Sloane took a step closer, not threatening. Just real.
“You don’t get to do that,” she said softly. “You don’t get to open the door and slam it shut when it scares you.”
“I didn’t vanish,” Catherine said. It came out cold and brittle. But something in her face cracked.
“You did,” Sloane said. “You deleted my messages. You didn’t even read them.”
The silence roared louder than any shouting match.
Catherine closed her eyes.
And when she opened them again, Sloane saw it, something like pain. Something like shame.
“Because if I did” she said, voice low, “I’d go back.”
Her hands dropped from her chest, her arms no longer crossed. Vulnerable. Exposed.
“And I can’t?—”
“Why not?” Sloane asked. “Because you might feel something?”
“Because I already do.”
Catherine’s voice broke on the last word, so soft Sloane almost didn’t hear it.
She stared at her, stunned. For a long, suspended second, neither of them moved. The air between them was thick with something unsaid, something ancient and tender and unbearably raw.
Sloane’s heartbeat drummed in her ears, but her voice, when it came, was steady.
“Then what are you doing?” she asked. “What the hell is this, Catherine?”
Catherine turned her face away, leaning back against the cool cement wall of the stairwell, eyes fixed on a scuff mark near the floor. Her arms hung uselessly at her sides. “I don’t know,” she said, finally. “I thought I did. I thought if I stayed in control, if I kept the boundaries clear, if I didn’t want anyone, I’d be okay.”
“And now?” Sloane asked. Her voice wasn’t demanding. It was gentle, honest.
Catherine’s mouth twisted into something like a grimace.
“Now,” she said, “you’re in every corner of my thoughts. I hear your laugh in the middle of my rounds. I see your damn journal every time I try to write up a report, and I can’t even look at a blank page without thinking of you.” Her voice cracked, just barely. “You’re chaos, Sloane. And I’m not built for chaos.”
Sloane took a step forward. “No. You’re not. But you’re also not built for being this miserable either.”
Catherine flinched.
“And I’m not going to keep chasing a version of you that only exists when it’s convenient,” Sloane added, her voice lowering. “You don’t get to dip your toes into being vulnerable, then retreat like it never happened.”
Catherine looked up then, really looked at her. Her eyes were rimmed with exhaustion, but there was a spark in them now. A flicker of something trying to rise from the ashes.
“You think this is easy for me?” she asked, almost bitter. “You think I want to be like this?”
“No,” Sloane said quietly. “I think you’re scared.”
Catherine pressed her palm to the wall like she needed it to hold her up. Her shoulders heaved with a deep breath.
“You have no idea what it’s like,” she said, “to build your entire life on being strong, on being enough, because no one ever showed up. No one ever stayed. And then you show up, bright and loud and soft in all the places I never learned how to be soft, and I—” Her voice failed her. “I don’t know how to let that in.”
Sloane’s expression shifted. The steel melted and was replaced with something achingly gentle.
“Then let me help,” she said. “Let me show you how.”
