Page 27 of Fractured Devotion
“Did you even sleep last night?”
A pause. Then, she says, “I laid down.”
That’s not the answer I’m looking for, but it’s honest.
We sit in silence, a draft curling up from the lower floors. It smells faintly of antiseptic and latex, and it’s too calm for a hospital.
I tilt my head back and rest it against the cold wall.
“What was it like when you left?” she asks.
I glance at her, caught off guard by the question. “Muted. Too muted. Like the volume of life got turned down and nobody noticed.”
She nods slowly. “Did you ever think about not coming back?”
“More times than I can count.”
Her eyes flick toward me, sharp but unreadable. “Why?”
“Why what?” I ask.
“Why did you leave? Especially if you were going to come back anyway.”
“Maybe mostly because I feel like this place doesn’t want to heal people anymore. It wants to observe them. To keep them broken just enough to study.”
“That’s not new,” she murmurs.
“No,” I agree. “But you’re seeing it more now, aren’t you?”
She doesn’t answer. But the way her hands curl slightly into fists is answer enough.
“You don’t have to be alone in this,” I add. “Not with me.”
She turns to look at me, and I see her expression soften.
“I know,” she says. “That’s what scares me.”
One breath, then two. She stands like it hurts to, brushes invisible lint from her coat, and says she has to run a few simulations before the end of the day. Her voice is calm, but I hear something else in it. I hear restraint.
She doesn’t ask me to walk with her. And I don’t offer.
I watch her go, the click of her shoes echoing down the stairwell like punctuation marks. Sharp and final.
Once she’s gone, I don’t move. I just sit there with my hands clasped and eyes trained on the dull gray floor. I should feel better after talking to her, but I don’t.
Because I’m lying to her.
Well, not directly. But lies by omission still rot the same.
I haven’t told her about Kade coming into my office. I haven’t told her that he saw the logs. That he knows I’ve been reading her private research. Because to do that would be to admit something I can’t spin back, something that makes me just as invasive as whatever she suspects is happening.
She’s chasing ghosts.
And I’m one of them.
It’s not guilt that keeps me quiet. It’s consequences. If I tell her about Kade, I’d have to explain what he saw. And that would mean revealing my own breach. Reyes might have handed me the drive, but no one forced me to open it, to read it, to keep going.
And I did keep going.
