Now, it just made her teeth ache.
The desert was still on her skin. There was dust in the seams of her jeans. A sun-warmed scent clung to the fabric of Emma’s shirt, folded carefully and placed at the top of her bag. She could still feel the wind against her face, the weight of a sleeping Emma pressed against her back, the laugh she’d released after getting splashed with cold water near the herb garden.
Her fingers unbuttoned her shirt slowly. She peeled away the layers of her time away like a second skin, piece by piece, until she stood naked beneath the overhead lights.
Even her reflection startled her.
Her skin was darker, flushed with bronze instead of alabaster. Her collarbones weren’t as sharp. Her face was fuller, softer somehow. Her eyes weren’t tired.
The shower was all sleek lines and stainless fixtures, water falling from the ceiling with precise pressure.
She stepped under it, closed her eyes, and cried.
It wasn’t sobbing. There was no sharp breath, no collapse. Just tears. Slow, hot, silent. They mixed with the water as it coursed down her body, taking the desert with it, grain by grain.
The red dirt from her calves. The faint sage scent from her neck. A smudge of charcoal from the sketch Emma had drawn on her shoulder.
Gone.
Her hands braced against the tile wall, and she let the water rinse her clean. Too clean. Scrubbed free of something she hadn’t realized had taken root inside her.
She’d once thought this kind of silence, this high-rise hush, was luxury. Now it just sounded like absence. There was no hum of insects. No creak of old wood, no scrape of boots on porch steps. No rustle of linen in the breeze. No voice saying her name like a promise. Only water. Only white tile. Only the emptiness of what used to be enough.
She stayed there until the water ran lukewarm and her fingertips puckered, then turned it off, stepped out, and wrapped herself in a towel that smelled of detergent instead of wildflowers and sunlight.
In the mirror, her eyes were red-rimmed and wet. But beneath that, something glowed.
She didn’t belong here anymore.
Not entirely.
Harrington Memorial loomed above her, tall and gleaming and cold as steel. The glass façade reflected the sky, a sharp, unwelcoming blue, so different from the wide, endless dome of the desert, where clouds drifted like thoughts and light bent tenderly around the horizon.
Here, everything was straight lines, buzzing lights, and efficiency.Emma would’ve hated it.
And Olivia wasn’t sure she could stand it anymore.
She paused in the parking garage elevator, watching her own reflection in the brushed metal doors. Her ID badge dangled from a lanyard across her chest, her name in crisp Helvetica. Theweight of it felt heavier than it used to, like putting on an old coat you’ve outgrown, only to realize it’s lined with lead.
The elevator dinged. A nurse she didn’t recognize nodded politely before slipping past her. Olivia returned the nod automatically, but her stomach twisted. That tight, formal smile had once been second nature.
Now it felt like a performance.
She walked the main corridor slowly, each step echoing faintly beneath her sensible heels. It smelled of antiseptic and coffee left too long on a burner. The walls were too white. The silence here wasn’t peaceful; it was strained, sterile. The nurses' station buzzed with controlled chaos—phones ringing, pages flipping, keyboards clacking with relentless efficiency. A woman laughed, short and sharp, edged with exhaustion.
Olivia used to be part of this rhythm. She used to thrive in it.
Now, it made her skin itch.
Her fingers curled at her sides. Her pulse, steady and grounded in the desert, began to flutter beneath the surface again.
She passed by a young intern and heard her whisper as Olivia walked by: “That’s her. The Harrington.”
Not Dr. Harrington. Just…the.
It used to be a crown.
Now it felt like a noose.
