REID HUTCHISON:You alive, Doc?
Sent two hours ago. Beneath it, a photo of a quiet hotel hallway, with his bag at his feet. A coffee in one hand and hisshadow stretched long against the wall. No caption, no face. I stare at the photo too long, thumb hovering over the reply field.
At first, I type something conversational.
Me:Just landed in bed. You?
Then I delete it.
Me:I missed you today.
Delete.
Me:Wish you were here.
Delete.
The ache in my spine throbs as I shift onto my side in bed. My throat burns for no reason I can name, because fuck it. I do miss him. Finally, I settle on two short lines and hit send before I can overthink it.
Me:Just barely, thanks for checking in.
I could call him. I want to call him. But that’s a different kind of tether, one I can’t afford to grab hold of right now.
Instead, I shift again, trying to get comfortable, with his name still glowing on the screen, and tell myself again I just need one solid night of sleep. I swipe up on the screen to close our text thread, my eyes catching on the food delivery app on my home screen.
It’s the same one that, three days ago, Reid used to send me Thai food unannounced. I hadn’t even asked, had justmentioned I was stuck at the clinic late, and half an hour later, it arrived with a note typed in the comment field:Eat something before you fall up the stairs, Havoc.
He doesn’t text constantly, but when he does, it’s always intentional.
I place my phone on the nightstand and decide I won’t check for a reply tonight, not because I don’t want him to, but because if he does, I’ll want more.
And there’s no room for more right now. There’s no room for eventhinkingabout it.
I curl up my legs with the ache still sitting low in my back, and the last thought before sleep claims me is that my period should’ve come by now.
But I don’t panic, because when you live by a schedule like mine, time goes elastic. Days blur and hours vanish. It’s easy to forget what day it is. Time collapses in on itself until your body becomes something you manage between cases instead of something you listen to. It’s not unusual to be late, and it’s probably just stress. Or exhaustion. Low iron. Too many shifts stitched together and not enough rest in between.
I let the thought drift past and tell myself I’ll deal with it later. But it follows me into sleep, and presses into the hollow of my throat when I stir awake in the morning.
Dull light fills my bedroom, and the apartment is too quiet. Too still. The kind of stillness that makes my skin itch, and when I sit up, my body feels heavy in a way that doesn’t lift.
I drag myself out of bed and pad to the bathroom, the floor cold under my bare feet. My limbs feel like someone else’s as I turn on the shower, steam spilling over the glass, and step inside on autopilot.
The heat soothes the worst of the soreness from my shoulders and the burn behind my eyes, and I wash my hair with slow, methodical movements. Maybe if I follow the right order—shampoo, rinse, conditioner, rinse again—everything else will fall into place too.
When I step out and reach for my contraceptive pill pack, it’s muscle memory. I flip the case open, pop one out, and swallow without thinking. But as I go to close the case, I frown.
Something’s off. I count the pills once, then again.
There’s one extra.
My brain tries to correct it automatically—a miscount because I’m tired. So I do it again.
Same result.
I blink at the pack like it might correct itself, as though my exhaustion has tipped into hallucination, but a memory surfaces with brutal clarity.
A night I scrubbed out past midnight, sitting on the edge of a gurney in scrubs that smelled faintly of antiseptic and sweat. Telling myself I’d take the pill when I got home, or grab it from my bag in the locker room. Or before I finally got home and slept.
