POV: Violet
By noon, the hospital walls were closing in.
I had made it through two patient consults, one emergency stitching, and three cups of bitter coffee that did nothing but make my hands shake. Every time I looked in the mirror of the scrub room, I barely recognized the woman staring back: pale cheeks, tired eyes, hair pulled into a too-tight bun that gave me a headache.
But it wasn’t just the lack of sleep.
It was them.
Ryan’s voice still echoed in my skull, all storm and raw edges. Don’t shut me out.
John’s words pressed just as deep. She doesn’t need your fire. She needs peace.
I wanted to scream. To tell both of them I needed neither fire nor peace—I just needed space to breathe. But the second I pictured their faces if I said that, my throat closed.
“Earth to Violet.”
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