While Khai ordered another espresso, I glanced at my phone. And—fuck. Jesse. As if he’d heard an echoed whisper of my thoughts.
Dr. Carter will take over as your supervising fellow for the rest of your rotation.
What?
My chest caved in a little. I reread the message—neutral, polite, professional. Everything we’d promised each other weeks ago on a rooftop. Everything we’d absolutely shattered last night.
I’d left, yes. But now it was Jesse slicing through the ties that still bound us.
“Hey,” Khai said. “You okay?”
I looked up, locked the phone, and put it away. Smiled. “Yeah. Just…realized that I forgot something.”
My head. Or possibly my heart.
They both studied me for a beat, then let it go—as they were meant to. But would Eli back home have done the same? Or would he have called me on my bullshit, insisted on the truth? We’d been friends since fifth grade, though, so I’d be setting myself up for disappointment if I expected to find the same closeness just a couple of months into moving here.
The conversation resumed. I kept my shoulders loose and my attention on Tessa and Khai, and it wasn’t until they hopped on a bus while I started walking that I pulled out my phone again.
Jesse’s message was devoid of any personal touch. He could have sent it to a near-stranger, simply conveying a piece of information, done, have a nice day. It didn’t require an answer, so maybe I should just…let it go.
I liked Dr. Carter. If it weren’t for Jesse, I could even see myself nursing a little crush on Carter, something sweet and harmless to pass the time, easy like a smile.
No such luck.
Is this a punishment?
I wrote, then deleted it—only to type the exact same words again. This time, I hit send.
Jesse’s reply came so quickly that I wondered whether he’d been waiting for me.
No. It’s admitting that when it comes to you, I am not objective.
I stared at the words until they blurred. Then I shoved the phone back into my pocket and kept moving, joining an uncaring river of pedestrians on their way to somewhere else.
Never fast enough to escape their own selves, though.
For the first time since starting my rotation, I was running late. Cutting it close, at least. I hadn’t meant to—just, it happened. No big deal if my feet and heart felt a little heavy today.
The shift nurse pointed me toward the team room, and I tugged at my scrubs before I peeked in. Carter was there, checking labs with a focused frown. No Jesse. Already gone, probably—hands washed clean of me, no reason to linger.
Okay, no. I couldn’t think like that.
“Hi,” I said, a shade too quiet. “I was told to come find you?”
Carter looked up and over, grinned. “Good morning, minion!”
It pulled a startled half laugh out of me. “Morning. Are you allowed to call me that?”
“Look, six months ago, everyone called me ‘kid.’ This is me paying it forward. Or backward. Something, anyway.”
“Okay, that seems fair.” I stepped fully into the room and sat down when he nodded toward the saggy couch—a little gingerly,hands tucked between my knees. A bag of pretzels had spilled across the coffee table like someone had left in a hurry, oddly comforting in its normalcy.
“So.” Carter leaned back in his chair, studying me. There was something warm and easy about him, and the way he’d told me to take a breath when the blackout hit… Yeah. I liked him. This would be fine. Really. “Jesse,” Carter continued, then corrected himself. “Dr. Maddox. He told me just now I’ll be taking over as your supervising fellow.”
Right. The official handover.Totalsurprise.
“Oh,” I said. “Okay, sounds good.” Then I realized it might imply there’d been a rift with Jesse. “I mean—I’m good either way. But happy to work with you.”
