25. Ethan
ETHAN
T he door closes hard and the slam sounds final, like the end of something I didn’t realize was already slipping through my fingers.
I stand there for a moment, hand still on the wood, forehead nearly pressed against it as the air between us settles into silence that feels too dense to breathe through.
She’s on the opposite side, waiting for me.
My chest is tight, not with rage anymore, not even with disappointment, but with something quieter, deeper, the kind of hollow ache that comes when hope has been scraped raw.
I want to open the door again. I want to believe I misheard her, that her silence was something else, that her lies were rooted in fear and not in the same damn betrayal I’ve seen before.
But the weight of what she didn’t say is still echoing in my bones.
I back away from the door like it might burn me if I stand too close, unbutton my shirt with numb fingers, then tear it off and toss it across the arm of the couch.
The air feels cold against my skin. Or maybe I’ve just gone numb.
I don’t know anymore. I open the cabinet beneath the bar cart and pull out the bottle I’ve been saving since last year, a deep amber bourbon I once promised myself I’d only open to celebrate something good.
I twist off the cork and pour until the glass is full.
No ice. No pacing. I down half of it in a swallow that scorches the inside of my throat, the burn welcome, grounding, something to hold onto while everything else slips through the cracks.
The couch groans when I sit, leather creaking under my weight, and I sink into it like it might pull me under.
I stare at the dark window across the room, at the faint ghost of my own reflection in the glass, and wonder who the hell that man is anymore.
I loved her. God help me, I still do. I let her into my life, into the spaces no one else gets to see, and she looked me in the eye and lied.
And not about something small.
She lied about the child growing inside her. My child.
And I knew it was mine, yet somehow, the confirmation that she lied to me, that she didn’t trust me with the truth, hit me hard. Lied to. Again.
The glass is empty before I realize I’ve finished it.
I pour again, slower this time, the tremble in my hand not from the alcohol but from everything else pressing down on me.
I thought I knew pain. I’ve held dying hands.
I’ve told mothers that their sons were never going to wake up again.
I’ve cut into bodies and felt them stop breathing beneath my palms. But nothing prepared me for the way this feels.
Like my ribs have cracked open and the cold air has settled inside.
I lean my head back, close my eyes. Sleep doesn’t come.
Just the sound of her voice, the image of her standing in my doorway with tears in her eyes and too much silence in her throat.
I wanted her to fight. I wanted her to say my name and tell me she was scared but she still chose me anyway.
I wanted to believe that I was different, that I wasn’t just another man to disappoint or be left behind.
But she didn’t say anything.
And I couldn’t stay.
So now I’m here. With bourbon on my breath, her scent still clinging to the shirt I left crumpled on the floor, and a memory I don’t know how to live with.
I think about the last time I felt like this, about the woman I once planned a life with.
I think about how she smiled the night I slipped the ring onto her hand, about how she cried and kissed me and promised forever.
I think about how, less than a month later, I found the messages on her phone.
About how I stood in the doorway of our apartment while she packed a bag, telling me it was complicated, that she was sorry, that she loved me but couldn’t be what I needed.
She said I wanted too much.
I didn’t think I was asking for anything more than honesty.
The bourbon bottle is nearly gone now. I don’t remember pouring the last glass, just that my head is spinning and my limbs feel heavy and slow, and I am so tired of this ache, of this pattern that keeps rewriting itself across my life in different names and different faces but always the same ending.
I loved her. God, I love her still. And I don’t know what to do with that.
The room spins when I shift. I try to stand, but my knees betray me. The floor tilts. The couch catches me as I fall back onto it, head hitting the cushion hard enough to make my teeth clack. And that’s the last thing I remember before everything blurs out.
When I wake, it’s to the sharp taste of morning in my mouth and a pressure behind my eyes that feels like someone took a hammer to the inside of my skull.
My mouth is dry. My throat feels raw. My neck aches from the angle I fell asleep in, half-twisted, one arm dead beneath me.
I sit up with a groan and run both hands over my face, then through my hair, then back down as I try to pull myself together.
I smell like sweat and regret and old bourbon, and the weight of last night hangs over me like smoke.
I shower fast, scrubbing hard, not because it helps but because I need to feel clean, need to feel something other than the rotting grief curling in my chest. I throw on scrubs, ignore the headache pounding behind my eyes, and drink two cups of black coffee before I even find my keys.
On the drive to the hospital, I think of nothing and everything, my fingers gripping the wheel like it might steady the rest of me. But it doesn’t.
The lobby is already crowded when I get in, nurses moving in a practiced blur, the morning shift humming with the kind of quiet chaos that usually sharpens my focus.
But not today. I nod to people I barely recognize, respond to greetings I don’t hear, and move through the motions like a man playing a version of himself from a distance.
I sign a chart I don’t read. I approve a scan I should have questioned.
I nearly walk into a gurney before someone pulls it out of the way.
My mind is not here.
It’s in a cab with her.
It’s in the doorway between us.
It’s in the space where she didn’t say my name.
