The text comes through at 2:47 PM on a Wednesday, which is when I should have known something was wrong.
*Elena: Can you pick me up from my doctor's appointment tomorrow at 3? My shoulder's been killing me and I finally made an appointment. Don't want to drive after.
I stare at the message like it's written in code, which—knowing my sister—it absolutely is. Elena doesn't ask for rides. Elena, who has her life organized into color-coded calendars and backup plans for her backup plans, doesn't suddenly develop mysterious shoulder injuries that require midweek doctor visits.
I text back: You're lying.
Her response is immediate: Rude. Just pick me up? Please?
The "please" is what gets me. Elena doesn't deploy please casually. It's a weapon she saves for moments when she knows I'm about to refuse something important.
I should say no. I should recognize this for what it obviously is—some kind of therapeutic intervention disguised as a favor, the emotional equivalent of a Trojan horse. But it's Elena, and somewhere between my armor and my cynicism, there's still a part of me that can't refuse her anything.
Fine. Where?
Reid Orthopedic Clinic. 3 PM. Love you.
The moment I see the name, I know exactly what she's done.
---
The clinic is aggressively professional—all clean lines and calming colors, the kind of place designed to make you feel like your injuries are being taken seriously by people who went to very expensive schools. I'm ten minutes early, which means I'm sitting in the waiting room trying very hard not to think about the fact that Marcus works here, has probably walked these halls this morning, might be examining patients in one of those rooms right now.
My leg bounces. I make it stop. It starts again.
This is stupid. This is Elena being Elena, which is to say meddling with the kind of confidence that comes from years of therapy training and an unshakeable belief that she knows what's best for me. I should walk out. I should text her that I'm not doing this, that I'm not going to sit in a waiting room like some lovesick teenager hoping to catch a glimpse of—
"Sadie."
I look up and there he is, standing in the doorway between the waiting room and the clinical area, and my entire body forgets how to function like a normal human being.
Marcus is wearing a white coat over dark slacks, and somehow this is worse than seeing him in casual clothes because it's professional and it's competent and it does something to my nervous system that I'm going to have to process with a very strong drink later. His dark eyes find mine with the precision of a heat-seeking missile, and I watch recognition bloom across his face—not just recognition of me, but recognition of what this is.
He knows Elena set this up.
And he's fighting a smile about it.
"Your sister's in exam room three," he says, his voice carrying that warmth that makes my chest feel tight. "She's ready for you."
I stand on legs that feel vaguely unreliable. "She's not actually injured, is she?"
"Shoulder tension," he says diplomatically, which is doctor-speak for your sister is a liar with good intentions. "Nothing serious. Come on back."
The walk to exam room three is approximately forty-seven steps too long. I can feel him behind me, can smell that sandalwood and cedar scent that's apparently now permanently wired into my brain as a trigger for my nervous system to go haywire. The clinic smells like antiseptic and something floral, but underneath it all is just him, warm and grounding and making my heart do things that feel medically concerning.
Elena is sitting on the examination table in a sports bra, looking absolutely unbothered about the fact that she's orchestrated what amounts to an ambush.
"Hey, babe," she says brightly. "Thanks for picking me up."
I want to throttle her. I want to hug her. I want to ask her what exactly she thinks this is going to accomplish, as if proximity to Marcus is going to somehow fix the fact that I'm currently in a relationship with Dev and also apparently having a psychological crisis about a man I haven't properly spoken to in fifteen years.
"You're a terrible person," I tell her, but I'm already moving to stand against the wall, trying to position myself somewhere that feels neutral and safe and definitely not like I'm about to combust from the sheer weight of Marcus's presence in the small room.
"I'm a person who loves you," Elena corrects, and then she looks at Marcus with an expression of such calculated innocence that I want to murder her. "Dr. Reid, could you check my shoulder? I've been having some tension on the left side."
Marcus moves with the kind of professional competence that makes it clear he's done this approximately ten thousand times. He positions himself beside the examination table, and I watch—unable to look away like some kind of masochist—as he carefully palpates her shoulder, his large hands gentle and practiced.
But here's the thing about Marcus that's always been dangerous: he's good at everything he does.
He's good at medicine. He's good at listening. He's good at making you feel like you're the only person in the room who matters, even when he's literally examining your shoulder and you're sitting half-naked on a medical table.
And he's especially good at maintaining eye contact with me while he's doing it.
His gaze flicks to mine, just for a second, and it's enough to make my breath catch. There's amusement there—he finds this funny, finds Elena's meddling touching in a way that makes something soft and dangerous unfurl in my chest. His hands move across Elena's shoulder with professional precision, but his eyes stay on me, and it's the most intimate thing that's happened to me in months.
"You're fine," he says to Elena, but he's still looking at me. "Just some tension. I'd recommend some stretching, maybe some yoga. Nothing serious."
"See?" Elena hops off the table with the energy of someone who has successfully executed a plan. "I told you it was fine. Sadie, can you grab my shirt from over there? I'm going to use the restroom before we head out—too much coffee this morning."
She's already moving toward the door before I can protest, leaving me standing in an exam room with Marcus and absolutely no buffer between us and the fact that this entire thing was a setup.
