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Because after the last time I saw her, after the way she looked at me, I told myself that leaving her alone was the only decent thing I had left to offer.

It stops feeling decent very quickly.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I tell Acharya.

“Do that.”

The line goes dead.

I stare at Maggie’s thread for half a second.

Then I type: Are you okay?

The message sends.

I stand there listening to the refrigerator hum and the blood in my ears, and suddenly all the hours in the hospital feel useless. Eighty-one hours of work, bodies cut open and closed, decisions made cleanly under pressure, and here I am waiting on one text like a man who has never learned patience in his life.

Five minutes pass.

Nothing.

Ten.

I tell myself she’s with Simone. Or asleep. Or ignoring me on purpose, which would be fair.

Then the screen lights up.

Maggie: No.

One word.

It shouldn’t help, but it does. Not enough. Not in a way I’m proud of. But enough that I sit down before my legs decide for me.

Where are you? I send.

Her reply comes back after a minute: Home.

I stare at it.

Home means she’s safe, probably.

Home means she left him, definitely.

Home means she got out of there, and right now that matters more than anything else.

Did you go alone? I type.

She knows what I mean.

Maggie: Yes. Don’t start.

That gets the smallest breath out of me. Not laughter, exactly. Relief in another shape.

Me: I wasn’t going to start.

Three dots appear. Disappear. Then return.

Maggie: That’s a lie.