Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
CALLA
PRESENT DAY
Cassian arrived three minutes early for the first protocol meeting. I was already there, having positioned myself at the far end of the table with my laptop open and my notes spread out like a barricade. He paused in the doorway when he saw me.
"Dr. Karras." His voice was carefully neutral.
"Dr. Reed."
He took a seat at the opposite end of the table, and it still didn't feel like enough distance.
"I reviewed the preliminary data Patel sent over," he said, pulling out his own laptop. "The triage bottleneck during mass casualty events is the obvious priority."
"Agreed. We're losing time in the initial assessment phase. Too many patients getting stuck in holding patterns while we figure out resource allocation."
He hummed. "I was thinking we could implement a tiered response system. Color-coded based on severity and likelihood of survival."
"That's already standard in most trauma centers," I pointed out.
"Standard, yes. Efficient, no." He pulled up a spreadsheet through the projector. "Look at the numbers from the last six MCIs. Average time from arrival to surgical intervention for red-tagged patients."
I studied the data. He was right. The numbers were abysmal.
We talked for two hours. Procedure, logistics, implementation timelines.
Our voices stayed level. Our suggestions stayed professional.
We disagreed on three major points and compromised on two of them.
By the time Cassian closed his laptop, we had a rough framework and a list of action items for the next meeting.
We also managed to avoid making eye contact for more than two seconds at a time.
"Same time Thursday?" he asked, gathering his things.
"Thursday works."
He paused at the door. I could see him wanting to say something, the words forming and dissolving before they could escape.
"Good work today," he said finally.
"You too."
And that was it. Our first meeting. Productive on paper, excruciating in practice.
I walked back to my office afterward and sat in the dark for ten minutes, just breathing.
Three weeks later, I was still learning how to breathe underwater. We met twice weekly. Tuesday evenings and Thursday mornings, crammed into the same conference room with our laptops and our data and the ghost of everything we refused to acknowledge.
On the surface, it looked like a successful collaboration. We debated procedures, analyzed outcomes, and drafted proposals that Patel praised in department emails.
Underneath, I was drowning.
The problem was that we were still good together.
Too good. In the OR, I could predict his movements before he made them.
The slight shift of his weight before he requested an instrument.
The pause he took before making a critical decision, eyes narrowing as he ran through possibilities.
The specific tone he used when coaching residents through complicated procedures, patient but firm.
Five years hadn't erased that knowledge.
If anything, distance had sharpened it. I noticed things about him now that I'd taken for granted during our marriage.
The way he hummed under his breath during long surgeries, so quiet only someone standing close enough to hear would catch it.
How he always thanked the scrub nurses by name.
Or the way his whole body relaxed the moment a patient stabilized, tension draining out of him like water from a sink.
I noticed, and I hated that I did.
But I couldn't seem to stop.
"Clamp," Cassian said during a particularly complicated trauma case. It was a motorcycle accident, with multiple internal injuries. It required perfect synchronization between everyone in the room.
I already had the instrument in my hand.
Our eyes met over the patient, and something passed between us. Not resentment or anger. Just the quiet understanding of two people who'd spent years learning each other's rhythms—and still remembered.
"Nice catch," he said.
I smirked under my mask. "You're predictable."
"Or you're paying too much attention."
I didn't have a response for that, so I focused on the surgery instead.
The patient's spleen was ruptured and his liver was lacerated.
His chances of survival were dropping with every minute that passed.
I let the work consume me and the familiar rhythm of surgery pushed everything else to the back of my mind.
In the OR, there was no room for the past. Only the present moment, the patient on the table, and the life hanging in the balance.
We saved him. Barely, but we did—after four hours of surgery, three units of blood, a small miracle of timing, and skill that left us both exhausted and quietly triumphant.
Later, in the scrub room, I stood at the sink with hot water running over my hands, trying to shake the feeling of Cassian's gaze.
He was standing beside me, staring in the mirror. Our eyes met in the reflection, and he looked away quickly, fumbling with the soap dispenser like he'd forgotten how to use it.
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing. Just..." He shut off the water, and wouldn't quite meet my gaze. "You've gotten better. At the technical stuff, I mean. You were always good, but now you're." He stopped, a faint flush creeping up his neck. "Really good."
I raised an eyebrow. "Better than you?"
He smiled. It was genuine and almost shy, the smile I remembered from a hundred quiet moments during our marriage, when he'd say something earnest and then get embarrassed about his own sincerity.
"I wasn't going to say that," he replied. "But sure. If it helps you sleep at night."
"I sleep fine."
I turned to face him, suddenly aware of how small the scrub room was and how close we were standing. I could almost remember what it felt like to be near him.
"Dr. Karras?" A resident appeared in the doorway, looking apologetic. "Patient in Bay 2 needs an attending."
I stepped back from Cassian so quickly I nearly knocked over the soap dispenser. "I'll be right there."
When I glanced back, he was staring at his hands like he'd forgotten how they worked.
I fled.
There was no other word for it. I walked out of that scrub room like the building was on fire, and I didn't stop until I reached the Bay 2.
I quickly checked the patient, and ensured he was heading to the physicians' lounge on the third floor.
The room was empty except for Mireya, sitting in the corner with a medical journal and a cup of coffee.
She looked up when I entered. Her dark eyes swept over me once, before she set down her journal.
"You look like you need caffeine," she said. "Or alcohol. Possibly both."
"Caffeine will do."
