Chapter 20
Chapter twenty
Chloe
Iwish I could say I’m numb.
That would be easier than this. That would mean I could coast through the last three hours of my shift on autopilot—present, but not really here. But no. I feel everything—too much.
Guilt and sadness are in a tug-of-war, each trying to pull me under. One moment I’m on the verge of tears, the next, I’m furious with myself for not doing more. My fingers tremble as I try to finish my notes, the adrenaline finally bleeding from my system.
I glance up at the board. The backlog stretches on like a to-do list from hell. We’ve barely made a dent.
“You doing okay, hon?” Olivia asks gently, appearing beside me.
“I’m fine,” I lie, offering a half-smile.
She doesn’t push. Just rests a warm hand on my back.
“We take a moment of silence when we lose a patient. Not just to show respect, but to remember that they mattered. Once you’re done with your notes, head to the staff on-call room down the hall.
Ten minutes, that’s all. Clear your head.
Don’t take this home with you. Trust me. ”
“Thanks. I will.” Her hand rubs a slow circle on my back, and it’s the most maternal gesture; it nearly breaks me again.
Olivia had asked if I wanted to be the one to call Borris’s kids. I said no.
Am I a coward? Probably.
But I couldn’t do it. Not with their names in my head, their stories in my heart, and the crushing belief that I’m the reason they didn’t get to say, “I love you” one last time. The reason they’ll never see him again.
I finish my notes. I consider moving onto the next patient to distract myself, but Olivia’s right. I can’t help anyone until I get my head back in the game.
The on-call room sits behind an unassuming door in a quiet corridor off the ER; it’s easy to miss if you don’t know it’s there. I open the door slowly and peek inside—two sets of bunk beds, neatly made with hospital linen. No one’s inside, but I don’t turn on the light. I need the dark.
The door clicks shut, swallowing the room in complete darkness. I toe off my sneakers and sink onto one of the lower bunks. My feet and back practically sigh with relief. This—lying flat—is what I’ve craved since seven this morning. But my body’s wired, even as my limbs beg for stillness.
I close my eyes anyway.
I don’t sleep. I can’t.
Olivia’s right. I need to leave Borris here. I can’t carry it home and let it unravel me all night. My body needs rest. My mind needs peace.
I’ve never dealt with death, not up close. Even my grandparents are still alive—one of them out of pure spite, I think.
That doesn’t mean I got to this point in my life untouched—being sick has messed with my head in ways I still don’t fully understand.
I’ve spent most of my life in denial about my own mortality.
I knew death was always a possibility with my illness, but knowing and accepting are two very different things.
Maybe that’s why losing Borris has hit me so hard.
I let myself think of him for a moment. His strong Russian accent. His stories about the restaurant. His love for food and his pride when he talked about his kids. He promised to bring me pelmeni one day, said it would change my life.
I swallow around the lump in my throat.
I hope he found his wife. I hope he’s talking her ear off, just like he said he used to. He didn’t deserve to die alone in a hospital bed while I was sitting in the staff lounge, congratulating myself for helping him.
The door creaks open. I don’t move.
Zac steps inside, immediately spotting me in the dark. He shuts the door and climbs onto the bunk. I shift to make room, curling into his side, resting my head on his chest. His heartbeat beats a steady rhythm beneath my ear.
“I can’t stay long,” he murmurs, rubbing circles into my back. “But I wanted to check on you. See how you’re holding up. If there’s anything I can do.”
In here, in the dark, he’s not Dr. Zac. He’s not the Director of Emergency Medicine. He’s Z. Or Zaddy, when we’re playing. And right now, I don’t need medical advice or logic. I need comfort.
I shake my head.
“You sure?” he asks, voice low, coaxing. He loosens the tie on the waistband of his scrubs. “I’m here if you need it.”
His meaning is obvious. It spreads between us with heat. Do I need it? It never crossed my mind, but now that he’s here and offering.
