Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
CALLA
PRESENT DAY
I was between surgeries, sitting in the attending lounge with a cup of coffee that had gone cold an hour ago, scrolling through messages I didn’t want to read. Department memos. Research updates. A reminder about the protocol meeting scheduled for that afternoon.
Then I saw his name, and my thumb stopped moving.
Daniel Hargreeve. He was my fellowship supervisor. The very man who had pushed me harder than anyone else in my career and somehow made me grateful for it.
We published three papers together during my two years in Europe. He’d written recommendation letters that opened doors I hadn’t known existed. And he’d never once made me feel like I needed to be anyone other than exactly who I was.
I hadn’t seen him in two years. Not since I’d finished the fellowship and returned to the States.
The email was brief, informing me that he was in town for a conference and wanted to catch up. He said something he wanted to discuss.
So I agreed to meet him on Thursday evening.
The rest of the morning passed in a blur of surgeries and consults. A ruptured appendix at nine. A perforated ulcer at eleven. These cases demanded focus, leaving no room for anything except the patient on the table and the work that needed doing.
By noon, I was exhausted and starving. But I was somehow grateful—because exhaustion meant I didn’t have time to think about Cassian, the protocol meeting in three hours, and the way my pulse kicked up every time I saw him in the hallways, my body responding to his presence before my mind could intervene.
I grabbed my jacket and headed for the cafeteria, already resigning myself to whatever sad excuse for a salad they were serving today.
“Karras.”
I turned. Cassian was behind me, hands in his pockets, looking uncertain in a way that didn’t suit him. His dirty blonde hair was slightly disheveled, like he’d been running his fingers through it. His green eyes held something I couldn’t quite read.
“Reed.”
“You heading to lunch?”
“That was the plan.”
“Mind if I join you?”
I hesitated. We’d been so careful about boundaries these past weeks. Professional distance. Minimal contact outside of required meetings. Arriving exactly on time, leaving the moment we were dismissed. Lunch felt like crossing a line neither of us had agreed to move.
But I was tired. Tired of pretending he didn’t exist. Tired of the constant effort of avoidance, the way it drained energy I didn’t have to spare.
“Sure.”
We ended up at a small deli two blocks from the hospital.
The kind of place with checkered tablecloths and a menu written on a chalkboard, where the woman behind the counter called half the customers by name.
Cassian ordered a turkey sandwich. I ordered tomato soup.
We sat at a table near the window, afternoon light falling across the worn wooden surface between us.
For the first few minutes, we ate in silence. But it wasn’t the tense, loaded quiet of our protocol meetings. This was something easier. Almost familiar. Like slipping into clothes you’d forgotten you owned and finding they still fit.
“This place is new,” I said eventually.
“It opened about three years ago.” Cassian wiped his mouth with a napkin. “I come here when the cafeteria gets too depressing.”
“Which is always.”
“Which is always.” He smiled, and it was genuine. The kind that reached his eyes and crinkled the corners, that made him look like the Cassian I’d married instead of the carefully controlled version he showed me at work.
I looked away, focusing on my soup. His smile was dangerous. It made me remember things I had no business remembering.
“Can I ask you something?” The words escaped before I could stop them.
“Sure.”
“Why did you agree to the protocol assignment? You could have said no. Patel would have found someone else.”
Cassian set down his sandwich, considering. His fingers drummed against the table, a nervous habit I recognized from a thousand moments during our marriage. He did it when he was thinking. When he was trying to find the right words.
“Honestly? I thought it would be fine.” He met my eyes, and something flickered there. Vulnerability, maybe. Or regret. “I thought five years was enough time that working together wouldn’t be this complicated.”
“This?”
“You know what I mean.”
I did. That was the problem.
“I thought the same thing,” I admitted. “Turns out we were both wrong.”
“Turns out.”
We finished eating, trading stories about difficult residents and hospital politics, carefully avoiding anything that felt too personal.
He told me about a first-year who’d mixed up two patients’ charts and nearly caused a disaster.
I told him about a surgery that had gone wrong in every possible way until suddenly it hadn’t.
It was nice. Almost normal. The kind of lunch we might have had when we were married, stolen time between shifts where we could just be two people who enjoyed each other’s company.
