I stood alone in the cluttered office, my hands shaking. I pressed them flat against my thighs and focused on breathing.
In through my nose. Out through my mouth.
The technique felt hollow now. A bandage on a wound that needed stitches.
I thought about all the things I hadn't said and the questions I swallowed instead of asking.
How are you? Are you happy? Do you ever think about what we had, or have you moved on? Do you hate me for how it ended?
CHAPTER SIX
CALLA
PRESENT DAY
Cassian arrivedthree minutes early for the first protocol meeting. I was already there, having positioned myself at the far end of the table with my laptop open and my notes spread out like a barricade. He paused in the doorway when he saw me.
"Dr. Karras." His voice was carefully neutral.
"Dr. Reed."
He took a seat at the opposite end of the table, and it still didn't feel like enough distance.
"I reviewed the preliminary data Patel sent over," he said, pulling out his own laptop. "The triage bottleneck during mass casualty events is the obvious priority."
"Agreed. We're losing time in the initial assessment phase. Too many patients getting stuck in holding patterns while we figure out resource allocation."
He hummed. "I was thinking we could implement a tiered response system. Color-coded based on severity and likelihood of survival."
"That's already standard in most trauma centers," I pointed out.
"Standard, yes. Efficient, no." He pulled up a spreadsheet through the projector. "Look at the numbers from the last sixMCIs. Average time from arrival to surgical intervention for red-tagged patients."
I studied the data. He was right. The numbers were abysmal.
We talked for two hours. Procedure, logistics, implementation timelines. Our voices stayed level. Our suggestions stayed professional. We disagreed on three major points and compromised on two of them. By the time Cassian closed his laptop, we had a rough framework and a list of action items for the next meeting.
We also managed to avoid making eye contact for more than two seconds at a time.
"Same time Thursday?" he asked, gathering his things.
"Thursday works."
He paused at the door. I could see him wanting to say something, the words forming and dissolving before they could escape.
"Good work today," he said finally.
"You too."
And that was it. Our first meeting. Productive on paper, excruciating in practice.
I walked back to my office afterward and sat in the dark for ten minutes, just breathing.
Three weeks later, I was still learning how to breathe underwater. We met twice weekly. Tuesday evenings and Thursday mornings, crammed into the same conference room with our laptops and our data and the ghost of everything we refused to acknowledge.
On the surface, it looked like a successful collaboration. We debated procedures, analyzed outcomes, and drafted proposals that Patel praised in department emails.
Underneath, I was drowning.
