"Anyway." He set the mug down. "I'm leaving. Moving to Portland. My brother's out there, says he can get me work. Some good engineering companies out there, so I think I’ll manage. Fresh start and all."
"That sounds good."
"Yeah." He paused, then looked at me like he was weighing something. "Listen, I wanted to apologize."
I frowned. "For what?"
"The clinic. When I leave, I'm pulling my support. Which means Angela's going to have to close it." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I've been covering the debts for over a year now, doing my best to keep the lights on. She kept telling me it was temporary, things would turn around. But they never did, and now..."
He trailed off and sat very still.
The pieces shifted on their own: Bryan propping up the clinic, the sudden partnership offer, the way she'd pushed it. They locked together with a clarity I didn’t want. Angela hadn’t been offering me a seat at the table. She’d been drowning, and my buy-in was the life raft she meant to climb.
"How much debt?" I asked. My voice sounded strange and far away.
"A lot. More than the business is worth, probably."
The coffee turned to acid in my stomach.
All those years. All that work. Late nights, double shifts, patients I'd taken on when Angela couldn't be bothered. I'd thought I was building something.
But it wasn't.
It was all a cash grab.
She'd been planning to use me, just like Matt had used me. Just like everyone in that fucking city had used me.
"Elena?" Bryan was watching me. "You okay?"
"Yeah." I wasn't. "I just... I didn't know. About the money."
"She kept the books close. I should have asked more questions." He looked down at his coffee. "I guess I trusted her. Same as you trusted him."
I stared out the window.
"It doesn’t matter," I said. "I’m done with it. The clinic, the city… all of it."
Bryan nodded like he understood. Like he'd already come to the same conclusion about his own life.
"What are you going to do?" he asked.
I thought about my father's clinic with its cracked linoleum and flickering lights. The goat who'd tried to kick me in the chest.
"I don't know yet," I said. "But I'm not going back."
We finished our coffee, split the check, and stood in the parking lot with nothing left to say.
"Take care of yourself, Elena," Bryan said.
"You too."
He got in his car and I got in mine. We drove off in opposite directions, and I knew I'd probably never see him again.
That was okay.
We'd both gotten what we came for. Not answers or closure.
Just the rare relief of not being alone in the fallout. Sometimes that was enough to keep moving.
