I was going to have to go somewhere.
Eventually.
Work. Life. The world outside this room.
But I stayed that week like nothing else mattered. I slept in a chair. I showered in the staff locker room.
I wore the same spare scrubs more than once. But none of my ED colleagues commented on my slower pace. On the straightforward cases I picked or the way I floated through the nights.
I became part of the furniture in his ICU room.
By the time they transferred him out of critical care, everyone knew my name. Not because of my badge.
Because of him.
Because when they rolled his bed down the hall, he reached for my hand without thinking.
Because when he woke up in a new room, the first thing he said was my name.
Because by then, there was no pretending this was casual.
No pretending this was temporary.
No pretending I wasn’t already woven into the worst week of his life.
I told myself I was helping him heal.
The truth was quieter and more dangerous:
He was becoming something I couldn’t imagine letting go of.
And the ICU?—
That room.
That week.
It didn’t just save his life.
It changed mine.
Chapter 40
Desmond
They timed my discharge around her.
I pretended not to notice.
Everyone pretended, really. The nurses with their too-careful smiles. The case manager with her clipboard and pointed efficiency. The physical therapist who suddenly found a reason to schedule my last stair-transfer session at the exact hour Anya’s shift ended.
Coincidence.
Sure.
I was an emergency room attending physician. I recognized orchestration when I saw it, but I also recognized mercy.
By the time Anya walked into my room, still in scrubs, hair pulled back and eyes shadowed with exhaustion, my chest felt too tight for someone who was supposedly being sent home.
