“Don’t be,” she murmurs. “You only made one bowl.”
I shrug. It honestly never crossed my mind to make anything for myself. She shifts, scooting back against the headboard, and pats the space in front of her. I sit, careful, aware of every inch between us as she sets the bowl and the slice of bread between our knees.
We eat in silence. Tearing bread. Dipping. Sipping straight from the bowl or slurping from the spoon. It’s unbearably sad and unexpectedly comforting. I keep thinking I should be doing more—sayingmore—but somehow, her breathingsteadies. The red rims of her eyes fade. Her shoulders relax a fraction.Could it really be this simple?
When we’re done, I reach for the bowl, but before I can stand, she catches my wrist. Her eyes lift to mine—glassy, stripped of everything but need. A need I would have killed to see before our collapse. I can’t tear my eyes away from her lips, slack with exhaustion, and there’s something terrifying in how unguarded she looks. How vulnerable she’s allowing herself to be around me.
“Will you stay tonight? I don’t want to be alone.”
The words land heavy and sacred. I’m trusted enough for this. Needed. The feeling settles in my chest, tight and electric, tangled with fear that I’ll do this wrong but threaded with the certainty I’m not walking away.Time to fumble through.
“Of course.”
Months ago, I’d have gone and washed; today, I’m not letting her out of my sight.
“I just want to lie down,” she murmurs. “Is that okay?”
I nod and move to climb onto the bed.
She stops me with a look, one brow lifting faintly. “Aren’t you going to get more comfortable?”
I swallow. My traitorous eyes drop to her legs. “I—yeah. I guess.”
I pull off my flannel button down, but leave the gray undershirt on, and our eyes meet again. I take another step toward the bed.
She licks her lips. “In chinos, Nate?”
“Robyn—”
She gestures to herself. “Look at what I’m wearing. Meet me halfway.”
My breath stutters. I unbuckle my belt, slide my pants down, and stand there in boxers and my T-shirt feeling more exposed than I’ve ever felt naked. Her eyes don’t leave mine when she nods once and lifts the covers. I hesitate,a flash of the past tightening my chest. It lulls the want I feel, and I climb in.
We lie side by side, not touching, the narrow space between us humming. Our breaths don’t sync the way they once did. Every nerve in my body is awake and ready to fire. She shifts onto her side, turning her back to me. Want crowds close enough that I could close the distance with one careless movement.
She slides toward me until her spine warms my side, and I’m powerless to stop my body from shifting and molding my front against her smaller frame. Her hips move, just slightly, and the pulse of desire sharpens. When she presses back again, firmer this time, there’s no pretending she doesn’t feel what it does to me. The ache is immediate. Heat, temptation, lust—all of it leashed only by care, by the fragile trust she’s handed me tonight.
I set my hand on her hip to still her and nearly groan at the warmth of the bare sliver of skin beneath my palm. More than that, I register the jut of her hipbone. Softer than it used to be.
“Robyn,” I whisper.
She wiggles instead, her hand closing over mine, increasing the pressure in a quiet plea.
I dip my head, breathing her in, with my nose in her hair. I know what she wants. Maybe she evenneedsit. But as my thumb digs gently into her hip and her head tips back toward mine, I understand the line I’m standing on. I could give her this and let it be a bandage for tonight—or I couldfumble through. Show her I have it in me to be more than that. Prove I’m in it for the long haul. I shut my eyes and kiss her bare shoulder, lingering and deliberate. My hair brushes her cheek.
“Talk to me, sweetheart.”
She collapses against me.
It isn’t pretty or quiet. It’s a failure of strength, a messy break that turns into shaking sobs. I slide my arm beneath herhead and draw her closer. Her fingers clutch my sleeve. Her tears soak my forearm.
She’s speaking, but the words blur together while I hold her. Eventually, the story finds shape between her bawling. He was her patient, and she thought she’d saved him—caught what everyone else missed. Until today when there was nothing left to catch. Protocols don’t save everyone. And if all the extra care she gave him still wasn’t enough, how is she supposed to keep saving people?
I don’t interrupt. I breathe slow and deep, hoping her body takes its cues from mine. I listen.
She doesn’t need me to explain death. I’m no doctor, but I get how futile and patronizing those words would be. She knows that sometimes you can do everything right and still lose. I taught her that lesson, in case she missed it. I can even imagine how underneath it all, wrapped around this patient she thought she saved, is the grief for her Mom. She tells me everything between sobs but without hiding. The pain of her Dad’s neglect and disappointment threads through every word.
Later, in the dark of her bedroom, after her breathing evens out and sleep claims her, the truth settles heavy in my chest. My stupidity weighs on me once again.
