She made me chamomile tea and sat with me until the sky started to lighten, talking about nothing important. Her latest design project, a documentary she watched about octopuses, the neighbor's noisy dog—anything to fill the silence I couldn't seem to escape.
Now, standing in the doorway of the conference room, I felt every hour of lost sleep pressing against my skull.
The room was already half full, residents and attendings claiming seats around a table that was too small for the number of bodies cramming into the space. I scanned for an emptychair near the back, somewhere I could observe without being observed, and found one wedged between a supply cabinet and a window that overlooked the parking garage.
Perfect.
I spent the previous evening rehearsing this moment, standing in front of my bathroom mirror while Felice sat on the edge of the tub, feeding me lines like we were preparing for a stage play.
"When you see him, don't react," she'd instructed. "No facial expression. No sharp intake of breath. You're a statue. A very attractive, emotionally unavailable statue."
"I'm always emotionally unavailable."
She smirked. "Yes, but now you need to be intentionally emotionally unavailable. There's a difference."
I practiced my neutral expression until my face ached. I rehearsed potential conversations, scripting responses to every possible thing Cassian might say. I prepared for awkward silences, loaded questions, and the inevitable moment when our eyes would meet across a crowded room.
What I hadn't prepared for was the door opening at six fifty-nine and Cassian walking in like he owned the place.
He was wearing navy scrubs and a white coat, his dirty blonde hair slightly disheveled. He'd gotten broader since I'd last seen him. The angles of his face had sharpened with age, his jaw more defined, and his cheekbones more prominent.
He looked good.
He looked annoyingly, distractingly good.
I dropped my gaze to the notebook in my lap and pretended to review notes I hadn't written yet.
Breathe, I told myself. You've performed emergency thoracotomies on dying patients. You've held beating hearts in your hands. You can survive a staff meeting.
The seat beside me scraped against the floor. I glanced up, expecting a resident or a nurse, and found myself looking at a woman with dark hair and kind eyes. She was already extending her hand.
"You must be Dr. Karras. I'm Mireya Rosen, RNFA. I'll be assisting on most of your surgeries."
I shook her hand. Her grip was firm and her smile genuine. "Nice to meet you."
"Likewise. I've read your research on emergency thoracotomy protocols. Impressive work." She settled into the chair beside me, tucking her bag under the table. "Fair warning, Dr. Patel's meetings tend to run long. She's thorough."
"Good to know."
Mireya studied me for a moment, her expression curious but not intrusive. "First week jitters? You seem tense."
"I don't get jitters."
"Right." She smiled like she didn't believe me but was too polite to push. "Well, if you need anything, I'm around. We nurses know where all the good coffee is hidden."
Before I could respond, Dr. Patel entered the room and the ambient chatter died down. She moved to the head of the table briskly, with a tablet in hand, and reading glasses perched on her nose.
"Good morning, everyone. Let's get started."
She launched into updates on staffing changes, new equipment acquisitions, and budget allocations for the coming quarter. I took notes, my pen moving across the page in neat lines while my attention kept drifting toward the front of the room.
Toward Cassian.
He sat three rows ahead of me, slightly to the left. I could see the back of his head, the slope of his shoulders, the way he leaned forward when something interested him and sat backwhen it didn't. He was engaged in the meeting, nodding while l occasionally jotting something in his own notebook. Once, he made a comment to the person beside him, and they both smiled.
Always connecting, always drawing people in. He collected friends like how people collected stamps, effortlessly and without apparent intention. I used to watch him work a room and marvel at how easy and natural he made it look.
I'd never had that gift. People were puzzles I couldn't solve. Their expectations and emotions were a language I'd never fully learned to speak.
