That look on her face? It broke my heart.
this isn’t fairZosia is fine now im sure
playing at school like nothing happened
you are familyfor us
home
I can’t look at it anymore. The screen swims through tears I didn’t feel coming. I set the phone face-down on my desk and press the tissue hard to my eyes, biting back the sob that wants out. The word echoes anyway.
Home.
But that’s the problem, it’s not mine to live in. No matter how much he loves me, no matter how much I care about them both, it still feels like standing in someone else’s doorway, holding my breath,hoping I don’t wake the ghosts.
Chapter 24
Miami
The laptop glares from the couch. I try to lose myself in charts, in the endless loop of retinal scans and notes, all the tidy order that medicine demands. At least blood vessels and optic nerves make sense; they follow patterns, they obey rules. People don’t.
Every few minutes I catch myself glancing at my phone. My reflection on the screen looks wrecked, eyes puffy, mouth set like I’m afraid to speak. I should text Dominik, tell him I’m sorry for the things I said.
Instead I do neither.
I click through images of patients, type three lines, delete them. Start another chart, delete again, I can’t focus. My brain keeps circling back to this morning, Zosia’s eyes, her voice breaking onMama. Dominik’s jaw clenched like he could hold the world together if he just tried hard enough. I wanted to believe I could fit, that there was room for me in the picture. But that’s all it was, a fantasy. A snapshot, framed in the dark.
I close the laptop, rub my eyes, and think aboutRafe.The way everything felt lighter for a while. He was never asking for more than conversation, never making promises he couldn’t keep. No talk of weddings, of motherhood. Then I catch myself, heart already lifting at the thought, and I shut it down,hard. No,complicatingthings won’t make this hurt any less. I plug in my phone on the nightstand and walk away from it like it’s dangerous. Because it is. The washing machinewhirs in the background, the candle flickers low. I tell myself I’ll go to bed early, start fresh tomorrow. Then the phone vibrates. Once. Twice.
I freeze.
The name on the screen makes my stomach drop. Rafe.
I couldn’t sleep.
hope you’re holding up better than I am.
I stand there for a long time, looking at the words, pulse beating in my throat. I could ignore it, pretend I didn’t see it. I don’t move, because somehow, even after everything, the silence around me feels less lonely with his message sitting there, waiting. I stare at the message for what feels like an hour before I finally give in. The truth is, I couldn’t sleep either. My body’s exhausted, but my mind keeps replaying the morning on an endless loop. I pick up the phone before I can talk myself out of it.
I couldn’t sleep either.
Today was not a fun day.
I toss the phone onto the bed and immediately regret it, because now I can’t stop staring at it. A minute passes, then another.Then he’s calling.I swipe.
“Hey,” I say, voice rough.
His sigh comes first, long, frayed at the edges. “Hey yourself. Yousound… tired.”
I collapse back against the pillows. “Understatement of the year.”
There’s a smile in his voice when he answers. “Alright, then I’ll begentlewith you. No Lynch talk tonight.”
“Good,” I murmur, closing my eyes. “I can’t handle surrealism or symbolism right now. Or men who think womendyingis art.”
He laughs softly. “That's...incrediblyspecific, I’m pretty confident I can avoid that. Topicoutsideof those parameters you fancy?”
I hesitate. “Nothing in particular. Anything that distracts me from reality."
