Amber
I stood outside the hospital room door, my hand hovering just above the handle, willing my pulse to slow.
The hall was quiet.
Too quiet.
It gave me too much time to think.
To remember.
To feel.
Don’t do that, I told myself. Don’t feel anything. Not now.
This wasn’t personal. This was procedure. Post-operative follow-up. One of a dozen I’d done that week. He was just another patient on my list.
I took a breath. Straightened my spine.
And walked in.
He looked exactly how I left him—only now his eyes were open. Alert. Wild with disbelief.
I didn’t flinch when I saw his expression.
Didn’t react when his gaze snapped to me like I was a ghost he thought he’d buried seven years ago.
He looked pale, bandaged, exhausted. But underneath the bruises and the haze, his shock was unmistakable. It poured off him like heat.
And it filled me with something I hadn’t expected—pride.
Not the vain kind. The quiet kind. The kind that whispered, You never thought I’d become this, did you?
He had writt
