The pain started during my second hour of the late shift. Just a twinge at first, low on my right side. I ignored it. I'd been ignoring a lot of things lately.
By hour four, I couldn't stand up straight. I told myself it was nothing. Muscle strain. Bad posture. The accumulated exhaustion of two weeks spent sleeping in hotel rooms and avoiding my own apartment. I finished my rounds. Signed off on three discharge orders. Smiled at a nervous resident who asked if I was feeling okay.
"Fine," I said. "Just tired."
The break room was empty when I finally stumbled inside. I locked the door behind me out of habit—the same habit that had kept me functional through every shift since the conference room. Privacy meant safety. Safety meant I could stop performing.
The pain hit like a blade.
I made it two steps before my knees buckled. The linoleum was cold against my cheek. My vision narrowed to a tunnel. Somewhere in the clinical part of my brain—the part still working—I recognized the symptoms. Appendicitis. Acute. Possibly rupturing.
My phone was on the table. Three feet away. Might as well have been three miles.
I crawled. My scrubs caught on something. I kept moving. My fingers closed around the phone's edge and dragged it down.
Logan's number was still at the top of my favorites. Muscle memory made me tap it before I could think.
It rang once. Twice. Three times.
I pressed the phone to my ear and heard music. Voices. Laughter. A charity gala—I remembered him mentioning it last week, back when we were still pretending to communicate. The hospital's annual fundraiser. Black tie. Donor schmoozing. The kind of event where Logan shined.
Four rings.
I tried to speak. My throat closed around the words.
Five rings.
Then silence. Not voicemail. Just—silence. The specific silence of a call deliberately ended.
I stared at the screen. Call ended. Duration: 23 seconds.
He'd looked at my name. Decided. Pressed decline.
I lay there on the cold floor, phone still pressed to my ear, listening to nothing.
Naomi's number took three tries to dial. My fingers weren't working right. The call went straight to voicemail. She was in surgery. I knew that. I'd seen the board. A complex reconstruction, probably another four hours.
I let the phone fall from my hand.
The ceiling tiles were water-stained. I counted them. Twelve visible from where I lay. The pain was spreading now, radiating outward from my right side like something alive and angry. I thought about my mother. About the succulent on her windowsill. About the way she'd cupped my face between her hands and told me to make sure my choices were mine.
I dragged myself toward the door. Inch by inch. My vision kept blurring. The door had a window—small, rectangular, reinforced glass. If I could just get close enough for someone to see me.
My hand hit the door frame. I pulled myself up enough to be visible. Then the world tilted sideways and I stopped counting ceiling tiles.
I woke up three days later.
The ICU was quiet. Machines beeped steadily around me. An IV line ran into my left arm. My right side was wrapped in bandages. Everything felt distant, like I was watching myself from somewhere else.
Naomi sat in the chair beside my bed. Her scrubs were rumpled. Dark circles shadowed her eyes. When she saw me looking at her, she leaned forward and took my hand carefully, avoiding the IV.
"Hey," she said softly.
I tried to speak. My throat was dry. She reached for the water cup and held the straw to my lips. I drank. The water tasted like plastic.
"How long?" I managed.
"Three days. They got you into surgery within an hour. It was close, Chels. Really close."
I looked at the empty chair on my other side. The bare windowsill. The absence of flowers.
"Logan?" I asked.
Naomi's jaw tightened. "He came by once. While you were still under. He didn't stay."
I nodded. It didn't surprise me. Nothing surprised me anymore.
"I'm done," I said.
Naomi squeezed my hand. "I know."
She didn't ask what I meant. She already understood.
Logan visited on the second day. I was sedated. I didn't know until later—until a nurse mentioned it to Naomi, who told me when I was strong enough to hear it. He'd stayed seven minutes. Spent most of it on his phone. Left before I woke up.
When they discharged me four days later, Logan sent a car service. Black sedan. Professional driver who helped me into the back seat without asking questions.
I rode home alone. Seattle passed by through rain-streaked windows—the hospital district giving way to downtown, then the residential neighborhoods I used to think of as ours. The driver pulled up in front of my hotel. Not our apartment. The hotel I'd been living in for two weeks.
I'd never told Logan the address.
I tipped the driver and took the elevator to my room. Sat on the edge of the bed. Opened my laptop.
The evidence file had grown to forty-three pages. I added seventeen new entries that night. Date and time of my emergency call to Logan. The gala he'd attended. The duration of his ICU visit. The car service receipt.
Every detail documented. Every moment preserved.
I saved the file. Backed it up.
Then I sat in the dark and watched the city lights blur through my window, waiting for the pain medication to wear off so I could think clearly again.
I had work to do.
