Page 23

The nostalgia. The memories.

Suddenly, my mind flashes back to the park incident the day before, and my anxiety spikes.

I often find myself trapped in the past when I'm back in Mage Hollow. But maybe that's better than knowing my past is here with me in Golden City too.

"No," I say simply instead of explaining all that—explaining him. "No, it's not that close."

Dylan nods, a satisfied smile on her face. "Okay, good. Because I need you here."

"Well, you have me for the next six weeks."

Her lips fall into a straight line. "Yeah, yeah, that's great. But I meant like literally right now. There's a kid in room four who will not stop crying. All labs are normal, MRI's fine..."

"Did you take off his shoes?"

She blinks twice, then answers cautiously. "No…"

"It's probably a hair tourniquet. Those things get stuck in their socks and wrap around their toes so tight it hurts. But nobody thinks to check for something like that."

She sighs, slouching over the nurses' station. "Yeah, nobody but you. See, this is why I need you here. You always think outside the box."

My stomach, which was just knotted by the memory of running into Jace, eases again as a glow rises in my chest.

I think that's what I love most about my job. Patients and coworkers usually don't care if I'm old, young, a veteran nurse or brand new. They don't compare me to the older siblings they don't know I have or ask questions about a past they've never heard of.

They need me. Trust me. They value my opinion.

Here, I matter.

And not because I'm the baby or because Mabel O'Reilly can destroy your life if you speak ill of her youngest daughter. Here I'm just… Nurse Lenora—confident, competent. The girl who thinks outside ‌the box.

Here, I don't shrink.

I don't disappear in crowded kitchens or small towns or old memories.

Here, I take up space.

5

Jace

Ihaven't thought about Lenny O'Reilly in a while.

At least that's what I told myself after our run-in at the park.

But it took maybe ten minutes of staring at the worn plastic at the bottom of the slide to realize that was a lie. She's lived in my head this whole time—six years and some change if I'm honest.

Just not the version of her that exists anymore.

The Lenny I've learned to live without looked different. Long brown hair, softer somehow—younger. And she sounded different too. Less sure of herself.

Less sure of us.

But what got me most was how different she lived.

The Lenny I knew wasn't a nurse yet, and she damn sure didn't live anywhere but Mage Hollow. So when our eyes locked, half of me felt like I was looking at a stranger.

But the other half… that's the part that remembered.