Her hand hesitated. Just for a breath. Enough for the scrub nurse to look up, eyes questioning.
Nia steadied her voice. “Clamp, please.”
The moment passed. The surgery went flawlessly.
But when she stripped off her gloves afterward, her pulse was still uneven.
She went through the motions—dictating notes, reviewing labs, answering pages—but the more she pushed, the emptier it felt. The walls seemed to hum with fluorescent light, every sound too bright, every movement too fast.
At one point, she passed Julia in the corridor. Her ex-wife was talking to another surgeon, laughing at something she said. When her gaze brushed Nia’s, it was polite and distant, the way colleagues acknowledged one another out of habit.
Nia’s chest tightened. Not with jealousy, not even with regret—just with the dull realization that she feltnothing.
By the end of her shift, she was exhausted in a way surgery couldn’t fix.
She sat at her desk long after the hospital quieted, staring at the dark screen of her phone. Her reflection looked back at her—calm, perfect, hollow.
Outside, the city lights glittered against the glass. Inside, all she could think about was the sound of snow falling and the taste of coffee too strong and the way Soren had said her name like it meant something.
She rubbed a hand over her eyes and whispered to the empty room, “You’re ridiculous.”
But even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t true.
She wasn’t ridiculous.
She was lonely.
And for the first time in a long, long while, she didn’t want to be.
The hospital cafeteria was nearly empty when Nia sat down with her untouched sandwich.
It was late—past nine—and most of the staff had gone home to families, warm houses, or Christmas trees waiting to be decorated. Outside, the city gleamed under frost, festive and sterile all at once. Strings of white lights lined the entrance,blinking in perfect rhythm. Even the holiday cheer felt rehearsed here.
Her phone buzzed on the table, a single vibration against the laminate.
A new email.
From:Soren Stevenson
Subject:— none —
Her breath caught before she even opened it. She’d half convinced herself that the mountain, the snow,Soren herself, had been some strange dream—a fever that melted with the thaw. But there it was. Her name, real and solid on the screen.
Hey Doc,
Glad you made it back in one piece. Boiler’s fixed, heat’s good, but it’s quieter here now. Guess that’s how it goes when the storm passes.
Take care of yourself.
—Soren
That was all. Simple. Bare. And somehow it hit harder than any love letter could have.
Nia’s throat tightened. She reread it three times, fingers hovering over the reply icon.
She wanted to write back. God, she wanted to.
I miss you.
