Page 105 of Dr. Stone
She stepped toward me but stopped just out of my reach. I ached to pull her into my arms, bury my face in her perfect neck, and breathe in that mango shampoo she always used. How was it possible to miss someone who’s standing right in front of you?
“I love that you came over the other night to take care of me without me asking,” she started, sounding like she didn’t want this rehearsed statement to be interrupted, or she’d crack. “And I love how amazing you’ve been to me and Brandon every time you’re with us.”
She smiled, but her eyes filled with tears, and I watched every flicker of pain move across her face as she spoke to me like I was a stranger.
“I do need to tell you something,” she said, closing her eyes and exhaling before pulling it together. “This isn’t easy, and I’m trying my hardest to get this out, so you understand that none of this is about you. It’s all me.”
I remained silent, staring at her red-rimmed eyes. I just needed her to be direct as fuck with the blow she was about to deliver to me.
“You’re everything a woman could want in a man. Everything I want in a man. But right now… I’m not okay.” Her voicecracked, then steadied with a breath. “I haven’t been okay in a long time.”
I sucked in a breath, waiting, bracing, every nerve on edge.
“I’m not in a place where I can give you what you deserve,” she said finally. Her voice wavered, but the words cut sharp. “Not fully, anyway. Even though I thought I was. Maybe things moved too fast between us, and I don’t even know why—why, a little over a month into this, we’re…”
She trailed off. My frown deepened.
“It’s all just moving too fast for me,” she whispered, eyes flicking away like she couldn’t bear to hold mine. “I love how you make everything feel like life could be beautiful again, but I’m not ready for that. Not right now. I thought I could keep up, but I can’t. I have serious baggage I need to sort out, things I need to work through, and if I stay…you’ll just end up in the crossfire. I’ll ruin everything before it has a chance to become what it should be.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of whether you can hurt me?” I asked. My voice came out rough, unsteady. I didn’t plan to say it—it just ripped out of me, raw and honest.
Her chin trembled as she shook her head. “I have to do this,” she said firmly, forcing the words out like armor. “There aren’t any other options.”
I stood there, silent, trying to make sense of the wreckage she’d just dropped at my feet. Finally, all I could manage was, “So…is this goodbye?”
Her lips parted, trembling, and then she nodded. A single tear slid down her cheek before she swiped it away like she could erase the damage. “It’s not because of you. You’ve been…everything. More than I imagined.”
“You’ve been the same to me,” I said, and it was the truest thing I’d ever spoken. My chest felt numb, hollowed out, like the words were carved from bone.
“I have to go,” she whispered, her voice breaking even as she forced herself to hold it together.
“Andie—” I stepped toward her, desperate to say something, anything that might keep her from walking out of my life.
But she shook her head quickly, cutting me off before I could get another word out. “Please. Don’t. If you say anything, I won’t be able to leave. Just…let me go.”
Her eyes shimmered with tears as she turned, her body trembling like the weight of every step was crushing her. She climbed into her car, shutting the door with a finality that made my chest seize.
I stood there, frozen, watching as she pulled away, her taillights disappearing into the night. The red glow burned itself into my vision until the gate slowly closed behind her, locking me out of every possibility I’d let myself hope for.
Only when the silence swallowed the driveway whole did I finally move. I turned back toward the house, each step heavier than the last, the place that once felt like it could hold a future with her and Brandon now nothing more than a hollow box echoing with everything I’d lost.
FORTY-SEVEN
Jace
Two days had passedsince Andie said she needed space—from me, from us—and I was surviving on autopilot. I’d stitched hearts and repaired vessels with the same precision I always did, but inside, everything felt off-kilter. Like I was holding my breath underwater, waiting for the ache in my chest to pass. Spoiler: it hadn’t.
The worst part wasn’t the silence. It was the fact that everything in my life—every high-end success, every hour logged in the OR—it all meant absolutely nothing now without her.
I’d gone from saving lives to losing the only one that mattered to mine.
I watched Mitchell toss his scrub cap onto the counter, rubbing his shoulder with a soft groan. He popped open a protein drink, took a long sip, and nodded toward me. “You almost forgot to check the graft tension this morning,” he said, being the chief he was and missing nothing, lightning quick to call out even the slightest slip-up.
I swallowed the second bite of my apple and wiped the juice from my lips with the back of my hand. “Still got it done,” I said, forcing a shrug I didn’t feel.
The problem wasn’t that I’d missed the graft tension—I hadn’t. It was that I didn’t feel anything when I did catch it. Not the pride. Not the high. Just this blank emptiness I couldn’t shake. And Jake? He’d never let something like that slide.
“You did, that’s a fact,” he said, his eyes examining me with question, “but you perform better than that, and you know it. You’re off today, and in all the times we’ve worked together, you’ve never?—”
