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She’s quiet again.

But it’s not the kind of quiet that invites comfort. It’s the kind that closes doors. The kind that drops drawbridges and locks the bolts twice.

I lean forward a little, bracing my elbows on the table, trying not to make her feel cornered.

“You don’t have to tell me more,” I say quietly, watching the way her jaw tightens, the way her hands have stopped moving altogether. “But I know that look, Ivy. And whatever happened between you two, it left a mark.”

She looks up at me, eyes sharp now, not angry, not hurt—just resolute.

“You don’t understand,” she says, and it’s not cruel, not cutting, but I hear the weight of it, the distance she’s trying to put back between us, brick by brick.

“I think we should head back.”

I straighten where I’m standing, coffee cooling in my hand, the fire low behind me. My chest is sore with disappointment, but maybe I brought this on myself by bringing up too much, too soon. In reality, I’m worried about what could happen if Ivy keeps hiding things from me.

“Back to the city?”

She nods once, not looking up from the countertop where she’s slowly folding the same dishtowel over and over again like it’s the only thing holding her together.

“Ivy,” I say carefully, setting the mug down. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

I cross to her, slow but firm, stopping just short of touching her.

“Don’t do that.”

“I’m not doing anything,” she says lightly, the smile tugging at her lips all wrong, like it’s been stitched there. “We just… needed a break, right? Now we’ve had it.”

I reach for her wrist, not to hold her, just to anchor her back to the moment, but she pulls away so quickly it feels like a slap.

She turns before I can speak, walks past me, and starts gathering her things with the kind of precise, mechanical focus I’ve only ever seen in grief. I know that rhythm. I’ve lived it. I’ve performed it after funerals, after patient deaths, after the nights when the OR fell silent and no one had the guts to say the name of the person we lost.

It’s the rhythm of someone locking the door behind their own heart.

“Ivy,” I try again, stepping into the doorway of the bedroom where she’s folding her jeans, zipping her bag, too fast, too sharp. “If this is about last night?—”

She shakes her head.

“No. It’s not.”

And even though this is on me, this is about what I just told her and expected her to tell me, I want her to talk about it. I want her to let me help before it’s too late. “Then tell me what it’s about.”

She unzips her duffel with a single motion and tosses a sweatshirt inside. Her voice doesn’t crack. It doesn’t even tremble. “It’s about what’s smart. I shouldn’t have stayed. That’s on me.”

There’s something brutal in the way she says it. As if she’s giving a medical diagnosis with no interest in the patient.

I move closer. This time, I do reach for her hand.

“Ivy, talk to me.”

But she’s already pulling on her coat, eyes fixed somewhere over my shoulder.

“I don’t need to talk, Ethan. I need to go.”

The silence that stretches after that sentence is the kind I used to hate during surgery—when a monitor flatlined and no one wanted to be the first to say the word “Code.”

I step back. Nod once.