“Because it didn’t matter. I chose us. I chose to stay. And now I’m asking you to do the same thing, and suddenly I’m the bad guy?”
“You’re not the bad guy for wanting me to stay.” Her voice cracked, just slightly, before she pulled it back under control. “You’re the bad guy for assuming I would. For deciding my answer before you even asked the question.”
“I didn’t assume anything. I thought we wanted the same things.”
“We do want the same things. We both want careers that matter. We both want to make a difference. The only difference is that you think your career should come first.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?” She crossed her arms over her chest, armor sliding into place. “You got a phone call this morning and by tonight you’d already planned the next five years of our lives. You didn’t call me from the hospital. You didn’t wait to discuss it together. You just decided, and then you expected me to fall in line.”
“I was excited. I wanted to share good news with my wife. Is that a crime?”
“Sharing would have been telling me about the offer. This was presenting me with a decision you’d already made.”
I pushed back from the table and stood, needing to move, needing to do something with the anger building in my chest. “What do you want me to do, Calla? Turn down Obsidian? Walk away from everything I’ve been working toward because you got some offer overseas?”
“Some offer?” Her voice went ice cold. “This is the International Trauma Consortium. The most prestigious fellowship in our field. Surgeons spend their entire careers hoping for this opportunity, and I earned it. I earned it, Cassian, and you’re dismissing it like it’s nothing.”
“I’m not dismissing it. I’m being realistic. Long-distance doesn’t work. Two years apart would destroy us.”
“So instead I should give up my dreams to protect yours?”
“You could defer. Apply again in a few years when the timing is better.”
“There is no better timing. This is the offer. Now or never. And you want me to say never because it’s inconvenient for you.”
“Inconvenient?” I laughed, the sound harsh and bitter. “You leaving for two years isn’t inconvenient, Calla. It’s devastating. Do you have any idea what that would do to us? To me?”
“And do you have any idea what staying would do to me?”
I stared at her across the kitchen, this woman I’d married, this woman I loved more than I knew how to say. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears she was too proud to let fall. Her shoulders were rigid with the effort of holding herself together.
She was going to leave. I could see it in her face. The decision was already made.
“When did you find out?” I asked. My voice sounded strange. Distant.
“A week ago.”
A week. She’d known for a week and hadn’t told me.
“Were you ever going to mention it?”
“I was trying to figure out how.” She wrapped her arms around herself, a self-protective gesture I recognized from a hundred difficult conversations. “I knew you’d react like this. I knew you’d see it as a betrayal.”
“It’s not a betrayal. It’s abandonment.”
“It’s my career, Cassian. My life. My choice.”
“And where does our marriage fit into that choice?”
“I don’t know.” The words came out broken, barely a whisper. “I don’t know anymore.”
The silence that followed was the loudest thing I’d ever heard.
“I can’t do this right now,” Calla said finally. “I need air. I need to think.”
“Calla, wait.”