She gestured to the pot on the counter. I poured myself a cup with hands that weren't quite steady and sat down across from her.
Over the past few weeks, Mireya had become one of the few people at Obsidian I could tolerate for extended periods. She didn't push. She didn't pry. She noticed everything but only spoke when it mattered. I appreciated that more than I knew how to say.
"Long morning?" she asked.
"Complicated morning."
"I saw you and Dr. Reed in the OR earlier." She sipped her coffee, her expression neutral but knowing. "You work well together."
"We used to work together a lot."
"I gathered that." She was quiet for a moment. "For what it's worth, everyone's noticed he's different around you."
I stared at my coffee. The liquid was dark and bitter, and I wrapped my hands around the cup just to have something to hold. "Is that good or bad?"
"Neither. Just interesting." Her phone chimed. She glanced at it and smiled, her eyes brightening. "Riven's asking if I want lunch. You should join us."
“Riven? You mean, the…” I started.
“Owner? Yeah. We’re kind of together.” She smiled sheepishly.
"Oh! Okay,” I said. “I should probably catch up on charts."
"You should probably stop overthinking and eat food." She stood, tucking her phone into her pocket. "Come on. You need a break, and I need a buffer so Riven doesn't spend the whole meal talking about hospital budgets."
I followed her to the cafeteria because arguing required energy I didn't have.
Riven was already there, holding a table near the windows. He rose when he saw Mireya, and his expression transformed. The controlled, commanding demeanor I'd seen in meetings disappeared, replaced by something unguarded. More open.
Then his gaze shifted to me, and the warmth retreated. Not hostile. Just careful. The polite distance of someone who knew exactly who I was and had decided long ago where his loyalties lay.
"Dr. Karras." He extended his hand, his grip firm and brief. "Mireya mentioned you might join us."
"I hope that's alright,” I said. “And, Riven, drop the formalities.”
"Of course, Calla,” he replied.
He pulled out Mireya's chair first, his hand brushing her shoulder as she sat down. With me, he simply gestured to the empty seat across from them.
I didn't blame him. Cassian was his best friend. Whatever version of our divorce Riven had witnessed or pieces he'd helped Cassian put back together afterward, I was the woman on the other side of that story.
Civility was more than I had any right to expect.
"Cassian mentioned you're making excellent progress on the protocol," Riven said, his tone perfectly neutral. "He's impressed with your work."
I blinked. "He talks about me?"
"When the subject comes up." Riven's expression gave nothing away, but Mireya's hand found his under the table, a small gesture I almost missed. A warning, maybe. Or reassurance. "He gets focused when he cares about a project."
A project. The correction was deliberate, I was sure of it.
I changed the subject, asking about hospital expansion plans and budget allocations—anything to redirect the conversation away from dangerous territory.
Riven obliged. His answers were thorough but clipped, offering information without invitation to continue. Mireya carried most of the conversation after that, bridging the silences I created and Riven didn't bother to fill.
By the time lunch ended, I understood exactly where I stood.
Riven would be professional and civil. But he would never be my friend or forget whose side he was on.
I respected that, even as it stung.
That evening, I was leaving for the day when I saw Cassian and a woman I didn't recognize, standing near the main entrance.
I stopped in the stairwell, frozen behind the glass door, watching through the small window like a voyeur at my own haunting.
She had brought him food, casually talking as she held an expensive-looking restaurant bag. She was effortlessly beautiful, her dark hair falling in waves around her shoulders, her smile easy and warm.
Cassian was smiling back at her. Not the nervous, uncertain expression he wore around me. But an easy, comfortable one.
She said something that made him laugh, touching his arm with familiarity. Then, he leaned down to kiss her forehead.
She was not a colleague. And obviously. not a friend.
She was more.
They looked good together. Uncomplicated. Two people who fit without friction, without history, without all the unspoken things I carried every time I stood in the same room as him.
The woman was wearing scrubs under her jacket, so she was medical. A doctor, probably, based on the way she carried herself. But I'd never seen her at Obsidian before, not in the hallways or the OR or any of the department meetings I'd attended. She must work somewhere else.
He was making it work with someone whose schedule didn't overlap with his.
I thought about our marriage—the missed dinners, forgotten anniversaries, promises I'd made and broken so many times. We'd worked in the same hospital, lived in the same apartment, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd brought him lunch.
But here was Cassian, with someone who didn't even work in the same building, and she was showing up for him. She was making time and effort.
She was doing something I never did.
But had I been so easy to give up on?
I turned and walked back through the side exit, not trusting myself to pass by them.
That night, I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling while Felice's light snoring drifted through the thin wall between our rooms. The apartment was dark and quiet, and I couldn't stop seeing Cassian's face when he'd kissed her forehead. The ease of it. The tenderness.
He used to look at me like that. Before. When we were married and in love.
Maybe that was my answer. I'd broken something in him that she had managed to fix. I was the problem, the constant in every equation that failed to balance.
My phone vibrated on the nightstand. I reached for it without thinking. It was Cassian.
Cassian
Meeting moved to Tuesday. Patel's request.
I stared at the message for a long time. The words blurred and sharpened as I blinked against the darkness.
Calla
Okay.
Three dots appeared on the screen. Then disappeared. Then appeared again.
Cassian
See you then.
I set my phone down and closed my eyes, but sleep didn't come for hours.
When it finally did, I dreamed of a distant memory—a wedding in a botanical garden and a man with green eyes promising me forever.
Our wedding.