Chapter 10 Max
MAX
Max woke at six in the morning to gray light filtering through her bedroom curtains and the immediate, crushing weight of remembering.
For maybe three seconds—that brief, merciful window between sleep and consciousness—she forgot.
Then it all came rushing back: Asha’s apartment, the hollow look in her eyes, the words maybe we should end this, and the way Max had walked out knowing she was leaving part of herself behind.
She was fed up with being Asha’s emotional punching bag. She knew she deserved better.
She lay in bed staring at the ceiling, her pillow still damp from the crying she’d done before finally falling asleep around four. Her cat, Miso, was curled against her side, purring with oblivious contentment. Max envied her that—the ability to exist without the constant weight of human emotion.
Her phone sat on the nightstand, dark and silent. No messages. No calls. Nothing.
Part of her—the part that had spent three weeks being patient and understanding and endlessly accommodating—wanted to text Asha. To check if she was okay, to soften the blow, to make it easier somehow.
But underneath the grief, something else was stirring. Something harder.
Anger.
Max sat up, dislodging Miso, who meowed in protest. She grabbed her phone and scrolled through the message history with Asha—weeks of careful, coded texts, nothing too revealing in case someone saw, always maintaining plausible deniability.
Even their I love yous had been abbreviated, sanitized, safe. But she knew it was real.
She’d made herself so small for Asha. Had hidden what they were, had swallowed her own needs, had convinced herself that patience was the same as love.
Max threw off the covers and headed for the shower. The water was scalding, but she didn’t adjust it. Let it burn. Let it scour away the feeling of Asha’s hands, the memory of her voice breaking on I don’t know what I mean anymore.
By the time she got out, her skin was red and raw, but something had crystallized inside her. She had a shift tonight—her first time seeing Asha since walking out—and she refused to fall apart.
She would be professional. She would do her job. She would not let Asha Patel see how completely she’d been shattered.
The time stretched painfully.
Max tried to keep busy—cleaned her already-clean apartment, did laundry, reorganized her bookshelf by color then by author then back to color again. She found one of Asha’s hair ties on her nightstand, black and simple and forgotten.
Then she got angry at herself for crying and threw the hair tie in her junk drawer.
Then she retrieved it five minutes later and put it in her pocket.
She drafted texts to Asha throughout the afternoon:
Are you okay?
Delete.
We need to talk.
Delete.
I love you, but I can’t keep doing this.
Delete.
Fuck you for making me feel like I’m not enough.
Delete, delete, delete.
By the time she needed to leave for her shift, she was exhausted from the emotional whiplash, but grimly determined. She pulled on her scrubs—the navy ones, not the ones she’d been wearing Tuesday night when everything fell apart—and pulled her hair back into a messy bun with mechanical precision.
Her reflection in the mirror looked tired but intact. Good enough.
She drove to Oakridge through late traffic, hands steady on the wheel, heart a bruised thing behind her ribs. The hospital came into view, all concrete and glass and the promise of routine, and Max felt something in her settle.
This, at least, she knew how to do. The babies didn’t care about her broken heart. They just needed her to show up and do the work.
She could do that. She was good at that.
The NICU was busy when she arrived. The shift report was straightforward: eighteen babies, three admissions from the day shift.
Max signed in, reviewed the census, and started gathering supplies for her rounds. She was hyperaware of her surroundings, tracking the location of every staff member, waiting for the inevitable moment when—
“Evening, Nurse Benson.”
Asha’s voice, cool and professional, came from directly behind her.
Max turned. Asha stood three feet away, clipboard in hand, looking perfectly composed in fresh scrubs and her usual severe bun. The only sign of distress was the faint shadows under her eyes, barely visible unless you knew to look for them.
Max knew to look for them.
Their eyes met for a fraction of a second. The connection was electric, painful, like touching a live wire. Then Asha looked away first, down at her clipboard, and Max felt something in her chest harden into stone.
“Doctor Patel,” Max said, matching her tone exactly. “Good evening.”
“I need you to review the latest labs for Baby Kyes when you have a moment.” Asha’s voice was steady, betraying nothing.
“I’ll pull them now.”
“Thank you.”
Asha walked away without another word, her spine straight, every inch the professional doctor. Max watched her go and felt fury rising like bile.