The truth is… I do need it. I need to float. To forget how it felt when Borris flatlined under my hands. I want the sadness to cease consuming my mind. I want the comfort he’s offering.
I slide down his body, then help him shove the scrubs over his hips. I take him into my mouth gently, to be close. To be quiet. His taste, his scent—they’re strangely calming.
His fingers slide through my hair, loosening my ponytail and massaging my scalp until the tension bleeds out. I sigh into him.
Then his voice breaks the dark.
“I want to tell you something.”
I freeze. Panic rising.
I know what’s coming… He’s married.
Shit.
I start to pull away, but he gently presses a hand to the back of my head.
“Please. Stay. I need to get this out.”
I let my head settle against his thigh. He wouldn’t dare tell me he’s happily married while I have his dick in my mouth. Right?
“There’s a reason I left cardiothoracic surgery and moved to emergency.”
He exhales slowly.
“I used to pride myself on connecting with every patient. I made the effort to get to know them as a person, rather than by their illness. I thought it made me a better surgeon. And maybe it did. But every time I lost one, it gutted me. I didn’t have boundaries.
I brought my grief home. I stopped sleeping. Started resenting the job.”
His voice wavers.
“And I took it out on my wife, Casey.”
My stomach drops. I move to sit up.
“Wait—please.”
He’d better start talking. Fast. Because I’m not about to be the other woman in someone else’s love story.
“She was everything to me. We met in high school. Stayed stupidly in love through uni. We didn’t get into kink until after we were married and had moved to Australia.
But once we did—nothing was off-limits. She was an attorney.
Brilliant and intense. She scared judges and turned grown men into stammering messes.
But at home, she just wanted to let go. I gave her that.
And I needed it, too. To be the one she could let go with.
We grew into it together. Explored everything together. And I thought I had forever with her.”
He pauses.
“The day she was brought into the ER after a car crash… everything changed. Catastrophic chest trauma. No other cardiothoracic surgeons were available. Hospital policy states you can’t operate on your own family. But if I’d waited, she wouldn’t have made it.”
He trails off.
“Didn’t matter. She died on my table anyway.”
My heart cracks. I scrunch my eyes shut, but otherwise don’t move a muscle. He needs to get through this; this is therapeutic for him in a way, too, without me jumping up to comfort him and shoving my sorrow for him in his face.
“After that, I couldn’t go back into the OR. Couldn’t risk connecting again. So I moved to the ER. Here, patients come and go. Most of them, I don’t even learn their names. It’s fast and detached.”
His words drift into the dark like a confession.
“That’s why I’m telling you this now: protect yourself. Set boundaries. You can’t grieve every loss like this and survive. It’ll eat you alive.”
His cock slips from my mouth, and I crawl up his body, curling against him, hand on his chest.
“I will,” I whisper. “And thank you for trusting me.”
There are so many questions I want to ask. How long ago did Casey die? What was your relationship like? I want to know the woman who first held his heart. I want to make space for her, too. But now’s not the time.
I can’t see his face in the dark. Maybe that’s why he told me all this in here, because the dark is softer. Safer. Less exposing.
And even without the light, I feel everything in the way his chest rises beneath my palm.
The hospital PA system suddenly crackles overhead, shattering our stillness.
Attention all staff: Code Black. Code Purple. Emergency Department.
Zac bolts upright, scrambling to tuck himself back into his scrubs. “Shit!” His face is white.
Attention all staff: Code Black. Code Purple. Emergency Department.
“What’s a Code Black? A Code Purple?” I ask, flicking on the light and scrambling for my shoes.
I should know what that means. I did know. But the hospital induction video feels like a lifetime ago.
“Chloe, get out of the hospital. Now. And take as many people as you can.”
“What? No, I’m not leaving!”
“Now, Chloe, I’m serious.”
There’s panic in his eyes. He opens his mouth like he’s about to say something else—then clamps it shut. He bolts through the door without looking back.
I tie my sneakers with shaking hands, twist my hair into a bun, and chase after him.
Straight into chaos.