Chapter 3
Chapter Three - Giulietta
Giulietta woke to a darkness that had nothing to do with the hour and everything to do with what lingered on her skin and deep in the marrow of her bones.
The room around her felt oppressive and foreign, the stillness almost accusatory, and she found herself lying perfectly motionless, breathing slowly and evenly, eyes fixed on the ceiling in the sterile hush of her rented apartment.
Slowly, she sat up, pulling the sheets away from her body as though shedding an unwanted second skin.
She rose with controlled grace, her bare feet touching the cold wooden floor without flinching.
Crossing to the bathroom, she didn’t turn on the lights, relying instead on the dim gray glow of pre-dawn filtering weakly through frosted windows.
She twisted the shower handle sharply to scalding, stepping beneath the water before it had fully warmed, allowing the harsh, burning jets to bite fiercely into her skin, hoping, irrationally, that the pain would erase the memories Ivy had etched into her senses.
She scrubbed vigorously, soap and loofah moving over every inch of her body, her skin reddening under the aggressive friction as if she could scour away every trace of Ivy’s hands, Ivy’s mouth, Ivy’s rough, demanding touch.
But it wasn’t enough. Nothing was.
She pressed one palm against the smooth, tiled wall, leaning into the shower’s punishing spray, eyes closed tight against the relentless onslaught of memories, sharp and vivid.
Ivy’s breath, hot against her neck.
Ivy’s fingers, strong around her wrists.
Ivy’s mouth, hungry and insistent, breaking down barriers Giulietta had spent a lifetime fortifying.
She shuddered involuntarily at the visceral, vivid recollection, the moment she’d felt her control fracture, felt her tightly-held composure slip beneath the fierce pleasure Ivy drew effortlessly from her body.
She remembered, with excruciating clarity, how desperately she’d fought to remain silent, how every fiber of her being had strained to withhold the vulnerability Ivy so casually demanded.
Giulietta exhaled sharply, forcing herself upright, shaking off the lingering, traitorous heat.
With a twist, she shut off the water, allowing the sudden silence to resettle around her like armour.
Stepping out of the shower, she reached quickly for a towel, wrapping herself tightly, drawing strength from the physical barrier she so desperately craved.
She avoided the mirror, knowing the reflection she would see: a woman who had allowed herself to feel too much, who had allowed an intruder inside walls built carefully, brick by brick. Walls she’d believed were impenetrable.
Clearly, she’d been wrong.
Returning to the bedroom, Giulietta pulled open the wardrobe doors, fingers skimming quickly over neatly pressed clothes.
She selected scrubs, drawing the sterile fabric over skin still tingling with an unsettling sensation.
The familiar texture anchored her in professionalism, order, and routine, everything that last night hadn’t been.
Minutes later, she stood in the small kitchenette, her espresso machine hissing in the silence of the apartment.
Giulietta poured a shot of the dark, bitter liquid into a porcelain cup, sipping slowly, allowing the sharp, familiar taste to ground her further.
Her notebook lay open on the countertop beside her, the crisp white pages waiting expectantly.
She picked up her pen, hand perfectly steady despite the turmoil inside, and she jotted down a single note in careful Italian script:
"La perdita di controllo non è mai accettabile." (Loss of control is never acceptable.)
She stared at the words for a long moment, inhaling slowly then exhaling even slower, until finally, she snapped the notebook shut and slid it neatly into her bag. Her movements were precise, revealing nothing, no turmoil, no lingering heat, only discipline and purpose.
By the time she reached the hospital, the sky was shifting from gray to the softer blue of early morning, clouds streaked with pale pink and gold, colors too peaceful for the storm inside her.
She parked, stepping into the cool air, her posture impeccable and her pace measured.
From the outside, she was exactly as she had always intended to be: untouchable, unreadable, unshakable.
She moved through the corridors, nodding briefly to staff who greeted her, offering nothing more personal than polite, detached acknowledgement. Each step she took felt like another brick laid carefully back into place, walls rising again with comforting finality.
When she arrived at trauma, rounds were already underway, the residents gathered nervously around Dr. Meyers, the tension tangible.
Giulietta took her place quietly, her face composed, her stance relaxed yet controlled.
Dr. Meyers glanced at her briefly, eyes sharp but unreadable, acknowledging her arrival without comment.
