He looked exhausted. I knew he’d crammed his schedule with more surgeries than anyone could reasonably handle. And with the hospital already short-staffed, it was clear they didn’t care how much it wore him down.
I stared at my phone again, wanting to ask if he’d had dinner before that drink. He couldn’t handle alcohol on an empty stomach; it always upset him.
He was sitting at the bar with Ben and Dean, and there were only glasses in front of them. No plates, no food. So I could only guess they’d gone straight to drinking without eating anything first.
“Sloane.” Gabriel’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts, and I turned to him.
“What do you want to drink?” he asked.
I sighed. I really wasn’t in the mood for this anymore.
“I’m sorry,” I said, meeting his eyes. “I think I’m going to call it a night.”
I stood, and Gabriel rose too, clearly caught off guard.
“Sloane, are you really that upset?”
“Thanks for dinner,” I said, trying to smile. “I’ll see you. Balcony, same time.”
“Hey,” he said gently, leaning in just a little. “Talk to me, Sloane. Please.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t feel right... being here with you. Not with him sitting just over there.”
“So let me take you home, at least,” he offered, looking slightly worried.
“I’m fine,” I replied, stepping away. “I’ll see you, okay? The glass balcony. Like always.”
I walked slowly, weaving around the tables, Gabriel’s gaze burning into my back.
Outside, the wind was sharp against my cheeks as I started down the sidewalk. Then I pulled out my phone. The thought had been eating at me, and I couldn’t let it go.
I typed a message.
To Ben.
“Make sure Cam eats something if he hasn’t. You know he can’t drink on an empty stomach.”
My eyes were open wide, but what I saw in front of me couldn’t be real. It couldn’t.
The world around me shifted and crumbled. Time folded inward, dragging me backward into a place I thought I had left behind. A cold, suffocating fear wrapped around me, sharp and sudden like ice squeezing my chest.
I was that girl again, lost deep in a nightmare, frozen at the edge of the woods, staring into an endless fog that swallowed everything whole. The air was thick with uncertainty, heavy and gray. The weight in my chest tightened until I could barely breathe.
I tried. I tried to catch my breath, but it was like fighting a current pulling me under.
Voices slammed into my ears, sharp echoes from the past.
“You’re stronger than this, Sloane! You can’t let yourself feel too much. We can’t afford to be weak!”
But those words were not a lifeline. They were a noose tightening, a relentless pressure crushing me deeper into myself. No matter how shattered, no matter how exhausted, I was not allowed to fall apart. I had to hold it all together because it was the only way to survive.
I wanted to scream, to shout that I was barely holding on, that I was breaking. But all I could do was sink into the silence that swallowed me whole.
I was standing there, my vision blurring at the edges. My knees buckled, and I barely felt the ground as it rose to meet me. Everything slipped away like I was underwater, sounds muffled and distant. A voice tried to reach me, but it was just out of reach.
Then I heard it.
His voice.
