Chapter 21
SOFIA
By the time I clock out Tuesday night, the overhead lights in the ICU feel like they’ve been drilled straight into my skull.
Every beep, every rhythmic whoosh of the vents from the last twelve hours, echoes so far into my brain that I feel it in my bones.
We saved a lot of people tonight. Didn’t lose any, thankfully.
But I feel like I’ve gone to war and back.
My scrubs cling to me more than usual. Dampness clusters at the back of my neck. My sneakers squeak on the too-clean floor as I head for the locker room to collect my stuff. All I want is a hot shower, a warm meal, my bed, and Paco curled by my neck like a little space heater with a snore.
Instead, I have another thought that has been haunting my mind for days.
A big modern kitchen I don’t belong in. The smell of bacon. Emilio sings off-key with my furry baby strapped to his chest. Massimo watches me like I’m more than just a fun weekend, more than a nurse, more than a body he can bend over his counter.
Three days since I told them I needed space.
Three days after I watched his face shudder, I climbed into his car, and he drove me home.
Three days since he walked me to my door, checked my apartment, and would rather die than leave me unprotected.
Three long days of avoiding them like a drug I can’t afford to buy.
I shove my locker open harder than necessary. My phone clatters out of the little shelf and falls into my palm. Two new texts from Massimo, sandwiched between a string of unanswered ones. My stomach tightens.
Thinking of you like I always do. By now, I don’t expect a reply. But I want you to know you never leave my mind.
A few hours later, another one.
I know I shouldn’t ask, but are you okay? Okay with this silence? I’m trying, baby. It’s hard. I miss you. If you need anything at all, I’m there. Please ask.
Under that, further down, sits a bunch from his brother.
hows our son
does he miss me
I miss him
miss you
mas misses you
my chubby misses
do you miss my chubby
Then a video shows his cock way too close. Mas yells at him and slaps the phone out of his hand. It falls to the floor as they argue about not sending me inappropriate stuff to scare her away. Emilio says chicks love dick pics.
I laugh, too exhausted to care about their antics. And grateful, the locker room is vacant, or else my coworkers would be all in my business. Another message suddenly pops up from him.
They’re floating in the pool. Paco’s eyes are squeezed shut. Emilio’s glistening chest and abs from the sun look like a Greek god, and his pink bathing suit shows far too much of what he has. It makes me laugh again.
joint custody my angel
dont forget its my weekend
My thumb hovers over the keyboard without moving. The itch to type a million different things with the equally strong urge to throw my phone into the nearest biohazard bin and forget about them.
If I text back, I break my word.
If I don’t, I keep it.
“Ugh,” I mutter, rubbing the heel of my hand over my face. “Stop thinking, Sofia. Just breathe.”
My phone rings in my hand, surprising me.
Mami’s name blinks at me. It’s the third phone call I’ve ignored.
The last two I’ve let ring out to voicemail.
It’s very unlike me, but I don’t have the energy for her.
Not tonight. Not with my mind already swimming with work, my shifts, and of course, the twins.
I grab my bag, sling it over my shoulder, and push out through the double doors. Into the smell of car exhaust and wet asphalt. The hospital parking lot lights buzz overhead, turning everything a weird, flat yellow.
My breath puffs in front of me when I exhale. The night feels damp and heavy, and a surprise late-season storm brings colder air. Like Boston, spring is clinging to the tail end just to be spiteful as I walk to the train.
Three days, and I still hear Massimo’s voice as clearly as the overhead page that called a code this afternoon.
I’ll take you wherever you want to go. Day or night. Just text me.
His face plays on a loop from when I told him I need my own bed. My own space. The way he swallows down whatever he wants to say, nods like I’m handing down a sentence, and he intends to serve every second of it.
He thinks I don’t see it.
He’s wrong.
I drop onto the cold metal bench just as the train doors slide closed.
It slides under my ribs and presses on all the parts of me that have been sore since Saturday.
The parts that wake up in the middle of the night, reaching for a body that isn’t there.
The parts that remember his hands on my hips, his mouth against my throat, his voice in my ear promising, I’ll take care of it.
You don’t have to handle everything alone.
I do what I’ve always done when a feeling scares me more than it should.
