When she looks back at me, her brows knit together into a singular line. “No,” she whispers.
“Are you… dating someone in the hospital?”
She nods.
“Are they in your department?”
She nods again. “Technically. We move in the same circles, but they’re not my boss. Although if I get assigned to help them in an emergency, they become my boss.”
I want to give her advice, to tell her that everything is going to be okay, but with my dark, empty building looming up against a backdrop of snow and darkness, I’m as empty as the hollowness oozing from my windows.
“I can’t tell you what to do,” I say softly. “But I can tell you that you need to make sure he’s worth it. In the end, that’s all that matters.”
June nods once, then again until she smiles shakily. “Thanks. Sorry. This is hardly appropriate.”
“It’s fine.”
“Do you need help getting inside?”
“No. Fred said some light exercise is good so that my muscles stay loose, so I'd better walk. Thank you for driving me.”
“If you need anything, just text me.”
“I will. Can you text me when you reach the bottom of the hill? I don’t want you to crash.”
“Sure.”
“Okay. Bye, June.”
I remain on the sidewalk until she drives around the bend.
Cold steals across my shoulders and cuts through the warmth of my coat, stealing away the lingering warmth from June’s car.
I stare after her and wait until she sends me a text telling me she’s safe.
Still, I don’t move.
The street is eerily silent and covered in a blanket of white, marred only by the tracks left by June’s car.
The Christmas decorations on the apartments across from me seem lackluster now, with lights not quite as bright and dull colors.
The snow falls slowly around me, drifting like a strange fog and illuminated by a single yellow street light a few feet away from me.
This street, this world, is as quiet as the cavernous ache deep inside me.
I miss Xander.
It was never supposed to go this way.
His face when he accused me of thinking he’d make a bad father will haunt me forever.
Breathing deeply, I follow the chill of icy air down my throat and into my lungs, clinging to that sensation as if it can numb me.
It takes me twenty minutes to turn from that quiet spot in the street and head inside.
My apartment isn’t much better.
Since the heating hasn’t been on in weeks, it’s almost as cold inside as it is outside.