A resident—young and overly eager—began presenting a patient case: male, early thirties, motorcycle accident, fractures and internal bleeding stabilized overnight. As the resident spoke, Giulietta listened carefully, eyes narrowed slightly in attention.
"The patient remains stable," the resident concluded hurriedly. "Ready for surgical consult."
Dr. Meyers nodded. "Good. Schedule him for surgery tomorrow."
Giulietta glanced briefly at the chart, a tiny crease forming between her brows. "One moment," she interjected, instantly commanding attention without effort.
Dr. Meyers raised an eyebrow, the residents shifting slightly, surprised by her intervention.
"You missed something." She looked at the resident, her tone not unkind but unmistakably authoritative. "You noted abdominal tenderness upon palpation, but no further scans were ordered to rule out delayed internal bleeding."
The resident blanched slightly, glancing quickly at the chart again. "We…we assumed the initial CT would’ve covered it."
"Assumptions are how complications happen," she replied evenly. "Order a follow-up scan. Confirm no additional bleeding before scheduling surgery."
Dr. Meyers studied her silently, his eyes narrowing. "Do as she says," he instructed the resident shortly, voice gruff but approving.
The resident nodded hurriedly, glancing nervously at Giulietta before quickly moving to comply.
Rounds continued smoothly afterward, Giulietta maintaining her watchful stance, speaking only when necessary, never raising her voice, never losing control. She moved with practiced detachment, clinical expertise masking any trace of emotional turmoil.
Yet beneath her surgical mask, her jaw was clenched tightly, tension coiled sharply in her shoulders, carefully hidden from the watching eyes of colleagues and residents alike.
She knew control intimately, had spent her life perfecting it, yet today, every gesture, every word felt strained beneath the surface, as though she stood at the edge of a precipice, fighting to hold herself back from falling.
Because Giulietta knew that what she had felt with Ivy was something she couldn’t afford. Emotion was dangerous. Intimacy was weakness. Control was protection.
She closed her eyes briefly, inhaling slowly through her mask.
She would not break.
She would not yield.
Because Giulietta had learned long ago that control was the only peace she would ever truly know.
Midway through her shift, Giulietta stepped into the quiet lull between patient reviews and surgical prep, a space most residents used to breathe, hydrate, or slip down to the cafeteria for something that passed for caffeine.
She didn’t need any of that. Instead, she moved through the trauma ward like a ghost in pressed scrubs.
A nurse waved her down near the elevators. “Dr. Romano? The consult from reconstructive’s about to start down in Treatment 3. Dr. Lang asked if you wanted to observe. It’s the post-op ink work for the mastectomy patient from last week.”
Giulietta gave a brief nod. “Of course.”
They walked together down a corridor Giulietta hadn’t yet memorized, one of the newer additions to the surgical recovery wing, where the walls were painted in warmer tones and the lighting dipped lower than the harsh fluorescents of trauma.
She was halfway down the hallway when she stopped.
The nurse kept walking, oblivious, but something pulled at Giulietta.
She turned her head.
Through a narrow window in the door to Treatment Room 2, she saw her.
Ivy.
Her hair was tied back messily, black gloves snug over nimble hands, a fitted black tee clinging to her strong frame. Her back was partially turned, her tattoo machine humming in soft intervals as she leaned in toward the woman on the treatment chair.
Giulietta stepped closer to the window, almost involuntarily, her breath catching just slightly in her throat.
It wasn’t the sight of Ivy that stopped her but how she was speaking.
Her voice was pitched low, soothing and intimate in a way Giulietta hadn’t heard last night—last night, when that voice had been a growl in the dark, a command against her throat.
Now, it was honey.
“You’re doing beautifully,” Ivy murmured, her thumb brushing lightly over the woman’s side. “Almost done, I promise. It’s going to look like it was always there.”
The patient—older, her eyes glassy with unspilled tears—nodded, her mouth trembling as she tried to smile. She was shirtless from the waist up, surgical scars faintly visible above the careful drape of the towel, her reconstructed breasts now home to Ivy’s careful, impossibly realistic work.
The nipple Ivy was inking was delicate, a whisper of color and precision that transformed a scar into something beautiful.
Giulietta stood motionless, the doorframe pressing into her shoulder, unable to look away.
Ivy whispered small affirmations Giulietta could only half-hear but felt with disarming clarity.