The door clicks shut behind her.
I don't move. Marcus doesn't move. The fluorescent lights buzz overhead with the kind of clinical indifference that feels insulting given the fact that my heart is currently trying to exit my body through my ribcage.
"Your sister is something else," Marcus says finally, and his voice is soft—amused but also genuinely warm.
"My sister is a menace," I correct, but there's no heat in it. "She set this up. The shoulder thing."
"I know."
"And you're just... okay with it?"
He steps closer, and suddenly the exam room feels impossibly small. "Why wouldn't I be?"
The question hangs between us, loaded with implications I'm not ready to examine. I should leave. I should make some cutting remark and walk out and pretend this never happened. I should protect myself the way I always do, with humor and distance and the kind of emotional walls that have kept me safe for fifteen years.
Instead, I stay.
"Because it's not professional," I say, but my voice sounds uncertain even to my own ears. "Because I'm—"
I don't finish the sentence. I can't say I'm with Dev because the words feel like lies in my mouth, and Marcus's expression shifts when he realizes I'm not going to say it.
He moves closer, and I'm suddenly aware of every single way my body is betraying my mind. My pulse accelerates. My skin feels too hot. The scent of him—that warm sandalwood and cedar that smells like safety and danger in equal measure—wraps around me like something I could drown in.
"Why are you really here?" he asks quietly.
The question is simple. The answer is not.
I'm here because Elena knows me better than I know myself. I'm here because some part of me has been waiting for an excuse to be near him since the moment I saw him at that reunion. I'm here because my carefully constructed life with Dev suddenly feels like wearing someone else's clothes, and Marcus is the only person who makes me remember what it felt like to want something real.
I'm here because I'm terrified.
"I don't know," I whisper, and it's the most honest thing I've said to anyone in years.
Marcus reaches up, and for a moment I think he's going to touch my face, and I think I might actually die if he does because I'm not sure I can handle being that close to him without completely falling apart. But instead, he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear—a gesture so gentle it nearly undoes me—and his eyes search mine like he's looking for something specific.
"Yes, you do," he says softly. "You've always known, Sadie. You're just scared."
The accuracy of it hits like a physical blow. I want to deny it. I want to make a joke, say something cutting that will make him step back and restore the safe distance between us. But standing in this small exam room with Marcus looking at me like I'm something precious and fragile, I can't quite manage it.
"I'm with Dev," I say instead, and it sounds like a question even to my own ears.
"Are you?"
He says it so gently that it somehow hurts more than if he'd been cruel about it. Because he's not trying to convince me to leave Dev. He's not making declarations or trying to sweep me off my feet. He's just asking the question that I've been avoiding since the moment I saw him at the reunion.
And the answer is no.
I'm not with Dev. I'm existing alongside Dev. I'm performing the role of girlfriend in a relationship that's become so hollow it echoes. I'm safe with Dev in the way that a locked box is safe—nothing can get in, but nothing can get out either.
Marcus, standing in this small exam room, smelling like sandalwood and cedar and possibility, represents every dangerous thing I've been running from since I was sixteen years old and watched my parents destroy each other over the promise of forever.
"I can't do this," I say, stepping back, needing distance the way I need oxygen. "This isn't—I'm not—"
"Sadie—"
"No." I hold up my hand, and I can see the moment my walls slam back into place because his expression shifts. "This was a mistake. Elena shouldn't have done this. You shouldn't have—we shouldn't—"
I'm backing toward the door, and I hate myself for it. I hate that I'm running. I hate that even now, with Marcus looking at me like I'm breaking his heart, I can't quite manage to be brave enough to stay.
"I have to go," I say, and I'm already reaching for the door handle.
"Sadie, wait—"
But I don't wait. I can't. Because if I stay for one more second, if I let him say whatever he was about to say, I'm going to do something catastrophic. I'm going to admit that I've been thinking about him for weeks. I'm going to confess that I kept every single letter he wrote me freshman year of college, before he got too busy and too important and too far away. I'm going to tell him that I'm terrified of needing him because the last time I needed someone that much, they left.
I find Elena in the hallway, and she takes one look at my face and knows exactly what's happened.
"Sadie—"
"We're leaving," I say, and my voice sounds hollow even to my own ears. "Now."
She follows me to the car without argument, which is how I know she understands the magnitude of what just happened. In the parking lot, I sit in the driver's seat with my hands gripping the steering wheel, trying very hard not to think about the way Marcus looked at me like I was worth fighting for.
Trying very hard not to think about the fact that for the first time in fifteen years, I wanted to let someone fight for me.
My phone buzzes.
Marcus:* We need to talk about this.
I don't respond. I start the car and drive, and I pretend not to notice that Elena is watching me with the kind of sad understanding that only comes from knowing someone's entire history of self-sabotage.
By the time I get home, there are three more messages from Marcus.
I delete them without reading them.
Because if I read them, if I let myself see what he's trying to say, I'm going to have to face the fact that the life I've built—the armor, the distance, the carefully curated emotional unavailability—is starting to crack.
And I'm absolutely terrified of what happens when it breaks completely.
