Broken By Love, Reborn In Fire

I hung up the phone and walked back to the apartment I shared with Adrian—or rather, the apartment I shared with both Adrian and Dean. I moved like an automaton, my limbs heavy, my mind a blank, buzzing void.

Inside, I started packing. Not my clothes, not my books. I walked through the rooms, gathering every single thing Adrian had ever given me. The first-edition copy of Gray's Anatomy, the delicate diamond necklace, the stupid oversized teddy bear he'd won for me at a carnival.

Each item felt like a new betrayal. I dropped them, one by one, into a large black trash bag. The sound was dull, final.

The lock clicked. The door swung open.

"Hey, baby," a voice said, a perfect imitation of Adrian's low tenor. "I'm home."

It was Dean. He was wearing Adrian's favorite gray sweater, a soft smile playing on his lips.

I didn't turn around. "Don't call me that," I said. My voice was a raw, broken thing. "And you're not him."

The smile on his face froze for a second before he recovered, his expression shifting to one of concern. "Ava, what's wrong? I heard about the video."

He walked over, trying to put his arms around me. I flinched away.

"I'm so sorry," he said, his voice a soothing balm of lies. "The residency… it's not the end of the world, Ava. There will be other opportunities. We have our whole lives ahead of us."

Every word was a needle prick against my raw nerves. My nails dug into my palms. Their acting was flawless. A perfect, disgusting duet.

That night, he slid into bed beside me, his body warm and familiar. It was the body I had loved, the body I had trusted. Now, it just felt like a violation.

He wrapped an arm around my waist, his lips pressing against the back of my neck. I lay there, rigid as a corpse, praying for it to be over.

Sometime in the dead of night, as I drifted in a restless, shallow sleep, I heard him murmur a name.

It wasn't mine.

"Ashley..." he breathed, his voice thick with sleep and a longing that was never, ever meant for me.

My eyes snapped open. The last fragile thread of hope I didn't even know I was clinging to—that maybe, just maybe, Dean's affections had been real—shattered into a million pieces.

I shoved him away, hard.

"What's wrong?" he asked, his voice groggy.

"I'm not feeling well," I choked out, scrambling out of bed. "My period."

It was the oldest excuse in the book, but it worked. He sighed, a sound of mild disappointment, and simply said, "Okay. Just let me hold you, then."

He pulled me back against him, his arm a leaden weight across my stomach. I lay there for hours, staring into the darkness. The feeling of his skin against mine was a contamination. I felt dirty, used, and utterly, completely alone.

The next morning, I went to the hospital administration office to file my resignation paperwork. As I was leaving, a colleague rushed up to me.

"Ava! There you are!" she said, out of breath. "Dr. Peterson wants to see you. Now. He sounded… angry."

My stomach dropped. Dr. Peterson was the head of the surgical department.

A cold, heavy sense of dread washed over me. I had a terrible feeling I knew what this was about.