Chapter 16 Calla #2
Maybe I was the only one who spent five years holding onto something that had stopped existing the moment I signed those divorce papers.
"Dr. Karras."
I turned. Riven stood near the reception desk with Mireya beside him. Both of them were watching me with concerned expressions. They'd seen everything. The kiss. My frozen posture.
"Riven. Mireya."
"Early start," Riven observed. His tone was neutral, but his dark eyes missed nothing. They never did.
Mireya touched my arm. "Can we talk in private?"
I followed her to a small consultation room off the main corridor. The space was cramped, designed for difficult conversations with families, and it felt appropriate given what was happening inside my chest.
"You saw them," Mireya said once the door closed. "How are you doing?"
I sank into one of the chairs, the exhaustion hitting me all at once. "I told him I still loved him yesterday."
Mireya's eyes widened slightly. "What did he say?"
"That we could be friends." I laughed dryly. "He appreciated my honesty and then offered me friendship."
"Oh, Calla."
"And then this morning I watched him kiss her as if I hadn't said anything at all.” I pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to push back the burning sensation building there. "He's happy with her, Mireya. I could see it on his face."
Mireya sat across from me, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. This is good. This is what I needed." The words sounded hollow even to my own ears. "Now I know. Now I can stop wondering and hoping and driving myself crazy over something that was never going to happen."
"Calla, look at me."
I dropped my hands. Mireya's dark eyes were full of sympathy, but also something steadier. Something that looked like understanding.
"Cassian and Maya have been together for eight months," she said gently. "They live together. They've built something. And from everything I've seen, he genuinely cares about her."
"I saw that this morning." I nodded, smiling bitterly. "Trust me, I'm aware."
"That doesn't mean what you felt wasn't real too. It just means—"
"That I'm an idiot who confessed my love to a man who's clearly happy with someone else." A sound escaped me, something between a scoff and a breath.
"Calla."
"I told him I loved him and he asked for time to think. Time to think." I pressed my palms against my eyes again.
Mireya was quiet for a moment. "Maybe he's still processing what you said."
"Or maybe it didn't matter enough to process and I'm just a complication he's trying to figure out how to manage." I dropped my hands, meeting her eyes. "You saw them together. Did that look like a man who's conflicted?"
She didn't answer, and that, in itself, was answer enough.
"It's not pathetic to still have feelings for someone," Mireya said finally. "Some people take longer to let go. Some people need more time to process what they lost."
"Five years, Mireya. I've had five years. And he's clearly moved on while I was still stuck on what we used to have."
"You moved forward too. You took that fellowship. You built a career. You became one of the best trauma surgeons in your field." Her hand found mine, gripping firmly. "Just because you still had feelings for Cassian doesn't mean you weren't living your life."
I wanted to believe her, accept the comfort she was offering, and use it to patch the holes that confession had torn open.
"What do I do now?" I asked. "How do I work with him every day? How do I sit across from him while he goes home to her every night?"
"You do what you've always done. You compartmentalize and focus on the work. You take it one day at a time until it gets easier."
"And if it doesn't get easier?"
Mireya was quiet for a moment. "You can decide whether staying at Obsidian is worth the pain. Daniel's offer is still on the table, isn't it?"
I nodded. The leadership position at the new trauma center was the escape hatch I'd been circling for weeks.
"Maybe that's your answer," Mireya said. "The universe is giving you a chance to build something new somewhere that doesn't have Cassian in every hallway."
"Running away again."
"Or choosing yourself. There's a difference."
I thought about the fellowship. How I'd chosen it over my marriage, over Cassian, over everything we'd been building together. I'd called it ambition then. Career advancement. The logical choice for someone who wanted to be the best.
Now I wondered if it had just been fear. Fear of loving someone too much, of needing someone who might not need me back, of staying still long enough for the wanting to catch up with me.
"I don't want to run," I said. "Not again. Not from this."
Mireya squeezed my hand once more before letting go. “Okay. Then stay and figure out how to exist in the same space as him without it breaking you. It won't be easy, but you're one of the strongest people I know. If anyone can do it, you can."
"And if it isn't enough?"
"Then you'll adapt and find ways to cope. Lean on the people who care about you instead of carrying everything alone." She stood, smoothing her scrubs. "That's what friends are for, Calla. Let us help."
After she left, I sat alone in the consultation room, processing everything.
Maybe the time he'd asked for had resulted in a decision I just hadn't been informed of yet. Or maybe he was still figuring things out and I was reading too much into a single moment in a parking lot.
I didn't know. That was the worst part. I didn't know what he was thinking, what he was feeling, what any of this meant.
All I knew was he hadn't said he didn't love me.