“I chose you,” he repeated, as if the words weighed nothing.
For a second, the whole city seemed to freeze—a seagull surfing on the wind, the red light on a far crane, traffic. Then I blinked and everything spun back into motion. “Jesse…”
“Look,” he cut in gently. “I know what you’re going to say. But listen?—”
“You’ll resent me.” I shook my head, took half a step back. Distance. Easier to see clearly. “Maybe not now. But give it a year, and you’ll wake up thinking you could have had Devon. And instead, you’ve got…” I waved a hand at myself. “This.”
“First off, you’re not some defective display model.” One side of his mouth twitched up, eyes a clear green that made me think of forests and springtime. “Secondly, Ashwick Presbyterian is opening a pediatric surgery position. Novak offered to vouch for me.”
Everything went golden. Then turned to ashes. Because… “That’s not what you’ve always wanted.”
“No,” he said simply. “But maybe what I want has changed.”
“Because of me?”
“In part, yeah. You also made me think. Like…is New York really what I want? What price do I want to pay for my career? What price have I already paid? Ashwick’s smaller—faces you get to know, trees that don’t grow out of concrete. It might be better.” A small tilt of his mouth. “For me.”
He sounded philosophical, not like someone about to throw aside seven years of hard work. I shut my eyes for a second, breathing in. “And you just decided that in the last fifteen minutes?” I shook my head. “Look, this is what happens, okay? People get really into me for a while. They fall for, like, the face and the highlight reel. But then they realize I can be a lot. Too serious, too hungry. Too…me.”
“People?” Jesse snorted, shifting slightly to face me fully. “Or your douchebag exes? The ones who liked the version of you that catered to their whims, then dumped you when you stopped? Or said you should marry your ambitions?”
“That was Travis,” I muttered. “The guy who dumped me just before—you know. Before we met.”
“Idiot.” Jesse’s lips turned up. “Personally, I like your ambition. It’s hot.”
That startled a small laugh out of me. Yeah, maybe Jesse got it, in a way none of the others had—he hadn’t risen to where he was by slacking off. Which was mypoint.Because, what, now he was suddenly okay with just…scaling his dreams down a notch? No big deal?
“That’s just it, though.” I shook my head. “It’s so easy to feel like you’re in love at first, you know? It always starts shiny. Hormones, everyone’s on their best behavior, wearing their best clothes. Happy to feign interest while they rant about their favorite baseball team and you ramble about anatomy. It’s a performance, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Jesse said, dry as dust.
“Right. But then here’s the thing.” I cleared my throat, cheeks cold. “It’s really just attraction dressed up as something bigger. The shine fades once they… Once they meet the me who forgets to text back, who’d rather talk about sutures than superhero movies. Turns out they only ever cared about hearing their own opinion echoed in a different voice, you know?”
“Okay, my turn.” Jesse’s voice dropped to something slow and serious. “I’ve known you for three months now, Finn. I’ve seen you overtired and in scrubs.” He wiggled his fingers at me, a shadow of humor crossing his face. “Not exactly flattering, even if blue is definitely your color.” He sobered, leaning in just enough to register. “I’ve also seen you overwhelmed and embarrassed and so sick you could barely stay upright whiletrying to argue about how you should finish your shift. I’ve seen you holding steady in a blackout. I know you drink disgusting, reheated coffee rather than throw it out. I know New York still feels too big. I know you try so hard to deserve this that you forget you’re allowed to be human.”
“I…” It trailed off into nothing, words slipping through my grasp.
After a beat, Jesse continued, so quietly it was almost lost to the breeze. “I’m not saying there isn’t more I can learn—but I know you, Finn. And that’s why I want this. Wantyou.”
Everything in me went still like the air before thunder. Breath snagged on the way out, ribs tight, as if the words had crawled inside my chest and expanded until I was all out of space.
“Say something?” he prompted after a few seconds of silence, seeming abruptly uncertain.
“I, um.” It felt like I’d been stripped bare and raw. I dragged in some air. “But what if you regret it? Choosing me.”
“I won’t.” Now he sounded sure again—the same confidence he carried in the OR, each word deliberate, just like how he’d crossed the floor toward me that second time we’d crashed into each other, after the blackout. “I’ve heard regret—end-of-life moments in ICUs and patient visits. It never sounds like ‘I should have chased one more promotion.’ It sounds like ‘I should have been there, I should have chosen the people who mattered.’ I’m not making that mistake.”
He just… He…God.
“I love you.” I hadn’t meant to blurt it out like this, but Jesus, yes, I wasn’t about to take it back. The city seemed a million miles away.
His smile was slow but inevitable like a sunrise, which,cheesy. He made me think in clichés, though, in colors and nature, in shades of green and the clear brightness of a summermorning even now, with late autumn cutting through my clothes. “Good,” he said, like that was an acceptable response.
My chest felt suddenly wider, lighter. “You’re not going to say it back?”
“Feels like I already did.” He leaned in, close enough to count the darker flecks in his eyes. “In about five different ways.”
I chose you. Maybe what I want has changed. I know you.
