Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
CASSIAN
FIVE YEARS AGO
Our second anniversary fell on a Thursday and I had planned everything.
Reservations at Lucia's, the small Italian place with terrible lighting but incredible pasta where we'd had our first real date.
I called three weeks in advance to request the same corner booth, the one with the wobbly table leg that I'd fixed with a folded napkin while Calla pretended not to notice.
I even bought a new tie, navy blue, because she once mentioned it was her favorite color on me—back when she still said things like that.
I left the hospital early, which almost never happened. Dr. Jones had raised an eyebrow when I handed off my patients at five-thirty, but he didn't ask questions. Maybe he remembered what it was like to be young and married. Or he just didn't care.
Either way, I was home by six. I showered and dressed, standing in front of the bathroom mirror trying to decide if the tie was too much.
It wasn't too much. It was our second wedding anniversary. That deserved a tie.
Cassian
Leaving soon. Can't wait to see you.
Calla did not respond. She was probably in surgery, or rounding, or buried in paperwork. The woman worked like she was trying to outrun something, though I was never able to figure out what.
I drove to Lucia's and parked in the same spot I'd used three years ago, back when I was so nervous I'd sat in my car for ten minutes rehearsing conversation topics.
That felt like a lifetime ago. A different version of me, younger and more hopeful, who believed that loving someone enough would make everything work out.
The hostess recognized me when I walked in. "Mr. Reed! Your table is ready. Will your wife be joining you?"
I nodded. "She's on her way."
"Wonderful! Can I start you with something to drink while you wait?"
"A bottle of Chianti, please. 2015."
She smiled and led me to the corner booth. The table still wobbled. I folded a napkin and wedged it under the leg, and something about the familiar gesture made my chest ache.
Seven o'clock came and went.
I checked my phone. No messages. No missed calls. I texted again.
Cassian
At the restaurant. Everything okay?
No reply.
Seven-fifteen. The waiter came by, and I ordered bruschetta to buy myself more time. The bread was warm and perfectly crisp, the tomatoes fresh and bright with garlic. But I barely tasted any of it.
Seven-thirty. The Chianti sat untouched in its carafe, and I'd stopped pretending to read the menu. The hostess kept glancing at me with pity in her eyes. I smiled at her, the easy grin I'd perfected over years of pretending everything was fine when it wasn't.
By eight o'clock, I knew Calla wasn't coming.
I paid for the wine and the bruschetta, left a generous tip to compensate for wasting the waiter's time, and walked back to my car. The night air was cool, carrying the scent of rain that hadn't fallen yet. I sat behind the wheel for a long moment, keys in my hand, trying to decide what to do.
I could go home and wait for her there, let the anger build until she walked through the door and I could finally say all the things I'd been swallowing for months.
Maybe I should tell her that I was tired of coming second to the hospital and I was exhausted from being the one who remembered every birthday and anniversary while she forgot them all.
But God, I loved her more than I knew how to say. But I was starting to wonder if she loved me back the same way.
So I went to find her in the hospital. I badged through the employee entrance and made my way to the trauma wing, nodding at nurses I recognized, and sidestepping a janitor mopping the hallway near the elevators.
Calla was in Trauma Bay 3.
She was elbow-deep in a patient's abdomen, her focus absolute, her hands moving with the precision that had made her one of the best trauma surgeons in the program.
I heard that the patient was a construction worker, impaled by rebar at a job site with bowel perforation, significant blood loss, and crashing vitals.
I stood in the doorway and watched her work.
She was beautiful like this. I'd thought so the first time I'd seen her in an OR, back during our residency when we were both too exhausted to be anything but honest. There was a stillness to Calla when she operated, a calm that seemed almost supernatural.
The world could be falling apart around her and she wouldn't flinch.
She'd just keep working until the crisis passed or the patient was gone.
I'd fallen in love with her in an operating room. And I remembered why just by watching her like this.