I’d forgotten what that felt like. Being with Cassian without the weight of everything we’d ruined pressing down on us.
When we walked back to the hospital, his shoulder bumped mine on the sidewalk. The contact was brief, accidental, but I felt it everywhere. A spark that traveled from the point of impact down through my arm and into my chest.
Neither of us moved away.
“Thanks for lunch,” I said when we reached the entrance. My voice came out steadier than I felt.
“Yeah.” Cassian held the door open for me, and I had to pass close to him to enter. Close enough to catch his scent. Cedar and something warm underneath, familiar in a way that made my throat tight. “We should do it again sometime.”
I paused in the doorway, looking up at him. He was watching me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. Hopeful and guarded at the same time. Like he wanted to ask for something he was afraid to name.
I knew the feeling.
“Maybe we should.”
Something passed between us. Not quite hope. Not quite resignation. A fragile, uncertain thing balanced on the edge of a knife.
I went back to work feeling lighter than I had in weeks. I didn’t let myself examine why.
Thursday evening, I met Daniel at a coffee shop near his hotel.
He looked the same as I remembered. Gray at the temples now, wire-rimmed glasses, the kind of calm authority that came from decades of knowing exactly who he was. He stood when I approached, pulling me into a brief hug that smelled like coffee and old books.
“Calla. You look well.”
“So do you.”
We ordered drinks and found a quiet corner away from the after-work crowd.
Daniel asked about my work, my transition back to the States, whether I was settling in at Obsidian.
I answered honestly, surprised by how easy it was to talk to him.
Daniel had always been like that. Someone who made space for truth without demanding it.
Finally, he set down his coffee and leaned forward.
“I’ll get to the point. I’m opening a new trauma center. Partnership between three major hospitals, focused on innovative emergency protocols and research. I want you to lead the clinical development.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“It’s a leadership-track position. You’d have autonomy over program design, research priorities, staffing decisions. It’s everything we talked about during your fellowship.” His eyes were warm but serious. “The kind of position where you can shape how trauma care evolves.”
“Daniel, I just started at Obsidian. I’ve barely been there for two months.”
“I know. And if you’re happy there, I understand. But I also know you, Calla. I know how you think, what you’re capable of, what you need to thrive.” He paused. “This position was designed for someone exactly like you.”
My mind was racing, calculations spinning through possibilities I hadn’t considered. Leadership. Autonomy. The chance to build something from the ground up, to implement the ideas I’d been developing for years.
“The center’s based here in the city,” Daniel added. “You wouldn’t have to relocate.”
I wouldn’t have to leave or choose between my career and everything else, the way I had five years ago.
“I don’t need an answer now,” Daniel said gently. “Just think about it.”
“I will. Thank you.”
We talked for another hour about the center’s vision, the funding structure, the timeline for implementation. By the time I left, my head was spinning with information I didn’t know how to process.
The next day, I met Cassian for our scheduled protocol review.
Something was different. He seemed distracted, kept checking his phone, his usual warmth replaced by coolness. Distance. The ease we’d found at lunch had evaporated, leaving behind the stilted professionalism we’d been maintaining for weeks.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Fine.” He didn’t look up from his notes. “Let’s just get through this.”
We worked in tense silence for twenty minutes. I reviewed the data. He made comments. We agreed on next steps without any of the collaborative energy that usually marked our sessions.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Did I do something wrong?”
Cassian looked up. “No. Why?”
“Because you’re acting different. Like you’re angry with me.”
“I’m not angry. I’m just tired. Long week.”
“Cassian.”
“Can we focus on the work?”
I backed off, but the shift was obvious. We finished the meeting in record time, Cassian packing up his things before I’d even closed my laptop. He was out the door with a mumbled goodbye, leaving me alone in the conference room wondering what had changed.
That evening, I stopped by the coffee cart on my way out of the hospital. Cassian was already there, ordering his usual black coffee, no sugar. He turned when I approached, and his expression flickered with something before going carefully blank.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.”
We stood in uncomfortable silence while the barista made our drinks. The easy rapport from two days ago had vanished, replaced by something tight and brittle.