Page 74 of One Last Run

She wanted to believe it wasn’t too late. That maybe, just maybe, Pete was still thinking about her the way she was thinking about her. The longer she waited, the more she wondered if she had already lost that chance.

There was something about Pete. Something that made Danica feel safe, seen. And that scared the hell out of her.

The hardest part wasn’t just that she had left — it was that she didn’t know how to come back.

"So, Friday works, then?" Annie was saying.

Danica blinked, coming back to the present. "Sorry, what's Friday?"

"The dinner party at my house. Michaela will be there," Annie explained. Michaela, her niece, had recently moved to Denver and Annie had been trying to set them up ever since she found out Danica and Eddie were officially over. Danica had told her for weeks that she wasn't interested in dating anyone, but Annie had promised that they should at least try to be friends. Danica interpreted the insistence as Annie's belief that all queer women in her life would get along, and if Michaela was anythinglike Annie, she was sure that was true. The fact was that she just wasn’t ready. She couldn’t open that part of herself again.

"Oh, right," Danica said, nodding. "Yeah, I couldn't get out of the plans with my parents." Her parents wouldn't have cared if she'd postponed their biweekly dinner to go meet new friends — in fact, they'd been encouraging her to venture into exploring what a healthier work-life balance could look like. She just wasn't ready to be set up with someone. It wasn't fair to the other person, and it also made her feel ashamed to admit to herself that it wasn't that she was getting over a broken engagementanda recently reopened heartbreak wound.

Friday was the start of six days off in a row, and she was dreading having so much time alone with her thoughts. Maybe she'd beg one of her other colleagues to switch a shift with her halfway through to break up the monotony.

"Next time, then?" Annie asked.

Danica nodded. "Next time."

Distracted, she tugged at the drawstring to her scrub pants, retying them in a tighter bow. She glanced at the clock. She had to attend a scheduled C-section in about twenty minutes, and wanted to complete the statistics for a bedside meeting before the end of her shift for an expectant mother in the antepartum unit.

Marina, the nutritionist, popped her head into the office. "Oh, hi Danica. Annie, I wanted to talk to you about Kirby's calcium levels."

Danica stretched, yawned, and tipped the coffee cup up to finish the last drops of the blessed caffeine. "I'm going to go check on a chest tube seal before this birth. See you in the OR, Annie?"

Annie gave her a thumbs up, and Danica stood from her desk, her clogs clicking against the floor as she tucked a few loose strands of hair back into her scrub cap.

She’d chosen this. The sharp scent of disinfectant, the soft hush of sliding glass doors, the rhythmic beeping of monitors, the occasional alarm — everything in its place, predictable, structured. It calmed her soul. Before the trip last month, it had been enough. The hospital was her world, a place where she could bury everything — the noise in her head, the weight of her loneliness, the ache of unspoken words.

But now, as she rubbed hand sanitizer onto her palms and pulled a pair of gloves from the dispenser, something unsettled her. The hollow feeling had started small, like a pinprick, but it was growing. She couldn’t ignore it, even as she checked the chest tube with practiced hands. Her patient was stable. Everything was fine. Yet her mind drifted back to the last days of her time off — the long conversations, the laughter, the deep connection she’d felt with her friends, with Pete. It had felt real, something she hadn’t experienced in a long time, and it had left a void now that she was back to this — her routine, her walls.

She hadn’t reached out to Kiera, not after the way they’d left things. The betrayal hanging between them was too much to face. More than that, she missed Pete. Not just the romantic moments, but the way Pete had made her feel seen. It had been so easy, so comfortable. It was something Danica didn’t even realize she needed until it was gone.

Her heart tightened. She hadn’t expected it to hurt this much. The hospital, the patients, the daily grind — it was all still there, still familiar. Now, it felt emptier somehow. She didn’t want to admit it, but the life she had built felt like it was missing something, someone. And that terrified her.

She glanced down at the monitor again—stable vitals, nothing to worry about. But her chest felt heavy in a way the machines couldn’t measure.

Her pager buzzed with the code for an accidental extubation in room 27, for a baby just down the hallway. Her mind focusedand she forgot entirely about her self-pity as she spun, nearly crashing into the respiratory therapist in the hall.

She had work to do. Important work. She couldn't just wallow in self-pity all day. She'd chosen this, and she had to stop dwelling on past regrets and mistakes and What Ifs to be here in the present. She'd owed her patients — she owed herself — that much.

Danica gota notification that her groceries were being delivered. She was still avoiding the produce section like a coward after she'd cried into that heap of cabbages. She had about two hours to get herself ready and also make the salad she'd offered to bring to her parents’ house for dinner — her step-dad had called earlier to remind her and bribe her with one of her favorite meals. Maybe she'd get drunk and sleep in her old bedroom so that she wouldn't have to face six entire days alone.

She opened the door expecting to find grocery bags but stilled as she saw Kiera standing on her doorstep, her hand raised as if she was about to knock. She wore a long wool coat over a matching lounge set and sneakers. To top off the look, she wore a navy-blue baseball hat that just said "Sports!" Danica had never seen her in a hat, and the sight was uncanny, like Kiera was wearing the costume of a casual person.

Kiera's shoulders lifted in surprise. "Um. Hey," she said, tucking a strand of her short hair behind her ear like she didn't know what to do with her raised hand. She fidgeted and adjusted her glasses.

"What are you doing here?" Danica asked, more shocked than angry, even though her tone tip-toed the line between the two emotions.

"Can we talk?" Kiera asked, looking past her into the condo. "Inside, preferably? I'm about to lose a toe to frostbite out here."

Danica's grip tightened on the salad bowl and she didn't move from the doorway. Two warring thoughts battled inside of her — how relieved she was to see Kiera again and how angry and hurt she still felt about what Kiera had done.

Kiera stood, wringing her hands, as Danica stared at her in silence. Danica's eyes locked on the gesture, noticing that Kiera's hands were bare. No wedding ring. She glanced back up to meet Kiera's gaze.

Her best friend had dark circles under her eyes, which were red-rimmed and puffy.

Footsteps interrupted them as a confused man delivering her groceries approached, his arms full of two paper bags holding her salad ingredients. She waved, taking the groceries while thanking him, then turned back to Kiera with her arms full now.

---