Chapter 23
POV: Marina
I didn’t look back at first.
If I looked back, I wouldn’t leave.
My hands were shaking on the steering wheel. The engine hummed too loud. The morning was too bright.
But at the end of the street, I glanced in the rearview mirror.
He was still there.
Barefoot.
Standing in the doorway of his apartment building like someone had just removed gravity from his world.
He wasn’t calling me.
He wasn’t running after the car.
He was just… standing.
Watching.
And even from that distance, I could see it.
The breakup had landed.
It was on his face.
Not anger.
Not confusion.
Devastation.
Like something sacred had just been taken from him without warning.
He loved me.
He never said it.
But I saw it in that moment.
And I drove anyway.
I didn’t cry when Jonathan died.
Not like this.
When Jonathan was dying, I had a year to grieve him while he was still breathing. Hospital rooms. Test results. Slow goodbyes. I mourned him in advance.
His death was cruel.
But it wasn’t sudden.
This—
This was me taking a living, breathing man who loved me and cutting him out of my own hands.
I made this choice.
And that’s why it hurt worse.
By the time I pulled into my parents’ driveway, I couldn’t see through the tears.
I walked in without knocking.
My parents were at the table, halfway through breakfast.
My mother looked up first.
She saw my face.
“Marina?”
That was all it took.
I broke.
The sob tore out of me so violently I had to grab the back of a chair to stay upright.
My father stood immediately, alarmed, but my mother was already moving toward me.
“What happened? What happened?”
I couldn’t speak.
I couldn’t breathe.
She guided me to my old bedroom like I was sixteen again.
Closed the door.
Sat beside me on the bed.
“It was him?” she asked gently.
I nodded.
Her eyes softened.
“I knew,” she said quietly. “I knew there was someone.”
I let out a broken laugh. “There is.”
“What happened?”
I wiped my face with the heel of my hand, but the tears wouldn’t stop.
“Brennan.”
My mother went very still.
“Our Brennan?”
I nodded.
And something in her expression shifted from curiosity to concern.
“He was building his life around me.”
She frowned slightly. “Explain.”
“He skipped a residency interview. With Dr. Green. A huge program. In another city.”
She blinked. “Because of you?”
“Because of our date.”
The shame burned.
“I did this once,” I whispered. “With Jonathan. I didn’t go to orthopedic because it was easier for us if I stayed in cardiology. I told myself it didn’t matter.”
My voice cracked.
“And now I don’t even know if it was my dream or his.”
My mother was quiet.
“I won’t let Brennan do that,” I continued. “He’s younger. He’s brilliant. He deserves a life that isn’t molded around me.”
“And how was he when you told him?”
The image hit me immediately.
Barefoot.
Still.
Destroyed.
I started crying again.
“He didn’t fight dirty. He didn’t yell. He just… he just stood there.”
My mother’s voice was quiet. “That’s not selfishness, Marina. That’s love.”
“I know,” I whispered. “That’s why I left.”
She took my hands.
“Marina. Thinking about him is noble. But did you ask him what he wanted?”
“He would choose me,” I said immediately. “He already did.”
“And you don’t trust that?”
“It’s too much responsibility.”
The words felt small compared to the weight in my chest.
“What if everything in his life is because of me?” I continued. “He chose cardiology. He knew I’d be his attending. He accepted working at St. Vincent. What if he’s been orbiting me this entire time?”
My mother studied me carefully.
“Or what if he chose cardiology because he loves cardiology?”
Silence.
“What if he chose you because he loves you?” she added.
I shook my head.
“That’s worse.”
Because if it was love, then I had just walked away from it.
“You left because you care more about his future than about your own happiness right now,” my mother said softly.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“That’s love too.”
My chest tightened.
“Then I just proved I don’t deserve it.”
The worst part wasn’t the breakup.
The worst part was that I had a shift that afternoon.
And he would be there.
“That’s why you don’t date someone from work,” I muttered while staring at my reflection in my childhood bathroom mirror.
Red eyes.
Swollen lids.
I looked like someone had carved something out of me.
I took a shower. Let the water burn my skin. Tried to eat. Couldn’t swallow more than two bites.
He didn’t text.
Not one message.
No “Are you okay?”
No “We need to talk.”
No anger.
No begging.
Nothing.
And that almost hurt more.
Brennan wasn’t impulsive. He wasn’t dramatic. He was controlled. Strategic.
Maybe this was his way of making it easier for me.
Or maybe he was just as wrecked and choosing silence because it was the only thing he had left.
I applied concealer under my eyes. Added mascara. Professional armor.
If I looked composed, maybe I would become composed.
I wasn’t.
The hospital smelled the same.
Cold.
Sterile.
Indifferent.
I felt anything but.
He was already there.
White coat.
Hair perfectly in place.
Chart in hand.
Professional.
Composed.
And when his eyes met mine across the corridor, something flickered there — something raw — but it disappeared so fast I almost convinced myself I imagined it.
“Dr. Meyer,” he said evenly.
“Dr. Stokes.”
My voice didn’t tremble.
I don’t know how.
The shift moved like a dream I wasn’t fully inside.
I dictated notes.
Reviewed labs.
Nodded at residents.
Every time I felt him enter a room, my body reacted before my brain did. Like some invisible current pulled tight between us.
He didn’t linger.
He didn’t avoid me either.
He was precise.
Clinical.
And it destroyed me.
Because if he had been angry, I could have fought back.
If he had been cruel, I could have justified leaving.
But this?
This quiet dignity?
It felt like punishment.
Midway through the afternoon, there was a knock at my office door.
“Come in.”
He stepped inside.
Closed the door behind him.
He had papers in his hand.
My pulse spiked instantly.
Professional. Stay professional.
“Dr. Stokes,” I said, keeping my eyes on the computer screen. “Did you bring the reports?”
Silence.
Then:
“No.”
My fingers froze over the keyboard.
I finally looked up.
He was watching me the way he had that morning when I was driving away.
Not accusing.
Not soft.
Just… steady.
“I wanted to talk to you.”
My throat tightened.
I inhaled carefully.
“Professionally or personally?”
His jaw shifted slightly.
“Both.”
He stepped forward and placed the papers on my desk anyway. An excuse. A shield.