This was what Asha wanted, wasn’t it? Perfect professional distance. Colleagues who happened to save lives together but nothing more, nothing messy, nothing that could threaten the careful image she’d spent years constructing.
Fine. Max could play that game too.
She pulled up the labs, reviewed the numbers with clinical detachment, and updated the chart. When she passed Asha in the hallway an hour later, she nodded politely and kept walking.
But she could feel Asha watching her. Could sense her attention like a weight, pressing down, making the air thick and hard to breathe.
By ten o’clock, Max’s hands had started shaking.
She was in pod four, changing an IV, and her fingers wouldn’t cooperate. The tremor was small but persistent, making it impossible to thread the tiny catheter into the even tinier vein.
“Come on,” she muttered under her breath. “Come on, you can do this. Fuck off, anxiety.”
But her hands kept shaking, and after the third failed attempt, she had to step away, press her palms flat against the supply cart, and take three deep breaths before she could try again.
When she finally got the IV placed and documented, she retreated to the break room for coffee and a moment to collect herself.
She was pouring her third cup of the night when the door opened and Martha entered, closing it firmly behind her.
“Okay,” Martha said without preamble. “What happened?”
Max didn’t turn around. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.” Martha crossed her arms, leaning against the counter.
“You look like you haven’t slept in a week, you and Doctor Patel are doing this weird avoidance dance that’s somehow more obvious than if you were actually talking to each other, and I just watched you almost drop an IV bag because your hands were shaking. ”
Max gripped her coffee cup tighter. “It’s nothing.”
“Max.” Martha’s voice softened. “Honey, I’ve been doing this job for twenty-three years. I can tell when someone’s falling apart. Talk to me.”
Something in Max’s chest cracked. She set down the coffee cup before she could drop it, sank into one of the plastic chairs, and buried her face in her hands.
“We were together,” she said, muffled. “Me and Doctor Patel. For about three weeks. We were—” Her voice broke. “I stupidly fell for her. And this is all meant to be a secret so please don’t tell her. She might actually explode if you do.”
“I know,” Martha said gently, sitting down beside her.
Max looked up, startled. “You knew?”
“Sweetie, half the unit suspected. You two have been circling each other like magnets since Christmas.” Martha’s expression was kind but knowing. “What happened?”
The story poured out—the relationship, the hiding, Harrison seeing the text, the required disclosure, Asha’s panic, the suggestion they should end things.
“She chose her reputation over me,” Max finished, and saying it out loud made it feel devastatingly real. “I gave her everything I had, and it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough.”
Martha was quiet for a moment, considering. Then: “Oh honey, that’s not what happened.”
“That’s exactly what happened—”
“No.” Martha’s voice was firm. “What happened is a terrified woman panicked when her worst fear came true. She didn’t choose her reputation over you. She just doesn’t know how to choose anything when she’s that scared.”
Max shook her head. “What’s the difference?”
“The difference is time and clarity.” Martha reached over and squeezed Max’s hand.
“That woman is in love with you. Anyone with eyes can see it. The way she looks at you when she thinks no one’s watching?
Max, she’s completely gone for you. But she’s also been wound tight as a drum her whole life, programmed to believe that perfection is the only acceptable option.
That doesn’t excuse what she said to you, but it explains it. ”
“So what am I supposed to do?” Max’s voice cracked. “Keep waiting? Keep being patient while she figures out if I’m worth the risk?”
“No,” Martha said simply. “You’ve been patient enough.
More than enough. But you also don’t have to slam the door completely shut.
Give her the space to make a real choice—not in panic, but with a clear head.
And if she still can’t choose you even then?
” Martha’s expression was sad but resolute.
“Then you’ll know for sure, and you can move on with your head up. Don’t give up on her just yet though.”
Max wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “What if she doesn’t choose me?”
“Then she’s an idiot,” Martha said bluntly. “But at least you’ll know you gave her every possible chance. You’ll know you did everything right, and you can walk away knowing your worth.”
Max nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
Martha stood, patted her shoulder. “Now, go splash some water on your face. We’ve got six more hours of shift, and these babies need you at your best.”
At 1:32 AM, Max passed Asha in the corridor.
“Doctor Patel, can you follow me for a quick chat please,” Max said seriously as she nodded towards the on-call room.
