Chapter 3

3.

I signed the transfer agreement.

The HR manager watched me fill out the form, then hesitated.

“This is a move to New York. That’s a big deal. Aren’t you going to talk it over with your girlfriend?”

“No need.”

The last time I was changing jobs, I brought her two different offers to get her opinion. Elena had glanced at them and said, “It’s your life, Caleb. Don’t ask me to make your decisions for you.”

But she spent an entire weekend helping Liam rewrite his application for the hospital’s residency program so he could work in her department.

Elena always said I wasn’t independent enough, that I was too "emotionally demanding." When I’d try to tell her about my day, she’d put on her headphones to listen to a medical podcast. When I was running late and needed a ride because my car was in the shop, she refused, saying her schedule was too tight to be disrupted. When I wanted to go to a gala with her colleagues, she told me I should build my own professional circle.

I used to think she was just a cold person. And I thought I would be the exception.

Then Liam showed up.

He claimed to have severe panic attacks, and Elena’s parents had asked her to look after him. I thought she’d see it as a burden, but she agreed without a second thought.

*He* was the exception.

He would text her at 3 a.m. saying he was "spiraling," and she would throw on her coat and leave. When he was a volunteer at the hospital, she personally introduced him to the Board: “This is Liam, he’s like family to me. Please look out for him.”

Every time I argued with her about it, she’d just frown.

“I’m looking after him because he’s a risk to himself. You’re jealous of a guy who can barely function? Do you have any idea what he almost did―”

She always stopped herself mid-sentence, leaving a heavy, meaningful silence in his wake.

But I never saw Liam on the verge of a breakdown. His "episodes" only ever seemed to flare up at the most convenient times―when Elena and I had a rare dinner planned, when I needed her support, or when I finally worked up the courage to tell her I was unhappy.

All the excuses I had made for her―it’s just her personality, she’s a busy surgeon, she hates clingy people―they all crumbled in the face of the patience and care she showed to someone else.

Fine.

After my surgery tomorrow, after I leave this city, Elena Mercer will be nothing to me.