FIVE CALLUM
FIVE
CALLUM
The car ride is silent. Except for the tap, tap, tap of Claudia’s nails against her phone.
I grip the steering wheel too tightly, watching the traffic inch forward. The late afternoon sun blazes overhead. Salt-heavy Townsville air clings to everything. The kind of humid day that usually calls for iced coffee, tree shade, and bare feet on cool tile floors.
Exhaustion sits heavy in my chest.
Maybe it’s the QI project advisory meeting this morning. Trevor had been polite—measured voice, careful phrasing—but the message was clear.
“Potential’s there, Callum. But might not be worth prioritizing right now.”
Not a no. But not a yes.
“Maybe with more data?” he suggested.
More proving myself. Which, fine. That’s the job. But it didn’t stop the frustration from buzzing around like a mosquito in a dark room. Barely audible, but impossible to ignore.
Perhaps that’s why my brain wasn’t fully present in theater this afternoon. Still stuck on the meeting. Still stewing.
“Han, I think he’s too light,” Jordie’s voice cut straight through my conversation with my registrar.
I paused. Glanced over to where Jordie stood, eyes narrowed in concentration, watching the patient on the table.
“Your patient’s too light,” she said again, utterly sure.
It had only been a week since our so-called truce after the PACU chaos, but old habits die hard. My first instinct was irritation. Was she really questioning me mid-procedure? But when I actually looked at the patient, she was right. Tiny, sluggish blinks confirmed he was surfacing.
“Good catch,” I said, adjusting the propofol infusion.
Jordie shrugged like she hadn’t just saved my ass.
So, yeah. Today was long in a way that seeps into your bones and makes you crave softness. Home. Dinner. Sit beside someone you love on the couch and pretend—for just a minute—that things were simple again.
Instead, I’m here. Another airport drop-off.
“The guys are already at the airport,” Claudia says, still scrolling.
“Uh-huh.”
“Check-in’s opening soon. You should come in and say hi to the team.”
I really don’t want to. Nothing personal.
Her colleagues are brilliant. Accomplished.
Acutely intimidating in that hyper-competent, never-forgot-to-water-their-plants way.
But being around them always feels like pulling up a chair to someone else’s family dinner.I’m not unwelcome. Just not entirely meant to be there.
“Okay,” I say anyway.
She pauses. Just for a second. “Honey, what’s wrong?”
I grip the steering wheel tighter, making a turn toward the airport. The sun’s dipping low now, casting long, too-bright shadows across the dash.
“It’s just . . .” I exhale through my nose and swallow the sting behind my ribs. “You’re never here.”
There’s a silence. Then, “I don’t want to be gone this much, Callum.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” I shake my head. “I just . . . I miss you. And sometimes it feels like I’m the one who made all the sacrifices.”
The second it’s out, I immediately regret it.
“I didn’t ask you to come here, Callum. You chose to follow me. Now I’m doing the best I can.” She says it calmly, which somehow makes it worse.
I pull into the car park, kill the engine, and climb out, grabbing her suitcase from the back.
We don’t speak as we walk inside.
But the second we step through the airport doors, Claudia switches. Smiling. Hugging colleagues. Kissing cheeks. Effortless laughter. Like we weren’t just sitting in the car, suffocating under the weight of unspoken things.
“Did you see the email from Dr. Whitmore in Leeds?” one of them gushes. “It’s exciting, right?!”
Claudia lights up. “Yes! He sent over the preliminary data. Looks very promising.”
I watch her. The lift in her voice. The spark in her eyes. The way she softens around these people—her people.
Half the people I knew in Sydney were Claudia’s first. My med school friends had scattered into their own lives, and Claudia was the sort of person people gravitated to without even trying.
I’d somehow built a social life in her slipstream—people I’d never have approached on my own but ended up liking all the same.
Without her, the edges of my world would have been a lot quieter.
Someone says something, and Claudia laughs.
Their voices blur. Just background noise layered over the whir of the check-in counters, crying toddlers, and suitcase wheels dragging across tiles.
A woman in yellow pants sprints past, muttering into her phone.
Somewhere, a boarding call echoes through the terminal.
“Callum, honey.” Claudia tugs at my sleeve. “Check-in is open. We’re going.”
She slings her carry-on over one shoulder, already moving toward the line, swept back into the world where I’m just a footnote.
I blink. My body catches up. I reach for her, fingers brushing her elbow, just enough to ask wait.
She turns. I study her face, memorizing it in a way that feels ridiculous. The sharp, intelligent gleam in her eyes, the familiar slope of her nose, the way the red of her lipstick is slightly faded from sipping coffee before we left the apartment.
“I’ll miss you.” My voice is steady. My chest isn’t.
Maybe she sees something on my face, because she doesn’t just kiss my cheek and leave. Instead, she steps forward and wraps her arms around my neck.
“I love you,” she says. It feels like a life ring tossed out in open water.
She gives me a soft kiss on the lips and pulls away, squeezing my hand before jogging after her group.
I stay where I am, watching as she moves further away. Until she’s swallowed by the crowd, her laughter blending into the drone of the terminal.
And then, like every time before this, I turn and walk away.