-Roxy Delgado:
The silence after Dr. Sloane Pierce left hung heavy in the room, the door clicking shut like a final note in a song no one knew how to end. For a long moment no one moved. No one breathed.
The monitor beside my bed kept its steady, indifferent rhythm—beep, breath, beep—an unromantic metronome for whatever stupid play I was staging.
I watched the door as if it might open again. When it didn't I let the corner of my mouth curl up. A small smirk, barely there, but enough to feel like armor.
Of course she'd walked out like that. Cold. Distant. Pretending she wasn't rattled when it was obvious she had been—her jaw tight, thumb worrying her pen, that half-step she kept taking away from the doorway.
She could lie to herself all she wanted. She couldn't lie to me. Not about small things like the way someone's shoulders fold when something unexpected brushes against them.