I shove it into a box, tape the lid shut, and stack another double shift on top.
If he doesn’t consume my thoughts, it’s his twin.
The playful way he says exactly what’s on his mind.
No malice or ill intent, just a careless immaturity that comes from being protected all his life.
Still being protected by his brother, is that the kind of protectiveness I would get?
I saw a glimpse of it. I have to admit it was lovely. After taking care of people all day, I’d easily surrender to being taken care of. Easily do whatever they wanted within reason if it meant I didn’t have to think, plan, or even raise a finger.
The ride is mostly empty. All walks of life. Hospital staff, students, and a guy in a hoodie asleep against the window with his headphones in.
This is what you wanted. I remind myself when the ache starts up again. Your space. Your quiet. Your own bed. No one to answer to. No one’s feelings to worry about except your own.
I think of Emilio’s face when I say I’m going home.
The way he babbles to fill the silence, throwing out jokes like lifelines, trying to tether me to their house with sheer ridiculousness.
The way he acts as if we truly do share a dog.
I think of Paco trotting after me, choosing me in the custody battle that started as a joke and has grown less funny as the hours tick by.
I press my lips together. Watch my own reflection in the glass, tired eyes, messy bun, and dark circles that no concealer can hide.
I’ve made the right decision.
Haven’t I?
“I don’t know,” I whisper into the dark glass. “Dios, I really don’t know.”
I close my eyes for the remainder of the ride. Opening them for my stop and making the familiar walk in the dark to my apartment with new locks. I walk faster.
Paco will be waiting. He always knows when I’m close. Somehow, some way. I picture his tiny paws scratching at the inside of the door, ears perked, bug eyes bright, little body vibrating with excitement.
The thought warms something inside me.
I don’t see him at first.
He’s just a shape under the streetlight. A shadow leaning against the brick wall near my building’s front steps, hood up, hands shoved into his pockets like he’s just another guy taking a smoke break or scrolling his phone.
Except my ex never owns a phone that lasts longer than a month. He’s never been patient enough to just lean anywhere without pacing, twitching, looking for his next hustle, his next weakness to exploit.
The second my brain recognizes the slouch of his shoulders, the way he cocks his head when he hears footsteps, my stomach plummets.
No. No. No, not tonight. Not here.
My grip on my bag strap tightens. Every instinct I have screams at me to turn around, keep walking, act like I haven’t seen him at all.
But the problem with being a woman who has to walk into dangerous rooms for a living is that eventually, your fear learns how to shut up and let your training take over.
My steps don’t falter.
His head lifts. His face comes into the light.
“Buenas noches, Sofia.”
The sound of his voice is a fist closing around my throat.
Squeezing off the little bit of air I have left after an exhaustive twelve-hour shift and a commute home.
He pushes off the wall. The hood of his sweatshirt falls back just enough for the streetlight to catch the hollows carved into his cheeks.
His eyes look wired and half-dead at the same time.
Once, a long time ago, I thought those eyes looked like my safety. Like home. Now, they look like a problem I thought I’d already solved.
I stop at the bottom step, one foot on the concrete, one on the first riser, my bag strap cutting into my palm.
“What are you doing here, Jose?”
I’m pleased when my voice doesn’t break, when it comes out flat and professional. Like I’m about to update a difficult family in the waiting room. He smiles like this is funny. Like this is fate, like he just happens to be standing outside my building at the exact time I get home.
“Can’t a man say hello to his wife?”
His head tilts, that old charming angle he used to weaponize in every argument, every apology.
Ex-wife.
The word sits on my tongue, sharp, but I don’t spit it yet. I take another step up, closing the distance just enough so my building is at my back, my door behind him in my eyeline.
“Not at this time of night. Not outside my apartment. No. You can’t.”
He lifts his shoulders, as if this is all a misunderstanding. Palms flash briefly in the streetlight.
“Relax, Sof. I’m just here, breathing air. You’re not the only one who lives in this area, you know.”
Where he lives, I don’t know, and I don’t care. The way he says my nickname makes my skin try to crawl right off my bones.
“You need to leave. Leave me alone.”
I don’t raise my voice. I learned long ago not to give him anything extra. Just those seven words.