Page 33 of Midnight Between Us
Then—without hesitation—he lifts his other hand.Mirrors the gesture.Lets his thumb brush the inside of my wrist.
A simple touch and the air in my lungs forgets how to stay.
“You used to do that,” he murmurs, voice hoarse but certain.
I freeze.
“What?”
“That thing,” he says softly, thumb moving again.“Right here.You’d hold my wrist like that.Always just ...there.Like you didn’t want to let go yet.As if you’re trying to help me with the pain nobody else could see.”
I pull my hand back like I’ve touched fire.Like it burned even though it didn’t leave a mark.
“No,” I say too quickly.“I was just trying to help.You can call that medical instinct.Don’t read into it—I saw you were in pain.”
Somewhere in the back of my mind, a bitter laugh curls.Medical instinct ...as if that’s what I’ve been running on this whole time.
But his eyes are on me now, really on me.The haze is lifting, and what’s left beneath it isn’t confusion anymore—it’s searchlight clarity.The kind that sees more than it should.
“You’re mad at me,” he says quietly.
I say nothing.
He lets out a breath, soft but heavy.“No.”He scoffs.“You hate me.”
His voice is stronger now.Raw.Accusing, not with venom—but with recognition.Like he’s reading something in my silence and doesn’t like what it tells him.
“You don’t even know who you are,” I say, stepping back.“So maybe don’t make assumptions about who I am either.”
He flinches.Not physically.Just in his eyes—the way something behind them flickers and hardens.Like a memory he can’t quite catch, just brushed past him.
This is the part where I’m supposed to leave.Where I’m supposed to walk out before the moment turns into something I can’t walk back from.
Before he remembers more than just my name.
Before I let myself remember too.
I turn, head for the door.
“I’ll send someone in to prep you,” I say without looking back.“Try not to fall apart before they get here.”
His voice follows me anyway.Quiet.Broken.
“Maybe they were lies I had to tell myself—and you.”
And just like that, I’m gone.I don’t know what he means.I can’t afford to care.Not if I want to make it out this time in one piece.
ChapterTen
Simone
I don’t just walk outof the room.I rush, moving as if my life depends on it.It isn’t about discharging him quickly.Nope.It’s about getting the door closed behind me, needing to hear the latch click into place—proof that whatever almost surfaced in there can’t follow me out here.
Proof that I still have control.That I can still draw the line: patient and person I never wanted to see again.Same body, sure.Same blood and breath and heartbeat.
But I can differentiate, right?
Not that it will help for long.I’ll be under the same roof with him for ...too long.
