Cassian set down his sandwich, considering. His fingers drummed against the table, a nervous habit I recognized from a thousand moments during our marriage. He did it when he was thinking. When he was trying to find the right words.
“Honestly? I thought it would be fine.” He met my eyes, and something flickered there. Vulnerability, maybe. Or regret. “I thought five years was enough time that working together wouldn’t be this complicated.”
“This?”
“You know what I mean.”
I did. That was the problem.
“I thought the same thing,” I admitted. “Turns out we were both wrong.”
“Turns out.”
We finished eating, trading stories about difficult residents and hospital politics, carefully avoiding anything that felt too personal. He told me about a first-year who’d mixed up two patients’ charts and nearly caused a disaster. I told him about a surgery that had gone wrong in every possible way until suddenly it hadn’t.
It was nice. Almost normal. The kind of lunch we might have had when we were married, stolen time between shifts where we could just be two people who enjoyed each other’s company.
I’d forgotten what that felt like. Being with Cassian without the weight of everything we’d ruined pressing down on us.
When we walked back to the hospital, his shoulder bumped mine on the sidewalk. The contact was brief, accidental, but I felt it everywhere. A spark that traveled from the point of impact down through my arm and into my chest.
Neither of us moved away.
“Thanks for lunch,” I said when we reached the entrance. My voice came out steadier than I felt.
“Yeah.” Cassian held the door open for me, and I had to pass close to him to enter. Close enough to catch his scent. Cedar and something warm underneath, familiar in a way that made my throat tight. “We should do it again sometime.”
I paused in the doorway, looking up at him. He was watching me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. Hopeful and guarded at the same time. Like he wanted to ask for something he was afraid to name.
I knew the feeling.
“Maybe we should.”
Something passed between us. Not quite hope. Not quite resignation. A fragile, uncertain thing balanced on the edge of a knife.
I went back to work feeling lighter than I had in weeks. I didn’t let myself examine why.
Thursday evening, I met Daniel at a coffee shop near his hotel.
He looked the same as I remembered. Gray at the temples now, wire-rimmed glasses, the kind of calm authority that came from decades of knowing exactly who he was. He stood when I approached, pulling me into a brief hug that smelled like coffee and old books.
“Calla. You look well.”
“So do you.”
We ordered drinks and found a quiet corner away from the after-work crowd. Daniel asked about my work, my transition back to the States, whether I was settling in at Obsidian. I answered honestly, surprised by how easy it was to talk to him. Daniel had always been like that. Someone who made space for truth without demanding it.
Finally, he set down his coffee and leaned forward.
“I’ll get to the point. I’m opening a new trauma center. Partnership between three major hospitals, focused on innovative emergency protocols and research. I want you to lead the clinical development.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“It’s a leadership-track position. You’d have autonomy over program design, research priorities, staffing decisions. It’s everything we talked about during your fellowship.” His eyes were warm but serious. “The kind of position where you can shape how trauma care evolves.”
“Daniel, I just started at Obsidian. I’ve barely been there for two months.”
“I know. And if you’re happy there, I understand. But I also know you, Calla. I know how you think, what you’re capable of, what you need to thrive.” He paused. “This position was designed for someone exactly like you.”
