He nods. His mouth opens, but I’m already moving.
I jog after the gurney and reach the ambulance as they start to close the doors, but I slip inside before they latch shut.
I’m notsure if it’s been hours or minutes. Time has thinned into something unreliable.
I stare at my reflection in the elevator and drag my hands over my face until the skin feels tight. The smell of antiseptic clings to my clothes, hair, and skin. I can’t shake this feeling. I can’t handle the judgment in my own eyes. When I glance to the left, it’s not just the desk there.
It’s Nate.
He’s leaning against the reception desk, phone in hand, denim jacket folded over his arm, hair dangling just above his shoulders. When he sees me, he stands upright. A smile of relief crosses his face first—automatic, unguarded. Then whatever I look like must register. Because his ease is overtaken by tension, squaring to the point he’s almost statuesque.
“Robyn …”
The sound of my name breaks something open.
“I lost him, Nate.” My voice doesn’t sound like mine. It’s thin and scraped bare. “He was my patient. He trusted me to not miss anything. But I did and Ilosthim.”
The hallway tilts. Or maybe it’s just me.
I don’t remember closing the distance. Maybe it wasn’t me who did. One second, I’m standing, the next, I’m folding into him, forehead pressed to his chest, fingers curling into the back of his shirt. All I can think is that a long time ago, he was the only certainty I had.
This isn’t professional grief. This isn’t clinical distance. This is the weight of every contingency I ran, every sign I read correctly—and the one I didn’t. The quiet terror that nomatter how good I am, it will never be enough to save everyone. Because deep down, I know I didn’t miss anything. I did the best I could, and it wasn’t good enough.
Nate’s arms come around me without hesitation. No words. Just heat, pressure, and the calm rise and fall of his breath. His steadiness feels borrowed. He smells of a shared past. Our relationship another loss. I shouldn’t, but I cry into him anyway, and he just holds me together. Present, alive,solid.
CHAPTER 30
The Adjustment
Nate
I don’t waitfor Robyn’s silent, violent sobs to stop. I wrap my arm around her shoulder and get her into the car. The drive back to the apartment complex is silent except for her hiccupping breaths from the passenger seat. She’s on autopilot even as we walk up the lit path to her glass door. Holding the door, I dislodge the keys and offer them back palm up. When her hand lands over mine, she interlaces our fingers, cocooning her keys in the middle. Her eyes are shining the way iolite does on the Tribune building when the sun hits it just right. The gold ring around her pupils stretches and blends in with the other tones of her irises.
“Please,” she murmurs. “Just… come in. Stay with me.”
She leads me silently up the stairs, our hands still linked until she slips her fingers free to grab her keys. When she opens the door and makes room for me to enter, I draw in a deep breath of her comforting orange blossom scent.
Fourteen months without being invited inher space.
The door clicks shut behind us, and the space feels both familiar and wrong. It’s a place filled with trinkets and furniture I recognize but no longer belong with. Her coat ends up draped over a chair. I line my shoes up with hers by the door, and the normalcy of that nearly makes me collapse.
She doesn’t say anything before walking into the bedroom. I don’t follow at first, telling myself to let her run this show so I don’t turn into another thing she has to manage.She peeks out the door, not calling for me, tugging the chain she left hooked to the hollow place in my chest that still carries her name, and I feel it all the way down to my gut, obeying with hesitation. When I get to her room, she’s curled into herself on the bed, knees tucked to her chest, face buried against her sternum, shoulders shaking.
I drop to my knees beside the bed, lining my height to hers. “Hey,” I whisper. My nose is a hairsbreadth from hers, fingers itching for something to do so I can remedy the turmoil in her eyes. There’s nothing to do but taste the salt of her tears.
This isn’t the Robyn I know. Not the woman who commanded the scene earlier today. My Robyn plans for contingencies, controlled beyond medicine.I don’t know what she needs from me.
“I’m going to get you some water,” I murmur. “Why don’t you take a shower?”
She sits up and takes her shirt off, her gaze fixed on mine as her hair falls in wavy locks past her shoulders. One curl lands right at the juncture of her breasts, above the hem of a black sports bra.
“Take your time.” I swallow around the words. Before leaving, I look back, eyes firmly on the floor, and add, “I’ll—I’ll make something to eat and come back.”
Over the sink, my hands shake when my fingers hover over my phone as I think of the timedifference.
Fuck it.I call Julian. Voicemail. I find a can of chicken noodle soup and dump it in a saucepan, then try calling again.Pick up. Pick up. Pick up.Still nothing. I text instead. Three dots appear almost instantly.
Julian:Give me two minutes and I’ll call.
