NYRA
I made sure Lena and I never crossed paths.
It wasn’t hard. The hospital was big enough if you knew how to move.
If she had the morning shift, I switched mine to the afternoon. If she worked nights, I suddenly became a morning person. I smiled at the schedule board like nothing was wrong. I even joked with the nurses about how I was “experimenting with my sleep cycle.”
No one needed to know the truth.
I couldn’t afford to see her in the hallway and not talk to her.
I couldn’t afford to call her name and watch her walk past me like I was air.
That would break me.
And I refused to break in front of people who loved gossip more than medicine.
I had already lost enough. I wasn’t about to lose my dignity too.
She didn’t reach out either.
Not a text. Not a call. Not even a missed
