And it was absolutely necessary.
Every time I closed my eyes, I felt his arm wrapped around my waist, his heartbeat steady beneath my ear, and the way our bodies had found each other in sleep like we’d never been apart for years.
I couldn't think about that and let myself remember the warmth of waking up tangled together, only for reality to crash back in. If I thought about it too long, I'd start believing it meant something. Thatwemeant something. And the five years distance could be erased by one night of unconscious reaching.
So I hid.
Like a coward.
Apparently I could handle arterial spray and cardiac tamponade, but not the memory of Cassian Reed's breath against my hair.
On the third morning, I was heading for the east stairwell when a hand caught my elbow.
"Hey."
I spun around and found Cassian standing behind me, still in his white coat, with a coffee cup in his free hand. He looked rested. Normal. Like the past two days hadn't been the particular kind of hell I'd been living in.
"Hey," I managed.
"You've been hard to find lately." His tone was light as his green eyes searched my face. "Feels like every time I turn around, you're disappearing into a surgery or a meeting or somewhere I'm not."
"Busy week," I reasoned.
He tilted his head. "Or are you avoiding me?"
I should have lied and given him some lame excuse about patient loads or deadlines or any of the dozen professional reasons that would explain my absence.
But my mouth betrayed me.
"Yes."
Cassian blinked. Whatever response he'd expected, that wasn't it.
"Okay." He glanced down the hallway, then nodded toward the stairwell door. "Can we talk for a minute?"
I followed him. A part of me had been waiting for this conversation even as I'd been running from it. Two days of silence had done nothing except make the wanting worse.
The stairwell was empty, our footsteps echoing against concrete as the door swung shut behind us. I stopped on the landing between floors, my back against the railing, and arms crossed over my chest.
"So," Cassian started. "You want to tell me why?"
"Why what?"
"Why are you avoiding me? Why did you practically run out of that hotel room? Why have you been acting like I have some kind of contagious disease every time we're in the same hallway?"
I stared at a crack in the concrete wall, unable to meet his eyes. "It's complicated."
"Uncomplicate it."
"Cassian."
"Calla." His voice was patient but firm. "We have to work together. We're co-leading a team that requires actual communication. Whatever's going on, we need to figure it out."
He was right. I knew he was right. But knowing something and being able to act on it were two different things, and right now the distance between those two points felt insurmountable.
"The hotel," I said finally. "Waking up like that. It messed with my head."
"It was just sleep. Our bodies moved without us deciding to. It doesn't have to mean anything."