Asha hesitated but then nodded and followed her footsteps.
Once inside, Max locked the door and crossed her arms.
“Asha. I can’t live like this. I know you feel the same way as me. You can’t let your fucked-up past ruin what we already have here.”
“I know, but it’s not always that easy for me,” Asha sighed as she moved closer to Max, reaching out to stroke her arm.
Max looked at her. Their eyes locked again, the way they always did. And then, Max kissed her.
It wasn’t gentle. There was nothing soft or sweet about it. It was desperate and angry and raw—all the hurt and longing of the past two days channeled into the press of mouths, the grip of hands, the way they stumbled backward toward the bed without breaking apart.
“Fuck. Why can’t I stay away from you?” Asha moaned.
“Because we’re meant to be together,” Max said, pulling Asha’s lab coat off her shoulders and letting it fall to the floor.
“This doesn’t fix anything—”
“I know. But it feels so good.” Max’s hands were already working the buttons of Asha’s shirt, her fingers clumsy with need and anger and the overwhelming desire to be close to her, to prove something neither of them could articulate.
They fell onto the narrow bed together, a tangle of limbs and desperation. This wasn’t like the other times. This was urgent, almost violent in its intensity, both of them trying to say with their bodies what words had failed to communicate.
Max pushed Asha back against the thin mattress, kissing her throat, her collarbone, the hollow between her breasts. Asha’s hands were in her hair, gripping tight enough to hurt, and Max welcomed the pain because at least it was something she could understand.
They shed clothes with shaking hands—scrub tops, pants, the layers that separated them—until skin met skin and Asha made a sound that was half-sob, half-moan.
“Max,” she breathed, and it sounded like prayer and apology and plea all at once.
Max kissed her again, swallowing the words, and let herself feel everything: the softness of Asha’s skin, the racing of her pulse, the way her body arched into Max’s touch like she was drowning and Max was air.
“Just lay back and this time, I’m taking control. You need to let me in, Asha,” Max whispered as her mouth traced down Asha’s body.
And Asha didn’t say anything. She presented herself to Max, ready for whatever she wanted from her.
Max’s hands slowly made their way down Asha’s thighs, and up to the top again. The wetness took her by surprise as she slipped her fingers towards it, so inviting and desperate. Asha moaned softly as Max started to massage slow circles into her clit and slowly pushed her fingers inside.
Max needed to fuck her. She needed Asha to let go. Her fingers thrust inside as Asha’s body arched. Her fingers gripping onto the sheets of the on-call bed. Max didn’t say anything, she just fucked her hard and deep. She fucked her full of passion and intent. She wanted to fuck her forever.
Max looked at Asha, in between kissing her deeply, as her fingers continued to work inside of her.
“I do really love you, Max,” Asha groaned between kisses.
“I know you do.”
Max moved down her body and pushed her mouth onto Asha’s clit without hesitation as the fucking continued.
Asha’s skin started to pucker up with goosebumps as Max felt her orgasm crashing towards her in waves. She slowed down, letting her enjoy every second of it before melting on top of her.
They laid there silent, soaking in the moment. Pretending the outside world didn’t exist. Life in the hospital on-call room seemed so much simpler.
“Look at me,” Max demanded, her voice rough with emotion.
Asha’s eyes opened, dark and wet with unshed tears. “Max—”
“I love you too, by the way. Just in case you needed to hear that again,” Max interrupted.
“Tell me what you need from me right now,” Max whispered against her lips.
“You,” Asha managed, her voice wrecked. “Just you. All of you.”
“So where do we go from here? Are you really going to ignore that form and pretend none of this exists?” Max’s words were filled with desperation.
“No. I’m not. But first I have some things to sort. Just give me 24 hours okay? Don’t press me, fuck me, or hammer my messages. Just give me 24 hours,” Asha smiled gently, pulling the cover over her body.
“Um, a little weird, but it’s better than the answer I expected. And I can’t promise I won’t try to fuck you again if you stay here next to me like this,” Max laughed.
They laid in bed for just a little longer before they had to get back to real life outside of those walls.
“Quick shower before we head back?” Max smiled.
“Just a quick one.” Asha rolled her eyes as they pulled themselves back up and into reality.