Chapter 35: The Wrong Moment
Several days had passed since Adrian encouraged me to accept Gabriel's invitation, and I'd started volunteering one day a week at the hospital, exactly as I'd once dreamed of doing before Ethan and weddings and everything else had rearranged my entire life. Adrian had told me to chase it without hesitation.
I don't think either of us considered what it would actually feel like once I did.
The hospital hummed with the kind of energy I'd missed more than I'd realized, patients calling my name as I passed, nurses trading easy jokes with me between rounds, doctors nodding respectfully whenever I offered an observation. For the first time in longer than I could remember, I felt entirely, uncomplicatedly myself.
Gabriel watched from across the nurses' station one
