Chapter 5 #3
I stood there a long while, watching him work, and let myself hope — really hope, without hedging it, without immediately building a professional disclaimer around the feeling — that whatever grew between us might, given the same patience, turn out to be worth the waiting too.
Gemma found me still standing at the window twenty minutes later, two cups of coffee in hand, one of which she pressed into my palm without asking if I wanted it.
"You did the thing," she said. Not a question.
"I did the thing."
"How do you feel?"
"Terrified. Relieved. Slightly nauseous." I wrapped both hands around the warm cup, grounding myself the same way I'd taught a hundred patients to ground themselves. "Mostly terrified."
"That tracks. Big honest things usually feel like that right before they turn into good things.
" She followed my gaze out the window, to where Elias was straightening a tomato cage with the same unhurried focus he brought to everything.
"For what it's worth, I don't think you have anything to be nauseous about.
That man's been looking at you like you hung the moon since roughly week two. "
"You don't know that."
"I absolutely know that. I have eyes, Saoirse, and also ears, and also a nurse's uncanny ability to read a room full of people trying very hard to pretend they're not into each other.
" She bumped her shoulder against mine, gentle, sisterly.
"You did the responsible thing. The hard thing.
Most people wouldn't have. I hope you know that about yourself. "
"I just didn't want to build anything on a foundation I couldn't stand behind."
"I know. That's exactly why it's going to work, if it's going to work at all.
" She sipped her coffee, watching Elias a moment longer before turning back to me with something softer in her expression.
"You've spent three years pouring everything you have into other people's healing, Saoirse.
Rory's memory. Your patients. This whole clinic, basically built out of your own grief turned into something useful.
I just want you to remember, somewhere in all this, that you're allowed to be on the receiving end of some of that care too.
You don't have to earn it. You don't have to have a professional justification for every good thing that happens to you. "
I felt something in my chest tighten and loosen at the same time, the particular sensation of being seen more clearly than I'd let myself be seen in a long while.
"When did you get so wise?" I asked, mostly to deflect, though I meant it too.
"I've always been this wise. You've just been too busy being everyone else's rock to notice.
" She grinned, breaking the moment before it could get too heavy.
"Also, for the record, I fully expect to be maid of honor whenever this eventually gets to that point, so you might as well start planning around that now. "
"We had one conversation about feelings twenty minutes ago. We are nowhere near weddings."
"I'm a planner. Sue me."
"Duly noted. I'll add it to the extremely long list of things I apparently need to plan around where you're concerned."
"That list should really just be titled 'Gemma has opinions.' Save yourself the trouble of subdividing it."
"Fair point." I laughed despite myself, some of the day's tension finally loosening in my chest.
She headed for the door, pausing once more before she left. "Go home, Saoirse. Rest. Let yourself feel good about this for one evening before your brain finds a new reason to worry about it."
I took her advice, mostly. I drove home with the windows down, the spring evening soft and warm around me, and let myself think — not about the ethics of the transfer, not about whether I'd made the right call, but simply about the way Elias had looked at me in that hallway, the small, careful hope in his expression that mirrored exactly what I felt myself.
I thought about Rory again, briefly, the way I always did in moments that mattered.
I didn't feel the familiar guilt this time, the reflexive question of whether I deserved good things when he'd never gotten the chance to have them.
I felt something quieter instead — something closer to permission, like some part of him, wherever he was, might actually be glad to see me finally let myself want something purely for myself.
The garden outside my office window would still be there tomorrow, tomatoes climbing steadily toward the sun, and so, I hoped, would whatever Elias and I were slowly, carefully building between the raised beds and the honest conversations and all the Thursdays still ahead of us.
I locked up the clinic that evening with a lighter step than I'd had in years, humming something under my breath that I didn't recognize until I was halfway to my car and realized it was one of Rory's old favorites, the one he used to play too loud on car rides when we were kids.
I let myself smile at that instead of ache over it, for once. Progress, I thought. Even grief learns new rhythms eventually, if you give it enough patient, stubborn seasons to grow into.