The surgery took hours. I lost track of time, leaning against the wall outside the trauma bay, watching through the window as Calla fought to save a man she'd never met. Nurses came and went. Residents rotated in and out. The patient coded twice, and twice Calla brought him back.
Finally, sometime past midnight, she stepped away from the table and let the residents close. I watched her strip off her gloves and gown, her movements slow with fatigue. She said something to the attending beside her, nodded at whatever response she received, and turned toward the door.
When she saw me, her face went pale. For a moment, she just stood there, frozen, her eyes searching mine for something I couldn't name. Then her hand flew to her mouth.
"Oh god. What time is it?" she mouthed.
"Late," I mouthed back.
She walked toward me, shutting the door close. Her scrubs were stained with blood. Her hair was escaping its bun, dark red strands falling around her face. She looked exhausted and devastated and so painfully beautiful it made my throat dry.
"Cassian, I'm so sorry. I was about to leave, I swear. I was walking to my car when the call came, and I couldn't just ignore it. He would have died if I hadn't stayed."
I stared at her, nodding. "I know."
"I forgot. I'm the worst."
"Calla."
"No, I am. I forgot our anniversary. Our second anniversary. You made reservations, didn't you? At Lucia's. That's why you're wearing the blue tie."
She noticed the tie. Somehow, that made it worse.
I wanted to argue with her and tell her that it wasn't fine. I wanted to ask her if she even wanted to be married to me anymore, or if I was just another obligation she kept forgetting to cancel.
But she looked shattered. Genuinely. Her armor was down, and underneath it was a woman who was drowning in guilt she didn't know how to express.
I couldn't be angry at that. I didn't have it in me.
"The guy going to make it?" I asked instead.
The shift in topic startled her. She blinked, processing, then nodded slowly. "Probably. If the next twenty-four hours go well. We had to resect part of his bowel, but we saved most of it."
"Good."
"Cassian..."
I sighed. "Come here."
I opened my arms, and she hesitated for only a second before stepping into them. Her body sagged against mine, all the tension draining out of her at once. I realized she was trembling, shivers running through her frame that she was trying to hide.
I held her tighter.
"I'm sorry," she whispered against my shoulder. "I'm so sorry."
"I know."
"I wanted to be there. I wanted to have dinner with you and drink wine and celebrate like normal people do. I wanted..."
She trailed off. I waited, but she didn't finish the sentence.
That was Calla. She’d always start talking about thoughts she couldn't complete, leaving sentences half-spoken because finishing them would require vulnerability she didn't know how to give.
I kissed the top of her head, breathing in the smell of antiseptic and hospital soap that clung to her hair. Underneath it, barely there, was the citrus scent of her shampoo. A small reminder of the woman beneath the surgeon.
"Let's go home," I said.
She pulled back enough to look at me. Her eyes were wet, though no tears had fallen. Calla didn't cry. Not in front of people, anyway. She saved her grief for moments when no one could witness it.
"You're not angry?"
"I'm tired," I admitted. "And disappointed. But I'm not angry."
"You should be angry."
"Maybe." I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, my thumb brushing her cheekbone. "But being angry won't give us our anniversary back. It'll just make us both miserable."
She stared at me like I'd said something in a language she didn't speak. As if forgiveness was a concept she couldn't quite wrap her mind around.
"Can we get pizza on the way?" she asked finally. "I haven't eaten since lunch."
"Yeah." I managed a smile. "We can get pizza."
We walked out of the hospital together, her hand in mine, our fingers intertwined.
The parking lot was nearly empty, the night quiet except for the distant wail of an approaching ambulance.
Calla flinched at the sound, instinct pulling her attention toward the noise before she forced herself to look away.
"Not tonight," I said. "You're off the clock."
"I know."
But I saw the way her eyes lingered on the ambulance bay and how her shoulders tensed with the urge to turn around. The hospital called to her in a way I never had, and I'd accepted that a long time ago.
I just hadn't realized how much it would hurt.
