I see the tag.
My pause hovers over the button. My pulse stutters as I finally click on the image.
The enlarged picture takes my breath away.
It’s a recent one of my Dani on the screen before me, seated on a velvet couch in a dimly-lit club in Houston.
“Wow!” I touch the photo reverently. She was stunning then and has grown into a more stunning woman.
Her legs are crossed, with tight black, fitted jeans down her legs and hugging her thick thighs.
Her black combat boot plopped heavily against the upholstered chair.
A velvet rope glints in the picture’s corner, announcing that it must be a VIP section, roped off from the other customers.
What catches my eye is that she isn’t posing.
She isn’t smiling, but her interest is held by something on the floor below, and I can’t help but wonder what that interest is.
I pinch the screen, zooming in closer, greedy for every little detail I can find. She is so beautiful, and still mine. The friend who posted it, Liv Johnston or something like that, hardly matters. Only the information that might bring me closer to learning more about my girl.
I click on her profile, and the screen floods with photographs.
Most of her friends are laughing, posing, crowded together under strobe lights.
Dani is there, too, only in fragments. A shoulder at the edge of a frame.
The curve of her face half turned into a smirk with her “fuck me” red lipstick.
I groan at the memory of my dick streaked in red, and my full-mast erection becomes painfully hard.
She is always present, but never meant to be seen.
It’s as if she wants to stay hidden in the shadows.
It’s probably why her posts are not up to date.
I scroll faster through the picture until I spot her.
There! I stop as my pulse quickens. Focusing on the picture before me, the image strikes me like I’ve been hit.
Dani stands there, this time at the center of the photo, surrounded by friends.
My body bolts upright, my chair scraping against the floor, and my box of belongings toppling off the bed.
I lean closer until the screen illuminates my reflection in the window pane before me.
My reflection stares back at me from a dark sky. How long have I been at this?
They are celebrating her, but what? I can see the way their eyes were fixed on her, a mixture of adoration and love.
These are clearly her people, and I have no idea who they are.
My gaze scours the picture until I click on the caption.
It says, Good luck, Dani! Then I see it buried in the hashtags.
#Boston. The word stabs me through the heart—the feeling of shock and then excitement.
I drop my phone and snatch it back up. I knew it.
I fucking knew she was here. My little angel has been following me.
She’s been here. At least now I have proof that I’m not losing my mind.
I hadn’t seen her that day, but I felt her presence.
This small electric jolt always crackled between us, the pull of two opposite ends of a magnet aching for each other until they finally snap, bringing each other into its polar field of attraction. That’s always been us.
Dani and I were always in sync. I used to lean out my window across the way, and find her staring out hers, searching for me the same way that I ached for her.
Years pass, but the thing we have doesn’t fade.
It hardens into insistent longing, a hunger that will not be soothed.
A craving for what is gone and the memory of what could still be.
It isn’t nostalgia, it’s fate, and I can’t pretend it is anything else.
With that thought, I make up my mind. I need to keep a closer eye on things.
I go to the closet and pull down the box.
The one I swore I would never open again—my box of Dani.
One by one, I draw out the photographs, setting them around the apartment until her face surrounds me.
The picture on the nightstand has been the only one I allowed myself, the only reminder I could bear to keep in plain sight.
The rest I buried, the loss too great. At the very bottom rests a small velvet box.
I lift it carefully, almost reverently. The small hinges creak in protest when I open it, stiff from years of sitting idle, waiting for her.
Inside, the diamond ring still waits, a half-carat stone in total, small by any standard measure, yet once bought with all my love for her. For us.
I purchased it for her when I left for college.
A promise ring, not an engagement one, although in my heart it meant more than either.
I never found the courage to give it to her before I left.
By the time I returned, on the night everything in my life shifted, I thought I would finally place it on her finger.
Instead, I left that night with a shattered heart and broken promises.
Now I laugh under my breath, bitter, yet strangely amused.
What I could afford today makes this little stone almost laughable, and yet at one time it felt priceless.
The cut is flawed, the quality imperfect, but it was bought with everything I had and with every intention of giving it to the only woman I have ever loved.
I slip the little box back into the drawer, closing it softly this time, and return to the glow of the phone screen.
I fall further down the rabbit hole of her friend’s socials, then friends of friends, chasing every tagged photo, every possible glimpse of her.
Hours blur together, my eyes burn, and the apartment is dark with night.
Still, I scroll, caught in the chase, my pulse thrumming with the thrill of the pursuit, as I follow her through the endless maze of posts that might somehow close the distance between us.
By the time my phone flashes a red 1%, the sky outside is dark, and the moon is high.
I put the phone on the charger and drag myself to the kitchen.
The silence in the apartment seems louder than before.
I pour a glass of whiskey. The amber liquid catches the dim light of the crystal glass, shooting a thin prism across the wall.
I take a long, slow swallow, anything to calm my racing mind and the heartbeat in my chest, to quiet the surge of excitement from seeing her on my phone screen.
I tell myself this drink is to decompress, but I know better.
My mind won’t rest until I have her with me once again.