Page 46 of Never Quite Gone

“That's a first.”

“Maybe he's human after all.” She paused, considering. “The way he looked at you just now... I've never seen that expression on his face before. Like he understood exactly what you're going through.”

“Maybe he does.”

We finished packing in comfortable silence. The hospital hummed around us, life's endless cycle continuing despite personal griefs. Somewhere in this building, other healers' hands were saving lives, losing battles, carrying on the eternal dance between skill and fate.

“Go home,” Sofia said gently. “Rest. Let yourself feel whatever you need to feel.”

I nodded, gathering my coat with hands that couldn't quite stop trembling.

“Some patterns need to be broken,” I murmured, echoing Vale's words.

Sofia looked at me sharply, but didn't comment. Instead, she just hugged me – quick but fierce, professional distance set aside for friendship's sake.

“Call if you need anything,” she said. “Day or night.”

I walked out of my office feeling strangely light, as if setting down burdens I hadn't known I carried. The hospital corridors held different shadows in the morning light, showing me new angles to a place I thought I knew completely.

Two weeks to process, to remember, to understand whytoday's loss had cracked something open that felt older than my current grief. Two weeks to face whatever memories kept surfacing, whatever truths kept trying to break through my careful walls.

Maybe Vale was right. Maybe some patterns did need to be broken.

Maybe healing hands sometimes needed to shake, to remember why they healed at all.

For now, I let Sofia guide me out, let her steady presence anchor me to this moment rather than all the ones pressing at the edges of my mind. My phone felt heavy in my pocket, Alex's offered comfort waiting like a lifeline I wasn't quite ready to grab.

One step at a time. One breath at a time. One moment at a time.

Until my hands remembered how to be steady again.

Until I understood why Vale's eyes had held such ancient understanding when he looked at me over cooling coffee and lowered walls.

Two weeks.

Time to remember.

Time to understand.

Time to heal.

CHAPTER 15

Brother’s Keeper

Alex's text had seemed simple enough. Dinner at his place, a chance to talk after my forced leave from the hospital. Just what I needed after the week I'd had – quiet conversation, maybe some answers about the strange memories that kept surfacing.

Instead, I stood frozen in a mansion's grand foyer, surrounded by New York's elite in evening wear that probably cost more than my yearly salary. My casual blazer and jeans might as well have been hospital scrubs for how out of place they looked among the designer suits and cocktail dresses.

“Breathe,” Rachel whispered, squeezing my arm. Thank god I'd called her in panic from the car. She'd arrived in record time, somehow perfectly dressed in a deep blue gown that looked like she'd planned for this all along.

“It's just people.”

People who looked effortlessly elegant, while I felt like a lost medical resident who'd stumbled into the wrong event. I glanced at her, about to protest, and finally took in the full picture—her perfect posture despite the undeniable swell of her stomach.

I exhaled. “You’re six months pregnant. How are you still making this look easy?”

She smirked, shifting just enough to nudge me forward with the weight of her very-much-there baby bump. “Because I’m not the one panicking in a rich man’s doorway.”

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