Chapter 22
The Faultline
Robyn
Seven Months Later – Late January
I used to hate driving in winter, but Bend isn’t Chicago.
The roads here feel wide open, even with the fresh three-inch snowfall piled along the curbs.
The pacing is different here, and half the time, no one even bothers to claim their turn at a four-way stop.
They just wave everyone else through, as if rushing places isn’t worth the headache.
Maybe I wasn’t worth the headache.
Nine months since I last saw Nate, and sometimes, I get this fizz of doubt that if I’d only been less ambitious or done better at my boards or just more of a natural at medicine, I wouldn’t have driven him away.
I know it wasn’t on me, but the thought still comes, and I have to play Whac-A-Mole with my emotions.
Even here, in this town that begs you to breathe deeper, and now, with so many miles and months in between, I can’t slow down and sift through what’s left of what I felt for Nate.
I pull in behind a pickup, turn my hazards on, and shove the thought down.
As I jog across the slush toward Loam & Latte, the cold snaps at my ankles.
The tiny coffee shop is tucked between the gear store and the yoga studio downtown, and I run across the sidewalk and yank the glass door open, my breath wisping in front of me.
The warmth hits me in a soft whoosh. Milk frothers hiss, and I take a big whiff of the lemon zest, cinnamon, and the buttery croissants I know they’re baking right about now. Worth the sprinting through frozen weather every single time.
“Hey, Robyn,” Lara calls before I even reach the counter. She’s smiling, wrinkles showing at the corners of her eyes, wiping her hands on a flour-dusted apron, then tucking her graying hair behind her ears. “I haven’t finished the poppyseed muffins you like yet.”
I never had this in Chicago, the barista who knows your order and tries to have it ready. “That’s okay,” I say, leaning with my elbows on the counter. “Just coffee today.”
“Hazelnut?”
“Always.”
“We’re out of oat milk. Almond okay?”
Not even a little. Almond milk tastes like water with an identity crisis. “Can you just do skim?” I ask.
“To go, of course?”
The question is silly. It’s not really a coffee shop to sit down, it’s a long narrow space with three tall tables and random stools cramped around them, but I nod anyway.
Before I pull out my wallet to tap the reader, Lara reaches over and covers it with her palm. She does that firm-but-gentle mom move that tells me resistance is pointless. “If it’s just coffee, it’s on the house.”
A laugh huffs behind her. “Damn right.”
The side door creaks open, letting in a slice of icy air.
Zac steps in, brushing snow off his shoulders.
His cropped blond hair is damp around the edges, and his cheeks are flushed a bright, windburned pink that climbs higher as the heat in the shop warms him.
When he tilts his head, the stubble along his jaw shows off and his dimpled chin crinkles.
His smile widens. “Thought that was your car out there,” he says, staying behind the counter.
Lara puts a lid on my coffee, and Zac grabs it before I can. “Let me walk you out.”
We walk to my car in silence, Zac’s boots squelch as they sink in the snow, and his shoulder brushes mine when he opens the door to the driver’s seat.
After handing me my cup, he winks then closes the door.
He shoves his hands into his coat pockets, tracking me as I pull onto the road.
When I check the right-side mirror before turning, he isn’t there anymore.
I’m walking through the hospital lot toward the staff entrance, and a car door slams somewhere behind me, then someone falls into step beside me.
Bend smells like woodsmoke and clean snow.
Chicago smelled like car exhaust and my own adrenaline—burnout and lakefront mornings woven into one impossible knot of anxiety.
Whack that fucking mole, Robyn! The automatic doors whoosh open, a wave of warm air wrapping around my legs.
“Morning, Dr. Hollis, Miss Serena,” the security guard calls from his desk. His beard is a riot of silver curls.
Serena and I slip into the elevator together.
She tugs off her hat, her shoulder-length dark hair frizzy with static.
Her cheeks are pink from the cold. “I know you’re scheduled for consults and referrals today, but could you swing by the fifth floor?
Mr. Matthews wouldn’t settle without you.
Ever since you caught that early-stage cerebellar infarct, he thinks you hung the moon. ”
Her tone is teasing, but her eyes say she’s grateful.
And okay—a quiet puff of pride settles in my chest, warm enough to fight the winter air still clinging to my coat.
Because Mr. Matthews is exactly why I’m here.