I make it halfway through my rounds before I drop a folder. It hits the floor, pages scattering, and I bend too quickly to pick them up, swaying hard enough that one of the nurses reaches for me. I wave her off. She hesitates but steps back.
Then I hear it.
“Cross.”
I look up. Jordan Singh, one of the younger attendings, stands at the edge of the nurses’ station with a concerned expression, a tablet in one hand. He’s always been respectful, sharp, the kind of doctor I usually trust without needing to second-guess.
“You okay?” he asks.
I open my mouth to say yes, but the word tastes wrong. I say nothing.
“You look like hell,” he adds, not unkindly.
I glance at the chart in my hand, realize it’s the wrong one, and curse under my breath. Singh steps forward.
“Take a breath,” he says evenly. “Seriously, man. Whatever it is, step out. One hour. That’s all. You’re no good to anyone like this.”
The warning is fair, and the shame is immediate, so I step away and toward the hall.
It smells like disinfectant and burnt coffee, the kind that has been sitting too long on the burner, curling bitterly in the air.
I stand at the window across from the nurses’ station, hands braced against the sill, watching the light shift across the city skyline as the afternoon bleeds slowly into something darker.
Behind me, the hospital hums. Monitors beep, doors swing open and shut, pages flutter, voices rise and fall in a language I usually understand without thinking. But today, none of it gets through.
My mind keeps circling the same point like a scalpel tracing a scar.
You lied to me.
I said it last night and I meant it. I still do. But the longer I stand here, the more the words lose their edge, not because the betrayal is any smaller but because something bigger is taking its place. Something heavier. Something louder. Ivy is pregnant with my child. And she is in danger.
That is the only truth that matters now.
She was wrong not to tell me. She was selfish, maybe even scared, but I have seen fear twist people into silence more times than I can count.
I have watched it grip the strongest men by the throat and reduce them to shells.
And Ivy? She has been living under the shadow of a man who thrives on fear.
Who bends people until they break. Who wants to own her, not love her.
Daniel Holt is still out there, and he will not stop.
I push away from the window. The pressure behind my ribs flares sharply again, like a cracked bone finally shifting into place.
I head to the locker room, strip out of my scrubs and into my jeans and jacket without bothering to shower.
My hair is still damp from sweat, jaw dark with the stubble of a man who hasn’t slept, but I don’t care.
I grab my keys from the tray near the sink and don’t even check my phone as I leave.
The ride to her apartment is a blur. Traffic parts for me without knowing why it should.
Lights turn green before I reach them, or maybe I run through one—I don’t know, I don’t care.
All I see is her face when I closed the door on her, the way her eyes pleaded without asking, the way her hand lifted slightly, like maybe she wanted to stop me. And I walked away anyway.
I’m not ready to do it this time.
The moment I pull up to her rental, I’m already out of the car, moving fast, taking the stairs two at a time. My boots land heavily on each step, my pulse pounding louder than the noise outside. When I reach her floor, I don’t hesitate. I knock once, hard, then again. Louder.
“Ivy.”
The door doesn’t open.
I knock again.
“Ivy, open the damn door.”
I hear movement inside. Then nothing. I knock once more, this time with the flat of my palm. Not violently, but firmly.
When she finally opens the door, she looks like a ghost of herself.
Her eyes are red, cheeks blotched, sweater stretched over the soft curve of her belly.
Her hair is pulled into a loose knot like she gave up halfway through trying to make it look presentable.
And she looks at me like she wants to fold into the floor.
And even so, she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid my eyes on, damn her for it.
“Ethan,” she whispers.
I don’t give her time to say more. “Pack your things.”
She blinks, like she’s not sure she heard me right. “What?”
“You’re coming with me. Now.”
Her fingers tighten around the edge of the door. “I don’t understand. Where?—”
“I said pack,” I interrupt, stepping forward, my eyes locked on hers. “I’m not asking. Daniel won’t stop, Ivy. You think you can manage this alone, but you can’t. He’s already too close. And I’m not letting you fight him without me.”
Her lips part, the protest already on her tongue, but I raise my hand slightly, not to silence her but to steady her.
“Enough,” I say, voice low. “We’ve done it your way. You’ve lied, pushed me out, tried to protect me. But none of it worked. So now we do it my way.”
I step inside before she can argue, brushing past her, taking in the cluttered space, the unopened mail on the table, the half-folded baby clothes on the couch. She hasn’t been living here. She’s been surviving. Barely.
She turns slowly, arms wrapped around her middle like she’s trying to hold herself together. “I can’t just leave.”
“You can,” I say. “And you will. Get a bag. Only what you need for tonight. We’ll get the rest later.”
She still isn’t moving, and I walk to her, stop just short of touching her.
“I’m not giving you an out. You’re coming with me, Ivy.
I don’t care what happened before. I don’t care that you lied.
That’s between us. But Daniel Holt is not walking around this city with a target on your back and a reason to make you disappear. Not while I’m still breathing.”
Something breaks in her then. Not visibly, but I feel it. The resistance goes out of her shoulders. Her throat moves as she swallows hard. Then she nods. “All right.”