There’s nothing here for me.
Grasping at one last shred of dignity, Harper dropped her hand, gave him a weak smile, and left.
CHAPTER 36
DAN
MARCH
It took about six weeks, but Dan eventually found a rhythm to surviving with his heart beating outside his chest. He became somewhat of an expert on pain: its nuances, its complexities.
He discovered how pain ebbs and flows—some moments, it felt like it had the power to kill him. To flay him open and destroy him. Other moments, it was a dull ache, consuming him before he’d even been able to acknowledge it.
Sometimes the pain surfaced as a thousand cuts of residual guilt, the feeling of failure and shame slow to abandon him, no matter how his mom’s words had set him free. Other times, the pain erupted in anger at all the time he’d wasted being someone he wasn’t.
But most of the time, the pain came from missing Harper.
At the end of January, Dan had learned from Instagram that Harper got into residency. Lizzie had posted a photo of the four friends, drinks in hand, smiles huge, with the caption OUR GIRL IS GOING TO BE A SURGEON! typed beneath it.
Harper had looked so happy. And Dan had felt so proud of her, amazed by her. But he’d also felt bitterness. Hurt.
He had poured himself a drink in his lonely apartment that day, and sat staring at her smile. He’d traced his thumb over her image, desperate to feel the softness of her skin one more time.
He’d almost texted her. He’d written out one hundred drafts and deleted them all. He’d wanted to tell her how special she was. How angry she made him. How much he cared for her. How much he hated her. How, despite everything she’d said, he forgave her. How he hoped she could forgive him too.
But every time he’d gone to hit Send, her voice cut through his mind. You’re the last thing I need.
He’d turned off his phone and poured another drink.
Slowly, Dan started having more days of the dull, aching pain than the days that threatened to kill him.
He leaned into his new job, reacquainting himself with all the things he loved about numbers and patterns. He learned how to paste a convincing smile on his face with his coworkers and clients, carving out a space for himself in the office.
He laughed with his new buddy Tom at work. He ate lunch in the break room and accepted happy hour invitations from coworkers.
At the bar one night, he’d even tried to flirt with a woman.
She was pretty and blonde and seemed genuinely nice.
And it had hurt. It had felt physically painful to look at that lovely woman. To want so desperately to make a connection. But the only thing he could think was that this new, beautiful woman wasn’t her. It wasn’t Harper.
So, when she’d passed him her number on a napkin at the end of the night, he’d thanked her, waited for her to leave, and threw it away.
He’d then ordered another drink. And another. And another.
And a night out with the coworkers had turned into New Buddy Tom dragging Dan back to his lonely apartment, staring at him with a look of pure alarm as Dan cried like a fucking idiot, describing the girl with short, black hair and the most beautiful hands in the world.
Tom invited him out less after that.
CHAPTER 37
HARPER
APRIL
Harper hefted her suitcase up her stoop, barely noticing as it smacked against her ankle with each step. She didn’t notice much anymore. A dull, pulsing sadness originated in the center of her bones, perfusing further out each day until she was encased in it. The only things that interrupted the sadness were consistent jolts of abandonment, regret, and panic.
At the door, she fumbled with her keys, then lugged her suitcase into the elevator, exhaustion from the past few days hitting her all at once. She’d attended orientation at her future hospital, meeting her co-residents and attending physicians. For the first time in months, she’d felt a swell of true excitement break through her sadness as she toured the OR and dingy on-call bunk beds. She’d finally made it. And she couldn’t wait to start.
But the trip home had left her too much time to think. She always had too much time to think. Even now—as she pressed the back of her head against the elevator wall, staring up at the ceiling while trying not to notice the happy phantom memories that lingered in the space—she thought.
It always came back to Dan. The months hadn’t dulled the hurt of it, just changed it, leaving her with an empty ache that she feared would never fully leave her. Guilt over what she’d said wrestled endlessly with feelings of rejection and abandonment.
She sighed as the elevator doors dinged open. There was no point in reliving it. No point in constantly pressing her fingers into that open wound. She knew she was too broken for another person to want her.