Chapter 4 - Danae
Four
Danae
Three weeks is long enough for something to settle into your bones.
Long enough for the adrenaline to fade, for the sharp edges of fear to dull, for a memory to stop feeling like a moment of torment and start feeling like a question you don’t know how to answer. Long enough for the absence of someone you barely knew to feel heavier than their presence ever did.
Miles never came back.
I didn’t expect him to. I told myself that the first night, and the second, and every time my eyes drifted to the driveway half-hoping to see a motorcycle that didn’t belong there. He was a man who lived on roads, not routines. Men like that don’t circle back.
Still, the porch light stayed on longer than usual.
I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t understand why he was back any way.
I hadn’t seen him up close since the night I stitched him up.
Only these visions of him from afar watching, not regularly, not consistently, just enough to let me think my mind was playing tricks on me.
Once again, everything with Miles left me with a ton of questions and never a single answer.
Work filled the space where thinking might have been if I allowed it.
The ER stays relentless, same as always. New faces. Same pain. Same rhythm of urgency and yet a whole lot of waiting. I settle into it like armor, letting competence be my shield. It’s easier to focus on other people’s emergencies than sit with your own unanswered questions.
Dr. Lucas Reeves, unfortunately, has decided to fill the silence Miles left behind. He’s the kind of man who can’t let something or someone off the hook that easily, so it seems.
It starts subtle.
“Well,” he says one afternoon as we scrub in for a procedure, voice pitched low enough to sound like a joke, “I see you’ve got a type. Quite surprising actually.”
I don’t look at him. “Focus on the patient.”
He chuckles. “Relax. Just saying, I wouldn’t have pegged you for a biker girl.”
Something hot flashes in my chest. “I’m not anything,” I state evenly. “And my personal life isn’t your concern.”
He raises his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, no judgment. Just surprised.”
The thing about comments like that is how easy they are to dismiss individually, and how heavy they get when you stack them up.
A look here. A smirk there. A muttered slander when he thinks I can’t hear. Comments about slumming it, trash, and more.
He never says anything overt. Never anything I could take to HR without sounding dramatic or vindictive. He’s careful like that. He’s a doctor with tenure and friends in administration. He knows exactly how far he can push.
I swallow it. Because I have to. Because my grandfather’s medication costs more than my pride. Because the world is not kind to women who make noise unless they’re bleeding, and even then it’s questionable if a woman can garner the right kind of attention.
By the end of week three, my patience is threadbare. We’re at the nurses’ station when he leans against the counter, coffee in hand, eyes following me like he owns the space.
“Tell me something,” he starts. “Does your biker boyfriend still roar in on his Harley to scare off the bad guys?”
I freeze. My fingers tighten around the chart. “He’s not my boyfriend,” the words spill out before I stop them.
Lucas smiles like he’s won something. “So I was right.”
I look at him then. Really look. “You don’t know anything about me,” I state. “And you don’t get to talk about my life like it’s entertainment. What I am to Miles and what he is to me, isn’t your business.”
His eyes flick briefly, just a crack of irritation. “Touchy.”
“Professional,” I correct.
He laughs under his breath. “Whatever you say. Just don’t get too attached to trash like that. Guys like him don’t stick around.”
The words hit harder than I expect. Not because they’re cruel.
Because they echo a fear I’ve been trying not to name.
Everyone close to me always seems to leave or be taken from me.
I turn away before he can see the anger on my face.
Before I do something stupid. Before I remind him, loudly and publicly, that he’s standing in a hospital surrounded by witnesses.
I finish my shift on autopilot, hands steady even when my chest feels tight. When the clock finally frees me, relief crashes over me so hard I almost sway.
Home. I need home.
The house is dark when I pull into the driveway, porch light flicking on automatically. The night is warm, heavy with summer air, grasshoppers buzzing loud enough to drown out my thoughts if I let them.
Inside, I find my grandfather restless. The caregiver looks apologetic and tired. “He’s been more confused tonight,” she says softly. “Tried to get up twice. And he’s not walked in over a year.”
I nod, forcing calm. “I’ve got it. Thank you.”
She leaves with a sympathetic look that makes my throat tighten. I check his oxygen, blood pressure, blood sugar, basically all the things that may be adding to his disorientation. Adjust pillows. Speak softly as I help him settle back into the bed.
