Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Colton
The knock on my office door is softer than usual.
Not the quick, efficient tap of someone who needs an answer. This one hesitates, like whoever’s on the other side already knows what they’re about to interrupt.
“Come in,” I say, eyes still on the screen.
Trudy steps inside and closes the door behind her.
I know this isn’t about staffing or schedules or a patient question she could’ve asked anyone else because she isn’t smiling. Trudy smiles, even on the worst days. She’s learned how to hold light without disrespecting the dark.
Today, she doesn’t try.
“I’ve been looking for you,” she says gently.
I finally look up.
Her hands are clasped together in front of her, fingers twisting slightly—a nervous habit I’ve only seen a handful of times. The last was when Frank’s numbers dropped faster than any of us expected.
A heavy weight settles behind my sternum.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
She exhales, slow and careful. “Diane asked me to give you something.”
She reaches into the pocket of her cardigan and pulls out a white envelope.
My name is written across the front in thick, uneven handwriting.
Frank’s handwriting.
The room tilts.
“When?” I ask, though my voice sounds distant, even to me.
“A few days ago,” Trudy says. “He was very clear about it. Said it had to be you.”
I take the envelope from her. It’s light. Just paper. Nothing substantial enough to cause the reaction rippling through my chest, but it does.
“He asked that you read it alone,” she adds quietly.
Of course he did. Frank never wasted moments. He believed in precision. In saying exactly what needed to be said and letting it land where it would.
“Thank you,” I say.
She nods, then hesitates. “He … thought the world of you.”
That hits harder than I expected.
“He said you were the kind of doctor who listens, even when you pretend you don’t,” she continues. “The kind who feels things too deeply and works twice as hard to hide it.”
My jaw tightens.
Trudy offers me a sad, knowing look, then turns and slips out, closing the door softly behind her.
The click of the latch echoes too loudly. I stare down at the envelope in my hand. I don’t open it.
Instead, I set it on my desk and align it carefully with the edge, as if order will somehow protect me from its contents. Frank’s name isn’t written anywhere on the outside. It’s just mine, but his presence is unmistakable.
I sit here longer than I should. The office feels smaller with it in here, like the air has thickened, pressing against my ribs. I tell myself I should finish the chart I was reviewing or that I should move on to the next task.
That’s what I always do, but my eyes keep drifting back to the envelope.
I stand abruptly and move to the window, pressing my palm flat against the cool glass. Manhattan stretches out below me, indifferent and alive.
Frank is gone. The finality of it still doesn’t feel real.
I think of the last time I saw him conscious and the way he smirked at me, even as his body failed him.
Or the way he looked at me like he knew exactly what I was doing when I shortened visits, when I stopped sitting down, when I started treating him like distance could protect me from what was coming.
He noticed everything, and that was the problem.
I turn back to the desk.
My fingers hover over the envelope, hesitation tightening my chest. This shouldn’t scare me. It’s words. I deal in hard truths for a living. I tell people things that shatter their worlds before lunch.
So, why does this feel different?
Because Frank didn’t simply know my professional mask. He saw the man underneath it.
I slide my finger under the flap and open the envelope slowly, deliberately, like rushing would somehow cheapen what’s inside.
There’s a single folded sheet of paper.
I sit down again, the chair creaking beneath my weight, and unfold the paper. For a while, I stare at the handwriting.
It’s slightly slanted and even, like he had too much to say and not enough tolerance for neatness.
I inhale once, and then I start to read.
Colton,
If you’re reading this, it means I finally ran out of time.
Don’t make that face. I knew before most people did. Comes with being old, stubborn, and having far too much time to think.
I asked Diane to make sure this got to you because I didn’t want to say it out loud. You have a habit of interrupting when conversations get uncomfortable. I didn’t want to give you the chance.
I exhale slowly through my nose.
That’s fair.
You’re a good doctor. You already know that. Everyone knows that. You’re steady. You don’t panic. You don’t rush decisions just to feel useful. You don’t promise miracles you can’t deliver.
But that’s not why I liked you.
What made me trust you was the way you stood in the doorway longer than you needed to. The way you asked questions and then actually waited for the answers. The way you pretended your job stopped at medicine, even though we both knew it didn’t.
You feel things deeply.
