FIFTY-THREE
CALLUM
It’s been a week. Then two.
No sight of her in the corridors. No cherry blossom scent trailing past me in the theater. No laughter echoing down the nurse’s station.
It’s like she vanished and stopped existing altogether, and somehow everyone else just kept moving.
And of course, I thought about her. Constantly. In stupid, useless spirals.
Was she okay? Had the endo flared again? Was someone with her? Did she need help?Did she need me?
Maybe someone should check on her. Maybe I should.
But I don’t.
Because if she wanted me to know, she’d tell me. Because calling her would mean admitting I still care—still fucking worry—still ache for something she already walked away from.
And then, week three came. She was back. Just . . . there again. Like the ground hadn’t shifted beneath us. Or she hadn’t shattered me with quiet finality.
She looked good. Too good. Composed. Polished. Her voice was calm, her hands steady, her smile measured to the decimal. She didn’t flinch when we passed in the hallway. Didn’t glance my way. Just walked on, perfectly fine. Like I hadn’t once memorized the shape of her shoulder in the dark.
Like I didn’t matter at all.
And I told myself that was what she wanted. Space. Distance.
But watching her be okay—flawlessly, irritatingly okay—somehow made it worse.
Because if she could be fine, maybe I was the only one who wasn’t.
And maybe that meant I never meant as much to her as she meant to me.
So, when she was assigned to my Theater Six case, I didn’t think. I reacted.
“Give me anyone,” I snapped. “James. I don’t care.”
Because I couldn’t handle her standing beside me, calm and composed, while I tried not to come undone. I couldn’t fake being colleagues when I still wanted to kiss her.
And now it’s been four weeks of me choking on the debris of whatever we were. I bury myself in work. Double shifts, extra on-calls, cases nobody even wants. I keep moving until my scrubs are woven into my skin, until the exhaustion blurs everything else.
It doesn’t help.
In the scent of old pages when someone opens a book in the waiting room. In the outline of a laugh that echoes like hers, but never is.
It’s maddening—feeling everything and nothing all at once.
Yesterday, I was hollow. Drained.
Today? I’m angry.
Angry at her for giving up. Furious, she didn’t let me fight.
And this morning I let it show when I told her to stand down. Like I didn’t need her when it’s the furthest thing from the truth.
I put on a hard exterior. Because I don’t know how to be soft with her anymore.
Because soft is where I break.
I’m in my office and it’s late. Too late to be here, but that’s become my normal.
The door opens with a quiet creak, but I don’t look up, my eyes focused on the computer.
“Unless someone is bleeding to death,” I mutter, not bothering to lift my head, “come back later.”
“I’d say the only one bleeding out is you.” Leith’s voice cuts through the stillness, calm but laced with something sharp.
I sigh, dragging my hand down my face, my exhaustion crashing into irritation.
He strolls in, hands in his pockets, eyes scanning the clutter—half-read charts, lukewarm coffee, a dying plant I forgot to water three weeks ago.
He lifts the pot, tilts it toward me. “Even this thing’s given up on you.”
He shrugs, then strides over to the chair opposite my desk and sinks into it, crossing one leg over the other like he’s settling in for a long conversation.
“You look like shit,” he says evenly.
“I’m fine,” I bite out, gritting my teeth.
“Didn’t come here for your ‘fine-ness.’” Leith’s tone is razor-sharp, but his posture remains annoyingly relaxed.
“What do you want, Leith?”
“Stand down, Nurse Mitchell? Are you fucking serious?”
My stomach drops, but I mask it with a scoff.
“She’s already barely holding herself together, Callum.”
I shrug. “She looks fine to me.”
Leith narrows his eyes at me. “Are you blind, or just stupid?”
“Watch it,” I warn, my voice low and dangerous.
“No, you watch it!” Leith fires back, standing up and leaning down on my desk. “You think she’s fine because she smiles at people? Because she does her job without breaking down? You don’t see what she’s like when she thinks no one’s watching. I don’t know how to help her anymore!”
I force my expression to stay neutral.
“Do whatever you did when Alec left,” I say. The words sound cruel, even to me.
“Dammit, Callum!” Leith’s fist slams down on the desk. For a moment, I think he might punch me. Maybe I want him to. “This isn’t like when Alec left!”
I sit up. Clench my jaw. Meet his stare head-on.
“When Alec left, she called me straight away. I was the first person she told.”
“What does—”
“She didn’t tell me this time. I didn’t have a clue! I was in Manila and I had to find out from a bookshop owner, Callum!” Leith’s composure cracks. “Because she didn’t know how to fucking put her pain into words!”
I don’t respond.
“I’ve seen her broken,” Leith continues, his voice raw. “After Margaret. After Alec. After rounds of IVF. But this?” He pauses, knuckles white where his hand grips the edge of the desk. “I have never seen her like this. She’s holding herself together with duct tape and denial.”
My stomach churns. “What do you want me to say, Leith? She walked away. This is what she wanted.”
“What she wanted? Or what you let her think was her only option?”
“I don’t know, Leith!” I shoot back. “She didn’t let me in long enough to find out.”
Leith stares at me. Like I just proved his point.
“Because you froze, Callum.”
“Because she ended it before I even got the chance to fight!” I lean back in my chair, my lungs constricting with every word. “What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”
“You fight anyway!” He points at me. “You’re a fucking coward, Han! At least she had the gall to face the truth and make the hard call. And now, what? You’re punishing her for it by lashing out like a petulant asshole.”
“I wasn’t lashing out!”
“The fuck you weren’t!” Leith pushes off the desk, pacing a tight circle, trying to keep his anger in check. “This? Sitting here sulking like a toddler? If this is your version of doing ‘whatever it takes,’ it’s pathetic. Maybe you don’t deserve her.”
I recoil at that.
Leith straightens, composure returning piece by piece. “You don’t have to have all the answers. But you sure as hell don’t get to make it worse. Because if you think she can take much more, you’re gravely mistaken.”
He adjusts his sleeves with the precision of someone who’s said everything they came to say. His voice is quieter now, but it cuts just as deep. “Figure it out, Callum. Before there’s nothing left to fight for.”
And then he’s gone, leaving the door ajar and my chest feeling like it’s caving in.
The next day, I’m exhausted. But exhaustion is standard issue these days. What’s not standard? The metaphorical anvil sitting on my chest since Leith tore me a new one last night.
I shuffle into the lift on Level 1, patient charts in one hand, the other punching the button for my floor. It jerks to a stop on Level 2.
The doors open.
Jordie’s there, backing a patient bed into the cramped space.
Her face is pale, shoulders slouched. I wonder when she last slept—or ate.
She steps into the lift in front of me; her back a breath from my chest, and suddenly we’re too close.
The bed takes up all the space, leaving no room for propriety or distance.
The lift jolts. Her arm grazes mine. Her shoulders lock, eyes fixed forward as if she’s bracing for impact.
I wonder if it’s me she’s trying to protect herself from.
The doors glide open on the next level. I step out. The cool corridor air hits me like a reset.
I turn, just before the doors close.
“Great work yesterday, Mitchell.” It comes out soft. Like a message slipped under a door.
There’s a beat of silence, and then, softly, “Thank you.”