CHAPTER 22

ELENA

For a few seconds, neither of us moved.

Then reality did the thing it always does.... showed up uninvited and ruined a perfectly good moment. I stepped back first. He matched it a half-second later, both of us landing on almost exactly the same amount of distance, like we'd rehearsed it.

I cleared my throat. He cleared his. I found something urgent to do with the back of my neck. He found something urgent to do with his hair.

Painfully, spectacularly awkward.

I risked a glance at him and nearly did a double take. Was he.... no. Absolutely not. This was Adrian Blackwood. Men blushed because of him, not the other way around. He was the reason for most guys gay awakening. There was no universe where I'd just watched color rise in his face because I'd hugged him a beat too long.

I looked away and decided I was imagining things.

"We need to prepare," he said.

"For what?"

"Residency."

Right. Residency. I was actually, genuinely starting my residency, and the smile that came with remembering that fact refused to be talked down.

"I still can't believe it."

"You should." He was watching me with an expression I couldn't quite categorize. "You'll need an allowance."

The smile faltered. "An allowance?"

"Yes."

"Adrian, I'm going to the hospital, not moving to a different continent. I'll be here every day."

"Exactly."

"Home," I said, before my brain caught up with my mouth.

Silence. My stomach did something complicated.

"I mean....the house."

He held my eyes a second too long before nodding. "The house."

I looked away, annoyed at myself for how much that slip had cost me. This wasn't home. It was a contract with a shelf life. I kept reminding myself of that like it was going to eventually take.

He sat down. "Residency isn't going to be easy."

"I know."

"I mean it. Rotations, ward rounds. It'll take everything you have."

"I know."

"And Elias."

Something in me softened automatically at his name. "I'll take care of him."

"You already do." He said it like a fact, not a compliment, which somehow made it land harder. "He's doing better. Genuinely better. Because of you."

"I didn't do much."

"You did." Simple enough that arguing felt pointless. He leaned back. "Elena, I trust you. Enough to know you'll take care of him without being asked twice." A pause. "I also trust you enough to know you can take care of yourself."

My eyes started stinging before I'd decided to let them.

"You're not a slave in this house."

"I never thought I was."

"Good." His gaze didn't waver. "You have a life outside of Elias. Dreams that are yours, not mine, not his. Don't let taking care of him become an excuse to bury those again."

That landed somewhere old and tender. How many times had I done exactly that....folded my own wants down small enough to fit around somebody else's? Told myself wanting something for me alone was some kind of vanity?

"You wanted to be a doctor," he said, quieter now. "So be one. Don't let anything get in the way of that again. You deserve something that's entirely yours."

I couldn't get a word out.

"Promise me you won't give up on yourself."

"I promise," I said, and meant it more than I'd meant most promises lately.

"Good."

A small hand slid into mine before either of us could say anything else. Elias, grinning up at me like he'd been waiting for an opening. I smiled back, something warm spreading through my chest that had nothing to do with logic and everything to do with how much I'd started needing this....this room, this kid, whatever this thing with Adrian was turning into.

"Thank you," I said, mostly to Adrian, though it could've been meant for the whole afternoon.

He nodded, and we went back to the movie like nothing had shifted. Except something had. For a while there, sitting between the two of them with popcorn going cold in the bowl, it felt less like an arrangement and more like a family I hadn't earned yet but was starting to fall for anyway.

---

The next morning I stood in front of the mirror, running through the same four words on a loop. Today's the day.

"You've got this, Elena," I told my reflection, mostly because saying it out loud felt marginally more convincing than just thinking it.

Elias had already left for school before I got ready to go to the hospital, and Adrian was nowhere in sight. But a black car sat waiting the second I stepped outside, and the driver got out before I'd even reached the curb.

"Morning, Mrs. Blackwood."

I winced at the name.

"Rich, please."

"Ma'am?"

"I can go to the hospital myself."

He shook his head, unbothered. "Mr. Blackwood was very specific. I'm on driving duty, to and from, no exceptions."

"Of course he was." I climbed in anyway, because arguing with Rich clearly wasn't going to get me anywhere.

A few minutes in, he passed a small black box over his shoulder. "From Mr. Blackwood."

I opened it and stared. A black card, no explanation attached.

"Rich."

"Yes?"

"From who?."

He just smiled at me in the rearview mirror. "Who else would it be from?"

I laughed despite myself and called Adrian before I'd fully decided to.

"Hi, Elena."

"I got your gift."

"You like it?"

"Adrian, what am I supposed to do with a black card?"

"It's your allowance."

"I don't need an allowance. I'm going for my residency, not disappearing. I'll be back at the house every night."

"And?"

"There's no reason for you to be giving me money, a limitless card at that."

A pause, longer than I expected. Then, softer: "When it comes to you, there's always a reason."

My heart did something unhelpful.

"You're my wife, Elena."

Not really, I corrected silently, the way I always did lately, though the correction had started arriving slower and slower each time.

"You deserve everything I have to give," he said.

I didn't trust myself to answer that properly. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." A beat. "Enjoy your first day."

"I will."

"I'll see you at home."

The call ended before I could decide whether 'home' had meant something to him too, or whether I was just hearing what I wanted to hear these days.

Rich was smiling at me through the mirror again.

"What?"

"Nothing at all."

I shook my head and made myself focus on the actual reason I was in this car. Not Adrian's kindness, however disarming it kept becoming. My dream. My father's dream....our dream, the hospital we used to talk about building together, back before any of this happened to either of us. I owed it to what was left of him to actually build it now.

Walking into the hospital for the first time, my heart took off.... not from nerves, for once, but from something closer to joy. I was finally here. Actually here, after years of believing this door had closed for good.

The pediatric ward moved fast around me.... nurses cutting between rooms, doctors trading updates on the fly, a kid's laugh somewhere down the hall that made the whole place feel less clinical than I expected.

This is it, I thought. This is where I'm supposed to be.

They introduced us to the other residents first. Stacy Owen came at me like a small, freckled hurricane, hand out before I'd finished saying my own name.

"You're Elena, right? I'm Stacy. So glad you're here."

"Thanks," I said, laughing despite the intensity of it.

Ella Matthews was next... warm, composed, dark-skinned, and during our conversations I'd learned she was Nigerian and proud enough of it to make sure I knew.

"Very Nigerian," she said when I asked, grinning.

"Should've guessed."

"You'll get used to me."

Then Roderick Adams, who didn't say much of anything....just looked at me a beat too long before finally offering his name and a handshake firm enough to mean something. I didn't read too much into it. There was too much else happening to think twice about one odd stare.

They walked us through the wards, introduced us to the attendings, briefed us on rotations and responsibilities. I took notes I probably didn't need to take, asked questions I already half-knew the answers to, just to feel like I was fully present in a life I'd spent years convinced I'd lost.

For the first time in longer than I could measure, I felt like I was exactly where I belonged.

Then, cutting down a quieter corridor between briefings, I noticed a woman sitting alone on a bench, crying in the careful, contained way people do when they're trying not to be noticed doing it.

I slowed without meaning to.

She kept wiping at her face every time footsteps passed, like she'd trained herself to hide it fast. I couldn't just walk by.

"Excuse me." She looked up, eyes red-rimmed. "Sorry," she said immediately.

"You don't need to apologize." I sat down beside her before I'd really decided to. "Are you okay?"

She didn't answer, but there was something about her face that snagged at me... familiar in some way, enough to make my chest tighten without knowing why yet.

"Can I help with anything?"

She finally lifted her eyes to mine, and that's when I noticed the file clutched tight in her hands, her name printed clean across the front.

Chloe Alexander.