“Danae?” he questions, eyes unfocused.
“It’s me,” I say gently. “You’re home.”
He frowns. “I need to go.”
“Where?” I ask.
“Anywhere,” he mutters. “I don’t belong here.”
The words cut deep because I know he means his body, not the house. I sit beside him and take his hand, rubbing slow circles the way that calms us both.
“You’re safe,” I say. “You’re with me.”
His grip tightens suddenly, surprising me with its strength. “Don’t leave,” he says, panic sharp in his voice.
“I’m not,” I promise. “I’m right here.”
The evening stretches long. He refuses dinner, then asks for it twenty minutes later.
He’s agitated, tremors worse than usual, words tangling together in frustration.
I clean him up when he spills water, change his bedding when an accident leaves him embarrassed and angry.
Usually he is aware enough to let us know when he’s used his briefs, the adult diapers he has to wear since becoming bedridden.
Tonight, he isn’t and used it more than once, filling and overspilling.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, eyes shiny with shame.
“Don’t be,” I say, swallowing my own exhaustion. “None of this is your fault.”
But later, when I finally step into the bathroom and lock the door behind me, I press my hands to the sink and let the tears come anyway. I don’t cry loudly. I don’t sob. I just let it out of me, quiet yet relentless, until there’s nothing left but ache.
Some nights are harder than others. Tonight is one of them.
When I return to the living room, he’s asleep at last, breathing even. I sit there for a while, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest, grounding myself in the rhythm.
This is my life, I remind myself. Not dramatic rescues or motorcycles cutting through the dark.
This.
Responsibility. Care. Staying.
Later, in my bedroom, I kick off my shoes and collapse onto the bed, too tired to change. My phone buzzes on the nightstand.
For half a second, my heart jumps.
It’s just Marcy, checking in.
You okay?
I type back, Long day. I’m fine.
I stare at the screen longer than necessary after hitting send.
Miles never gave me his name that night, his real name. I only have his road name. This motorcycle man life is different than anything I’ve ever experienced, but my cousin Josie, she’s got herself a biker in North Carolina. Raff is good to her and her son.
Miles.
It fits him. I roll onto my side and stare at the window, at the faint glow of the porch light seeping through the curtains.
Lucas’s words echo in my head. Guys like him don’t stick around.
Maybe he’s right.
But some part of me—the stubborn, hopeful part I keep buried under routines and obligations—wonders if sticking around is the only thing that ever really costs anything. Maybe the life of uncertainty suits someone like me better. If I can’t get attached, I can’t get hurt.
I fall asleep thinking about the road. And the man who chose it. And how sometimes, even when someone leaves, they leave something behind that doesn’t know how to follow.
Sleep takes me the way it always does, sudden and heavy, like my body’s been waiting for permission to shut down.
I dream of roads. Long ones. Empty ones. Wind and darkness and the steady thrum of something powerful moving beneath me. I’m not alone in the dream, but I don’t turn to look at who’s there. I don’t have to.
Half in a dream, half coming to, the mattress shifts.
Not the way it does when you roll over or when the house settles. This is deliberate. Careful. Weight added slowly, testing, like whoever it is knows exactly how light to be.
My eyes flutter open.
For a second, panic spikes—sharp and instinctive—but it dies just as quickly when I register the familiar smell beside me. The heat. The scent of leather and night air. The quiet certainty of his presence.
“Miles,” I breathe.
He’s already halfway in the bed, boots gone, shirt gone, pants gone, down to boxers with movements economical, controlled. He freezes the second I say his name, muscles going still like he’s been caught doing something he hadn’t decided he’d own yet.
“You awake,” he says softly.
“I don’t know.” If I’m asleep and this is a dream, I don’t want to be awake. And if I’m awake and he’s going to leave then I want to be asleep.
A beat passes. Another. “If you want me gone—” he starts.
I reach for him. It’s instinct. Not thought. My hand closes around his wrist, skin warm under my fingers, pulse steady and real.
“Don’t,” I whisper.
The tension in him snaps, not violently, but decisively. Like a line pulled too tight finally giving way.
He exhales and shifts closer, careful even now, like he’s afraid of breaking something. Or being broken himself. The bed dips under his weight and suddenly the space feels smaller, warmer, charged in a way that makes my breath hitch.
“You okay?” he asks, low and intent.