You just don’t think anyone notices.
My grip tightens on the page.
I noticed.
I noticed the way you went quiet when I talked about Diane. I noticed the way your eyes changed when Melissa walked into the room. I noticed how carefully you kept your distance from anything that might remind you that you’re human first and a doctor second.
That kind of control doesn’t come from confidence.
It comes from fear.
I swallow hard.
I see myself in you.
Once upon a time, I was you.
I believed loving people was a liability. I told myself I was better alone. Clearer. More focused. Less distracted by things that couldn’t be fixed.
I convinced myself grief was something you outsmarted. Something you managed.
I buried it under work. Under routine. Under rules I made for myself and called discipline.
I called distance professionalism.
I called silence strength.
I was wrong.
My chest aches, a dull pressure spreading behind my ribs.
I lost someone young. Too young.
I won’t bore you with details. You already know how that story goes. One day, your life makes sense, and the next, it doesn’t. One day, you’re planning a future, and the next, you’re learning how to breathe through loss.
I told myself that if I never loved like that again, I’d never hurt like that again.
What I didn’t realize was that I wasn’t avoiding pain.
I was choosing a quieter version of it.
I close my eyes briefly, the words sinking in.
Grief doesn’t disappear when you lock it away. It waits.
It waits in empty rooms. In long nights. In moments that should feel full and don’t.
It waits until you convince yourself you’re fine and then reminds you that you’re not.
I thought I was protecting myself.
All I did was starve myself of the very thing that makes this life bearable.
My fingers curl into the paper, creasing it slightly.
Then Diane walked into my life and ruined all of that.
She didn’t save me. She didn’t fix me. She didn’t demand I be different.
She stayed.
She saw the worst parts of me. The closed-off parts, the stubborn parts, and the scared parts … and stayed anyway.
Loving her didn’t erase my loss.
It made it worth carrying.
I feel my throat tighten.
You think loving someone makes the loss harder in the end.
You’re right.
It does.
But I would rather live with sharp pain than no feeling at all. I would rather risk heartbreak than wake up one day, realizing I spent my life avoiding joy because it scared me.
Avoidance isn’t peace, Colton.
I let out a shaky breath.
I watched you with Melissa.
You don’t look at her like a man passing time. You look at her like she’s someone who scares you because she matters.
You pull back when things get real. You disappear when emotions surface. You tell yourself it’s necessary. That it’s professional. That it’s safer.
It’s not.
You’re not protecting her.
You’re protecting yourself.
And in the process, you’re hurting both of you.
The words sting because they’re precise.
Frank always was.
I’m not telling you to promise her forever.
I’m not telling you to suddenly become someone you’re not.
I am telling you to stop running.
Stop pretending connection is optional. Stop convincing yourself that being alone makes you stronger.
It doesn’t.
It just makes you lonely.
And lonely men make poor decisions, even when they’re brilliant doctors.
A humorless huff escapes me.
You don’t need to choose today, but you do need to stop hiding.
Because, one day, you’ll wake up in a quiet room and realize you spent your life avoiding the very thing that could have saved you.
I don’t want that for you.
You deserve more than survival.
You deserve a life.
—Frank
The paper trembles slightly in my hands.
I lower it slowly, staring at the desk as if it might offer some kind of answer.
My chest feels tight.
Frank is gone, but somehow, he’s still here, saying the things no one else ever dared to.
And worse than that?
He’s right.
I read the last line twice. Not because I don’t understand it, but because I do. Because it lands with the kind of accuracy that makes you want to argue purely out of reflex.
You deserve a life.
I stare at those words until they blur slightly, and then I lower the paper to my desk as if setting it down gently will soften what it’s done to me.
It doesn’t.
The office is quiet.
My jaw is tight, my posture controlled, my breathing measured. I don’t slump. I don’t put my head in my hands. I don’t allow myself the satisfaction of a dramatic moment.
But inside … something has shifted. Like a crack forming under pressure that’s silent at first and then spreads.
Frank saw me.
Not as Dr. Colton Fisher or the department’s steady hand. As the man underneath the name badge. The one I keep hidden because being that man comes with memories I don’t touch.
I look down at the letter again.
Avoidance isn’t peace. It’s just fear with better posture.
I hate how true it is.