This was new. This feeling — full and stupid and bright. It sat in my chest like a held breath, like a laugh I didn’t know how to let out. I wasn’t built for this kind of anticipation. I wasn’t practiced at wanting something simply because it would make someone else smile.
You’re in trouble, Desmond, I thought, not unkindly. Not afraid.
The hospital came into view, all glass and light and familiarity, and the sight of it made something warm bloom behind my ribs. Iadjusted my grip on the cup, careful not to spill any because of her ridiculous lid aversion. I was already rehearsing what I’d say — something casual, something stupid. Teasing. Normal.
I took another step forward, snow whispering under my boots, the world narrowed down to one small, reckless intention.
I never even saw the bus.
Chapter 34
Anya
The trauma bay doors slammed open with a force that rattled the frame.
“Pedestrian versus bus,” someone shouted. “Hypotensive. Unresponsive at the scene. Massive lower extremity trauma with superficial burns on the left arm and neck.”
The gurney rolled in fast, bodies clustered around it, voices overlapping, hands already cutting, already pressing, already moving. I stepped forward on instinct, gloves snapping on, brain flipping into the familiar emergency pattern — airway, breathing, circulation — until the world narrowed to the patient and the rhythm of organized chaos.
“BP sixty over palp,” a nurse called.
“Heart rate one-forty,” another voice said.
“Get me large-bore access. Now.”
I moved with them, automatically, my hands already reaching, my mouth already forming orders?—
And then I saw his face.
For a fraction of a second, my brain refused to translate what my eyes were telling it. The room blurred at the edges, sound dulling, asif I were underwater. The man on the table was bloodied, pale, his hair matted dark with sweat and something worse.
Desmond.
Not a patient wholookedlike him.
Not someone whoremindedme of him.
Doctor Desmond Vaughn.
My Desmond.
My world tilted.
I stopped.
Not physically — my body was still standing there — but inside, something locked. My hands hovered uselessly in midair. The monitors kept beeping. The nurses kept moving. Someone was talking directly to me, and I couldn’t understand a word they were saying.
This wasn’t real.
This was wrong.
He didn’t belong here. He was supposed to be on the other side of the bed. Calm. In control. Calling out vitals. Telling me what to do.
Not bleeding.
Not motionless.
Not broken.
