I respected that, even as it stung.
That evening, I was leaving for the day when I saw Cassian and a woman I didn't recognize, standing near the main entrance.
I stopped in the stairwell, frozen behind the glass door, watching through the small window like a voyeur at my own haunting.
She had brought him food, casually talking as she held an expensive-looking restaurant bag. She was effortlessly beautiful, her dark hair falling in waves around her shoulders, her smile easy and warm.
Cassian was smiling back at her. Not the nervous, uncertain expression he wore around me. But an easy, comfortable one.
She said something that made him laugh, touching his arm with familiarity. Then, he leaned down to kiss her forehead.
She was not a colleague. And obviously. not a friend.
She was more.
They looked good together. Uncomplicated. Two people who fit without friction, without history, without all the unspoken things I carried every time I stood in the same room as him.
The woman was wearing scrubs under her jacket, so she was medical. A doctor, probably, based on the way she carried herself. But I'd never seen her at Obsidian before, not in the hallways or the OR or any of the department meetings I'd attended. She must work somewhere else.
He was making it work with someone whose schedule didn't overlap with his.
I thought about our marriage—the missed dinners, forgotten anniversaries, promises I'd made and broken so many times. We'd worked in the same hospital, lived in the same apartment, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd brought him lunch.
But here was Cassian, with someone who didn't even work in the same building, and she was showing up for him. She was making time and effort.
She was doing something I never did.
But had I been so easy to give up on?
I turned and walked back through the side exit, not trusting myself to pass by them.
That night, I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling while Felice's light snoring drifted through the thin wall between our rooms. The apartment was dark and quiet, and I couldn't stop seeing Cassian's face when he'd kissed her forehead. The ease of it. The tenderness.
He used to look at me like that. Before. When we were married and in love.
Maybe that was my answer. I'd broken something in him that she had managed to fix. I was the problem, the constant in every equation that failed to balance.
My phone vibrated on the nightstand. I reached for it without thinking. It was Cassian.
Cassian
Meeting moved to Tuesday. Patel's request.
I stared at the message for a long time. The words blurred and sharpened as I blinked against the darkness.
Calla
Okay.
Three dots appeared on the screen. Then disappeared. Then appeared again.
Cassian
See you then.
I set my phone down and closed my eyes, but sleep didn't come for hours.
When it finally did, I dreamed of a distant memory—a wedding in a botanical garden and a man with green eyes promising me forever.