We found a pizza place open late, a tiny shop with peeling vinyl booths and a cook who looked like he hadn't slept in days.
Calla ordered a margherita. I got pepperoni.
We sat across from each other in a booth that smelled like oregano and old grease, eating in silence while the clock on the wall ticked past one in the morning.
"Tell me about your day," she said eventually.
I shrugged. "Not much to tell. Clinic in the morning. Two surgeries in the afternoon. Nothing exciting."
"And then you went to Lucia's."
"And then I went to Lucia's."
She set down her pizza, her appetite apparently gone. "I really am sorry, Cassian."
I paused, staring at her half-eaten slice. "I know you are."
"I keep doing this. Forgetting and things. You deserve better."
I reached across the table and took her hand. Her fingers were cold despite the warmth of the restaurant.
"I deserve you," I said. "That's what I signed up for. The good and bad. The easy and hard."
Her jaw worked, like she was fighting against words that wanted to escape. "You make it sound so simple."
"It's not simple. But it's still true."
She didn't respond. Just looked at our hands intertwined on the table, her thumb tracing circles on my palm.
"I love you," she said quietly. The words sounded almost painful coming from her, like they cost her something to speak aloud. "You know that, right?"
I squeezed her hand. "I know."
"I don't say it enough."
"You don't."
She flinched, lowering her gaze. It was something she always did when she felt guilty.
"But I know anyway," I continued. "You show me in other ways.
The way you save me the last cup of coffee even when you need it more.
Or how you check on my patients when I'm running late.
I can feel it whenever you let me hold you when you've had a bad day, even though asking for comfort makes you feel like you're failing somehow. "
Her eyes glistened with tears.
"I see you, Calla. Even when you're trying to hide."
She was quiet for a long moment. Then she lifted my hand and pressed her lips to my knuckles, a gesture so tender it made my heart ache.
"Take me home," she murmured against my skin.
I paid for the pizza and drove us back to our apartment. Calla fell asleep in the passenger seat, her head against the window, her breathing slow and even. I glanced at her every few minutes, watching the streetlights paint shadows across her face.
This woman. This impossible, brilliant, infuriating woman… She kept so much of herself locked away that sometimes I felt like I was married to a stranger.
I loved her anyway. God help me, I loved her anyway.
When we got home, I woke her gently, my hand on her shoulder. She stirred, disoriented for a moment, then focused on my face.
"We're home," I said.
She nodded and let me help her out of the car, her body heavy with exhaustion.
We walked up to our apartment in silence, my arm around her waist, her head resting against my shoulder.
When we got inside, she headed straight for the bathroom to shower off the hospital.
I heard the water running, and I sat on the edge of our bed and tried to remember what I'd planned to say to her tonight.
I had prepared a speech about the things I wanted to tell her regarding our marriage and our future. I'd rehearsed it in the car on the way to Lucia's, picking words carefully because Calla didn't respond well to emotion thrown at her without warning.
None of that mattered now. The moment had passed. The night had slipped away from us, consumed by rebar and blood loss and all the chaos that defined our lives.
Calla emerged from the bathroom in an old t-shirt of mine, her hair damp and loose around her shoulders. She looked younger and softer like this, more like the woman I'd married and less like the surgeon who kept the world at arm's length.
She climbed into bed beside me and curled against my chest without a word.
I held her and breathed her in, trying not to think about all the things we weren't saying.
"Happy anniversary," she whispered.
"Happy anniversary."
"I'll do better. I promise,” she murmured so softly I nearly missed it.
I wanted to believe her that things would be different and we would find our way back to the couple who'd danced barefoot at their wedding and promised each other forever.
But promises were easy to make in the dark, when exhaustion stripped away all the defenses.
Keeping them was the hard part.
I kissed her hair and closed my eyes, her heartbeat steady against my chest.
"I know," I said.
She was asleep within minutes, her breathing slow and even, her body warm against mine. While I lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling, trying to convince myself that this was enough.
That we were enough.
That love, on its own, could carry us through.