You don’t need to choose today, but you do need to stop hiding.
Because, one day, you’ll wake up in a quiet room and realize you spent your life avoiding the very thing that could have saved you.
I don’t want that for you.
You deserve more than survival.
You deserve a life.
—Frank
The paper trembles slightly in my hands.
I lower it slowly, staring at the desk as if it might offer some kind of answer.
My chest feels tight.
Frank is gone, but somehow, he’s still here, saying the things no one else ever dared to.
And worse than that?
He’s right.
I read the last line twice. Not because I don’t understand it, but because I do. Because it lands with the kind of accuracy that makes you want to argue purely out of reflex.
You deserve a life.
I stare at those words until they blur slightly, and then Ilower the paper to my desk as if setting it down gently will soften what it’s done to me.
It doesn’t.
The office is quiet.
My jaw is tight, my posture controlled, my breathing measured. I don’t slump. I don’t put my head in my hands. I don’t allow myself the satisfaction of a dramatic moment.
But inside … something has shifted. Like a crack forming under pressure that’s silent at first and then spreads.
Frank saw me.
Not as Dr. Colton Fisher or the department’s steady hand. As the man underneath the name badge. The one I keep hidden because being that man comes with memories I don’t touch.
I look down at the letter again.
Avoidance isn’t peace. It’s just fear with better posture.
I hate how true it is.
I push back from my desk and stand, pacing once across the office. I stop at the window again, palms braced on the sill. For a moment, I feel absurdly separate from it. Like I’m watching life happen from behind glass.
A quiet room.
That’s what Frank wrote. The image makes my throat tighten.
I’ve built my life to avoid pain, and somehow, I’ve stillmanaged to end up sitting alone in a room that feels too empty.
I think of Melissa’s message.
I need someone who stays.
