Catherine pressed her fingertips to the cold marble of the counter and closed her eyes.
Breathe. Focus. Let it go.
She shouldn’t have stayed.
The thought came uninvited and unwelcome, like a slap to the chest.
She shouldn’t have stayed wrapped in Sloane’s arms, her skin still damp from heat and paint and sweat. She shouldn’t have let her fingers rest there, over Sloane’s heart, as if she had theright to feel anything. She shouldn’t have whispered things into the quiet she couldn’t take back, not with her body, not with her breath.
It was a mistake. A lapse in judgment. A moment of weakness, nothing more.
She opened her eyes.
The espresso had gone cold.
Catherine didn’t sip it. She simply carried the mug to the sink and poured it down the drain, watching the dark swirl disappear without a sound.
She had surgeries scheduled, a meeting with the board, and a departmental audit she was overseeing personally because no one else would do it correctly. There was no time for this.
There was never time for this.
Her phone buzzed again.
The vibration echoed off the counters, louder than it should’ve been in the silence.
She didn’t move.
After a beat, it stopped.
She inhaled through her nose, then exhaled slowly and reached for her tablet instead and pulled up the surgical schedule for the week.
Her work ethic was what she could control.
Love, if you could even call it that, was just chaos dressed up in moments of sweetness. It was temporary and unreliable.
She padded back into her bedroom and changed into her scrubs. Crisp, clean, and folded in neat stacks in her closet like soldiers waiting to be deployed. As she pulled her hair back into a tight twist, the reflection in the mirror caught her by surprise.
She looked tired.
Not tired in the usual way. Not the clinical exhaustion of long shifts or back-to-back cases. This was deeper. Hollowed out. Hercheekbones were a little sharper than usual, the shadows under her eyes bruised with something more than sleeplessness.
She adjusted her collar, smoothing down a wrinkle that wasn’t there.
Control. Discipline. Detachment.
That’s what she was good at. That’s what she needed now.
So why did the silence follow her into every room?
Why did she feel like something had been carved out of her?
Catherine grabbed her coat and keys. As she headed for the door, her phone buzzed a third time. She paused, fingers brushing the handle.
She didn’t turn back. Just let the phone vibrate itself still again and walked out the door.
The lock clicked shut behind her.
And she let the silence swallow the room whole.
