Leaving At Last Chapter 01
I stopped to tie my shoe. It only took a moment.
When I looked up again, my boyfriend, Briar, and my best friend, Talia, were already a dozen yards ahead of me.
I was about to call out to them when I realized there was no room for me beside them anymore.
They were walking side by side, deep in conversation, and there was no way for me to cut in.
It was as if I’d never been there at all.
Back in medical school, Talia Rhodes and Briar Vale had been the stars of our class.
After we started at NewYork-Presbyterian, they became the hospital’s youngest attending physicians, too.
As for me, no matter how hard I worked, I was still just an ordinary registered nurse.
Briar would often pat my head and tell me, “You’re cute when you zone out.”
Then he’d turn around and scrub in with Talia on the most complex surgeries.
Watching their backs as they walked away, a profound weariness washed over me.
I was done. Done with this relationship, done with always chasing after him.
…
They turned a corner and disappeared from view.
Neither of them had glanced back, not once, to see if I was still there.
I stood frozen for a few seconds, then turned and walked in the opposite direction.
When I got back to the hospital, my coworker Kim leaned over, arching a brow.
“Didn’t you trade shifts for a date? That was fast.”
“Yeah. It’s over.”
I changed into my scrubs and sat down at my station.
Work consumed nearly all our time.
In the past year, Briar and I hadn’t managed ten real dates.
Today was one of his rare days off, so I’d traded shifts with a coworker.
All I’d wanted was to hold his hand while we walked near Central Park.
But Talia joining us had derailed everything.
Before we left, I’d made a point of saying that work talk was off-limits.
They both laughed and pinched my cheeks.
“We know, we know. Promise.”
But at an Italian restaurant in SoHo, we weren’t even halfway through dinner before they were dissecting another complicated case.
I sat beside them, pushing pasta around my plate with a fork, unable to get a word in edgewise.
I hadn’t even noticed when they paid the bill.
Just then, the phone at the nurses’ station rang.
By the time I snapped out of my daze, Kim was already answering it.
There had been a multi-car pileup on the BQE.
Multiple casualties were en route to the ER.
I was about to text Briar when his iMessage popped up.
[Emergency case. Talia and I are heading back to the hospital.]
I turned off the screen and sat perfectly still.
Even now, he still hadn’t asked where I’d gone.
After my last handoff, I ran into a drained-looking Briar in the hallway.
Instead of rushing up to ask if he was tired like I normally would, I walked right past him.
But the moment I did, he grabbed my wrist.
He lowered his head, burying his face in the crook of my neck.
“What, you don’t recognize your boyfriend?”
He always did this when we got home from work.
He said it was how he recharged.
I knew I should push him away, but I went rigid anyway.
It had taken me three years to go from having a crush on him to actually being with him.
The day we got together, our med school classmates started a betting pool on the spot.
On how long we would last.
After all, the distance between us was vast.
Briar was the kind of person who aced every class and won every scholarship.
As for me, my teachers had been telling me since elementary school that I was a slow learner, not cut out for academics.
Once, a professor grilled me until my eyes burned with tears.
I’d just stood there, unable to speak, until Talia stepped in and bailed me out.
I had always known I wasn’t particularly smart.
And I’d long since grown used to relying on the approval of my boyfriend and my best friend.
So even though I’d already made up my mind, the moment Briar leaned in, most of my anger dissolved.
We sat down in an empty stairwell. We rarely got moments alone like this.
After a brief silence, Briar spoke.
“Blair.”
“Yeah?”
“Can you try to be a little more mature?”
I froze.
A few seconds later, I slowly turned to look at him.
“What?”
His eyes were closed, his tone flat, as if he were stating a simple fact.
“You disappeared without a word this afternoon. Talia and I were worried.”
“We hardly ever get a day off together.”
“Even if you weren’t thinking about me, you should have thought about Talia.”
“She’s not your babysitter.”
I sat there, motionless, a hollow ache opening in my chest.
Worried about me?
Then why wasn’t there a single missed call on my phone? Not even one text?
Was it really concern, or were they just annoyed I’d spoiled their night?
“See? I say one thing and you start crying.”
Briar’s voice was laced with exasperation.
He looked at me the way you’d look at a child who refused to grow up.
I lowered my head as tears fell, one by one.
Soon, they darkened a patch on my scrubs.
“Okay. It won’t happen again.”
He sighed and patted my head.
“You should head home.”
“I still need to go over the treatment plan with Talia.”
After Briar left, my dad called.
“Sweetheart, didn’t you say you were bringing your boyfriend home for dinner tonight?”
“Are you still at work?”
I slapped a hand over my mouth to stifle a sob.
“Sweetheart? Blair?”
A long moment passed before I could steady my breathing.
“Dad, he’s not coming.”