Clair’s pov
Two days after being discharged, I finally left my apartment.
Not to see Ryan.
Not to face Sophia.
But because one person had been messaging me nonstop:
Dr. Evelyn Carter.
Except to me, she wasn’t “doctor.”
She was Evelyn.
My friend.
We’d been inseparable in university — before life took us in different directions. She had become a physician. I’d become a mother too young, a wife too compromised, and then… whatever this version of me was.
She insisted on meeting at a quiet café with courtyard seating — sunlight spilling through green hanging plants, white umbrellas casting calm shadows.
The moment I saw her — slender, auburn-haired, green-eyed — something inside me loosened.
“Claire!” she exclaimed, standing and embracing me tightly. “You look… well, better than exp
