The words come out before I think. “You did help. You made it not alone.”
She looks at me. Really looks. And smiles through her tears.
“I’m Cara.”
“Lucas.”
“Thank you for staying, Lucas.”
I walk home with mud on my knees and her smile stuck in my head. I want to make her smile like that again. Want to be the kind of person who stays.
I’ve been trying ever since.
A knock pulls me back.
“Dr. Price? Your next patient is ready. Room one.”
I blink. The chart in front of me is smeared where I’ve been pressing too hard with the pen.
“Who is it?” I ask, even though I already know. Even though her scent is still curling under my door, unmistakable. Part of me hopes I’m wrong. Hopes my mind is playing tricks on me after all these years.
“Cara Donovan. Twisted ankle.”
My stomach drops. Not a trick. She’s really here.
I’ve known she was back. Theo saw her through Eileen’s window days ago. Nate came back from her grandmother’s driveway yesterday smelling like her, went straight to his room and didn’t come out until morning.
We’ve all been holding our breath. Waiting.
Apparently my turn is today.
“I’ll be right there.”
The walkto exam room one takes forever.
I can do this. I’m a doctor. I’ve treated hundreds of sprained ankles. Professional. Calm. She’ll leave and everything will be fine.
I reach for the door handle.
Her scent hits me before I even open it. Stronger now, flooding my senses. And underneath the familiar sweetness, something sharp. She’s nervous.
I push the door open.
“Ms. Donovan.”
She’s on the exam table, paper crinkling beneath her. She looks up.
Ten years. Ten years since I’ve seen her face, and I thought I was prepared. Theo’s warning, Nate’s haunted expression—I thought I had some idea what to expect.
I was wrong.
She’s still Cara. Still the girl who knelt in the mud for a dying bird. But she’s different too, and my eyes trace every change like I’m trying to memorize her all over again.
Her face has lost that soft roundness from high school. Cheekbones sharper now, more defined. There are faint lines at the corners of her eyes—laugh lines—and I feel a pang that I wasn’t there for the smiles that made them.
Her hair is longer, darker, tumbling past her shoulders in waves I want to bury my hands in. She’s wearing a blue sweater that brings out the warmth in her skin, and she’s thinner than I remember. Not unhealthy. Just different. Like life has carved away some of the softness and left something leaner behind.
She looks tired. Shadows under her eyes, tension in her shoulders. Like someone who’s been carrying something heavy for a long time.