Symptoms that could easily be dismissed but still hide something that could kill you. Just like with Mom.
“Sure thing! I love Mr. Matthews.”
“He keeps trying to set you up with his nephew.”
I snort. “Yeah, not happening.” I take off my hat. “How was your date? Fourth one, right?”
She blushes. “Yeah, I think … I think there’s chemistry. Maybe we could start doing some double dates? Now you’ve extended your contract?”
I shake my head. “It’s not like that with Z—”
The elevator dings on the third floor, and I wave goodbye to Serena, who has two more floors to go. The familiar hum of clinic days hits me—phones ringing, nurses talking over printers, the faint scent of antiseptic that somehow is fainter here than on other floors.
“Robyn!” Ellie practically sings my name from the nurses’ station. Her honey-blonde braid swings as she rushes over with a stack of charts. “Mrs. Talbot brought you a lemon loaf. Again. She says you’re the only doctor who listens.”
I sigh, but it’s impossible not to smile. “I listen because she has opinions about everything from her chronic vertigo to sushi.”
“And you encourage her,” Ellie says, pointing at me.
“Barely.”
Ellie rolls her eyes. “Right. You love her.”
I love all of them. Back in residency, especially during my year in diagnostics, patients never felt like mine.
They were assignments, chances to either excel or expose every crack in my training.
I was always bracing for the moment I’d prove myself inadequate.
But here … these people choose me as their doctor.
They come back asking for me and let me into their fear, their relief, their stories.
It’s a privilege I intend to continue to earn over and over again.
I take the charts from Ellie and drop them into the crook of my arm. “Okay, who’s first?”
“Phillips. MRI is already uploaded. Oh, and Dr. Raymond is looking for you—something about research hours next week.”
I groan softly. “I owe him some hours. I got pulled into a consultation at the last minute, and he’s feeling salty about it.”
Ellie grins. “You’re the only fellow he ever demands shows up at his lab. I think it’s a huge compliment.”
I duck into my office to drop my bag. I share the space with one other fellow and another attending.
It’s small—three desks, one window, a plant nobody manages to remember to water—but it’s ours, mine.
There’s a plaque with my name on the door and everything.
Serena hung a picture on the bulletin board last week of Ellie, her, and me over drinks and dinner at the steakhouse holiday party.
I’m in the middle, they’ve both squished their faces against mine, and we’re all laughing at something someone said.
I hardly recognize myself in it. I look … relaxed, well-rested.
Right below it, there’s a receipt from over three years ago—my first date with Nate.
He got dinner, I got drinks. He said once that was when he realized he’d fallen in love with me.
They way I didn’t ask, just slid my card on top of the bill …
The wrinkled paper’s almost hidden but still visible enough that it reminds me how quickly things can turn to shit.
So I remember not to let myself feel all that settled.
Funny how these months have transformed not just my whole routine but my entire default for existence.
I check my phone as I put on my lab coat and have one unread text from Julian.
Julian: Why don’t newborns want to fucking sleep? I thought it was all they’re supposed to do.
I bite back a laugh, my shoulders shaking just a little.
Me: Did you try skin to skin?
Julian: Very funny. I told you. He hates me.
I roll my eyes, swiping my thumb over the keyboard on the screen.
Me: Get a burp cloth?
Me: Or maybe tips from the Momma?
The three dots pop up instantly.
Julian: I told her to sleep.
Julian: And she also hates me.
I balance my phone in one hand while I change my shoes and grin. Julian’s a dad. I, for sure, didn’t see that coming.
Me: Yeah, you earned that.
He responds with a middle finger emoji.
The rest of the morning goes by in a blur with patients stacked back-to-back, consults bleeding into hallway drive-bys, and a steady stream of bad jokes from interns and patients. When I finally check the clock, it’s past one. My stomach growls loud enough to embarrass me.
I slip out through the main entrance, shimmying into my coat and tugging my scarf tighter against the wind. I’m halfway across the walkway toward the parking lot, thinking about what I’ll order at the little deli across the street, when I smack into something solid.
A someone. Zac. Snow dusts the shoulders of his houndstooth heavy coat, melting into damp specks. His dark-brown eyes warm when they land on me.
“There she is—super doctor.”
I cross my arms and let out a groan. “That title got old so fast.”
“Not to me.” He taps his chest twice, then lowers his voice. “Walk with me.”