I pulled the tablet close, holding it like a talisman while my thumb stayed firmly in my mouth. The animated dogs ran around their cartoon backyard, and I let myself sink completely.
Little Maya didn't know about organ trafficking. Little Maya didn't have to be brilliant or brave or broken in useful ways. Little Maya just existed, soft and small, watching blue dogssolve problems with kindness while the real world dissolved into background static.
My body relaxed incrementally with each minute of cartoon chaos. Muscles I didn't know were clenched released. The vice around my chest loosened enough to breathe normally. The sixty-three names stopped screaming in my head, replaced by Australian accents and gentle humor.
Bluey's mom was explaining something about growing up, how sometimes you had to be big but it was okay to be small sometimes too. I sucked harder on my thumb, a tiny sound escaping that might have been agreement or just relief.
This was what I'd been fighting for four days. This soft space where nothing hurt and no one expected anything and I could just exist without having to be Dr. Maya Cross, failed surgeon, failed whistleblower, failed everything.
Here in the blue light of the tablet, curled small enough to disappear, thumb in my mouth and tears sliding silently down my cheeks, I was just Maya. Little Maya. Four years old, maybe five, watching dogs play while somewhere outside this room the world continued its horror show without me.
The episode ended and another started automatically. Something about feelings and how to handle them when they got too big. I watched without really seeing, floating in that disassociated space where time meant nothing and the only real thing was the pressure of my thumb and the sound of cartoon voices saying everything would be okay.
My free hand found the hem of the sweater, rubbing the soft cashmere between my fingers in a soothing rhythm. Safe textures, safe sounds, safe smallness. Everything Dr. Maya Cross couldn't be, wouldn't let herself be, because being small got people killed and—
No. That thought belonged to Big Maya, and she wasn't here right now. Wasn't welcome in this soft space where Bluey's dad was being silly and making his children laugh.
I existed like that—suspended in Little space, thumb in mouth, tablet clutched close—while the sun tracked across the sky outside my window. Time meant nothing. The world meant nothing. There was just this: being small, being quiet, being allowed to not carry anything at all.
For once, for this blessed moment, I didn't have to be strong. Didn't have to be smart. Didn't have to be anything but a little girl watching cartoons while the monsters stayed locked outside the door.
The door opened so quietly I didn't notice. Lost in the tablet's glow, thumb in my mouth, I'd stopped tracking the world beyond the cocoon of Sophie's sweater. Bluey's dad was doing something ridiculous with a pool noodle, and I was completely absorbed, the way only Little space allowed—total focus on something gentle while everything else ceased to exist.
The mattress dipped.
That's what broke through. The shift in weight, the warmth of another body near mine, the particular way gravity changed when Konstantin entered any space. My awareness crashed back like cold water flooding a dream.
He was there. Right there. Sitting on the edge of my bed with that careful stillness he used around frightened things. And he was looking at me—really looking, taking in every damning detail.
My thumb in my mouth like a baby. The tablet playing children's cartoons. Sophie's sweater pulled over my knees, the chewed hole visible where I'd worried it larger. My face wet with tears I hadn't realized were still falling. Curled in the fetal position like I wanted to disappear into the molecules of the mattress.
The full picture of my pathetic regression, laid out for his inspection.
Shame hit like a physical blow, hot and immediate, flooding my system with enough adrenaline to jump-start a corpse. I ripped my thumb from my mouth so fast I scraped it against my teeth, tasting blood. The tablet clattered away as I scrambled upright, words already tumbling out—explanations, excuses, the clinical terminology that made this sound less devastating.
"Regression is a common trauma response, it doesn't mean anything, I'm not actually—"
"Please." His voice was quiet but absolute, cutting through my panicked rambling like a scalpel through skin. He reached out, slow enough that I could track the movement, and his hand cupped my jaw with impossible gentleness. His thumb brushed across my cheekbone, catching tears I was still producing. "You don't hide from me."
"You don't understand—" My voice cracked, raw from crying I didn't remember doing.
"I understand that you're exhausted. That you've been carrying too much for too long. That your mind needed somewhere safe to rest." His thumb kept moving, soothing, while his gray eyes held mine with an intensity that made breathing difficult. "I understand that we kissed and it’s really fucking confusing. I understand that you're embarrassed, and I'm telling you not to be. Not with me. Not ever with me."
The words didn't compute. I'd been caught in the most shameful possible position—a grown woman, a doctor, sucking her thumb and watching cartoons—and he was looking at me like I was precious instead of pathetic.
"This is—" I had to force the words past the shame choking my throat. "This is the thing that ruined my career. Someone I trusted saw me like this and told everyone. Used it to prove I was unstable, unfit—"
"Then he was a fool and a coward." Konstantin's voice went hard as granite, and something dangerous flickered in his eyes—not directed at me, but at the phantom of whoever had hurt me. "And if I ever meet him, I'll break every bone in his hands for touching what wasn't his to judge."
The violence in his words should have frightened me. Should have sent me scrambling away from this dangerous man who solved problems with his fists. Instead, something warm bloomed in my chest—a feeling I couldn't name but that might have been safety. Protection. The novel sensation of being defended instead of destroyed.
"It was my ex," I whispered, the confession scraping my throat raw. "Marlon. We were both up for the same fellowship—cardiac surgery at Cleveland Clinic. He knew I regressed sometimes, had seen me like this after bad shifts. Told me it was cute, that he loved taking care of me when I was small."
Konstantin's hand was still on my face, thumb still moving in that soothing rhythm, but I felt him go still in that particular way that meant violence was being calculated.
"He told the review board," I continued, needing to get it out now that I'd started. "During his interview. Made it sound like concern for patient safety. Said he'd found me sucking my thumb after difficult surgeries, that he worried about my ability to handle pressure. They thanked him for his honesty."
"He weaponized your vulnerability." Not a question. A statement of fact delivered in a tone that suggested Marlon might want to consider witness protection.
