“Sloane.”It cut through the haze, trembling with desperation.“Fuck, Sloane, come back.”
I tried to reach out, so close—his words almost within my grasp but slipping like smoke through my fingers.
“Sloane, it’s me. Cameron. Come back.”
I turned toward him, his face shimmering just beyond reach, near enough to feel, too distant to hold.
But he wasn’t supposed to be here.
He wasn’t part of this life.
And I couldn’t drag him into it.
I blinked hard with everything I had, as if the sheer force of will was enough to snap the world back into place.
Back to the one I knew.
Then everything gradually vanished into the dark.
And suddenly, everything was real again.
I woke up alone.
In my bed.
Another nightmare.
It had been like that almost every night lately.
“You’re hiding again,” Lina said, frowning as she spotted me sitting in the back of her tiny kiosk.
“It’s my lunch break,” I replied defensively, chewing on pasta straight from a carton.
“You’re avoiding everybody,” she pointed out.
I gaped at her. “How can I avoid everybody in my line of work?”
“You know what I mean. You’re avoiding Cameron and Gabriel.”
“I can’t avoid both. Especially Cam. I just sent two patients to him today. And every morning and night, I see him when he picks up and drops off Harper.”
“By the way,” Lina said, her voice softer, “have you two talked to Harper yet? She’s only five, but she picks up on things.”
I nodded; the memory was still sharp in my chest.
“We told her she’d be staying at her grandma’s with her dad two nights a week from now on,” I said quietly. “And every other weekend too.”
Lina looked at me carefully. “But... does she know you two are divorcing?”
I stared at her. “How is a five-year-old supposed to understand something like divorce?”
“How the hell should I know?” Lina threw up her hands. “I don’t have kids.”
“We told her she’d still go to school like usual, and that she’d still see both of us.”
“And what did she say?” Lina asked, her tone now softer.
“She just nodded and smiled,” I said. “Then she went right back to chatting with her dad like nothing happened.”
