Page 40 of Where She Belongs (A Different Kind of Love #3)

How do you end something that’s barely begun? How do you explain walking away from possibility to spare future pain?

In the end, the words come in a rush, clinical and detached because the alternative is too raw, too vulnerable:

Gabe,

I’ve received some medical news that changes things between us. Nothing immediately serious, but it impacts certain future possibilities in ways that matter.

You deserve someone who can give you every option, every choice. I can’t be that person, and it would be selfish of me to continue this relationship knowing that fundamental incompatibility.

I think it’s better we end this now, before we’re both more invested. What we shared in Hawaii was beautiful, but perhaps it’s best preserved as a perfect memory rather than complicated by reality.

Please don’t call when you read this. I need space to process everything, and I think we both need clean boundaries to move forward. Our professional relationship is too important to compromise with messy emotions.

I’m sorry.

Andrea

My finger hovers over the send button for a full minute before I finally press it, watching the message disappear into the digital ether. The finality of it brings no relief, only a hollowness that expands beneath my ribs.

My phone begins ringing almost immediately—Gabe’s name and photo appearing on the screen. I silence it, setting the phone face-down on the coffee table. It rings again. And again. Then the texts begin:

Gabe:

Andrea, please pick up.

Gabe:

What medical news? Are you okay?

Gabe:

Whatever it is, we can handle it together.

Gabe:

Please don’t do this. Not like this.

Each message lands like a physical blow, but I force myself to ignore them. This is cleaner, kinder in the long run. A swift, decisive break rather than a long, painful unraveling.

When the phone finally falls silent, I curl into myself on the couch, wrapping arms around knees as if physically holding myself together. This is the right decision, I tell myself. The mature choice. The selfless option.

So why does it feel like I’m dying?

The insistent knocking at my front door starts just after 9 PM.

I ignore it at first, curled on the couch with a glass of wine I haven’t touched, case files spread across the coffee table in a pretense of work I can’t focus on.

But whoever’s there is persistent, the knocking evolving into a rhythmic pounding that matches the throbbing in my temples.

“Andie! I know you’re in there. Your car is in the driveway.”

Harlow’s voice, worried and determined in equal measure. Of course Gabe would call her. Or Dax. He and Gabe having been practically raised together in Taos.

“I have a key, and I’m not above using it,” she warns, rattling the doorknob. “Doctor-patient confidentiality doesn’t apply to friendship emergencies.”

I sigh, unfolding myself from the couch and moving toward the door. Harlow James-Drexel is not a woman who makes idle threats, and the last thing I need is her bursting in while I’m pretending not to be home.

“I’m not in the mood for company,” I say as I open the door, wincing at the harsh porch light that intensifies my migraine.

Harlow stands on my doorstep, arms crossed, expression a mixture of concern and exasperation.

She’s still in her hospital scrubs, her hair pulled back in a hasty ponytail, clearly having come straight from work.

“Well, that’s too bad, because I’m not in the mood to have my best friend ghosting one of the best men I know without explanation. ”

“I thought you’re covering Gabe’s clinic,” I say as she pushes past me into the living room, taking in the scene—the untouched wine, the scattered case files, my phone face-down on the cushions.

“Daniel has two planes. And it was an emergency,” she mutters under her breath, as if it’s a secret that her father-in-law—and Gabe’s business partner—is among the top hedge fund managers in the country. “You look terrible, by the way.”

“Thanks,” I mutter, closing the door. “That’s what every woman wants to hear.”

Harlow’s expression softens slightly. “Gabe called Dax in a panic. Said you sent him some cryptic email breaking things off, mentioning medical news, and now won’t answer his calls or texts.” She pauses, studying me. “He’s worried sick, Andie. We all are.”

Something in her tone—genuine concern rather than accusation—makes my carefully constructed walls begin to crumble. I sink back onto the couch, suddenly exhausted beyond words.

“What’s going on?” Harlow asks, her voice gentler now as she sits beside me. “What medical news?”

I stare at my hands, twisting in my lap. “I got some test results back. Preliminary findings suggesting…”I take a deep breath. “Premature ovarian failure.”

“POF?” Harlow’s medical training kicks in immediately, her eyes widening. “But you’re only in your early forties. That’s?—”

“Rare but not unheard of,” I finish for her. “The bloodwork shows elevated FSH and decreased estradiol consistent with menopausal transition. In other words, I’m officially done. No more eggs, no more chances.” The clinical terminology feels safer somehow, a shield against the rawness beneath.

Harlow is quiet for a moment, processing. “And you broke up with Gabe because of this?”

The directness of her question makes me flinch. “He’s thirty-four, Harlow. He should be with someone who can give him children if he wants them. Little mini-Vasquez kids running around.”

“Did he tell you he wants children?” she asks.

“He doesn’t have to,” I say, wrapping my arms around myself. “He’s at the age when most men start thinking about starting families. And even if he says it doesn’t matter now, what about in a few years? What about when everyone around him are having babies and he realizes what he’s given up for me?”

Harlow sighs, leaning back against the cushions. “You do realize you’re making a lot of assumptions about what Gabe wants, right? Without actually talking to him about any of it?”

“I’m being realistic,” I insist. “I’ve counseled too many patients through infertility issues not to understand how they can poison even the strongest relationships.

The resentment builds slowly, but inevitably.

” I’m tempted to add that infertility issues led to Harlow’s divorce but this isn’t about her.

“Andie,” Harlow says carefully, “do you remember when I first offered my services at your clinic? I’d been on a cross-country drive then.”

“Of course, I remember. You volunteered for two months and when it was time for you to drive back, I suggested you drive up north to Santa Fe and then you ended up in Taos… and met Dax.”

“I was grieving during that drive… from a stillbirth,” she says as my eyes widen. But before I can say something, she holds up her hand. “And before that, a few miscarriages.”

“I’m so sorry, Harlow.”

“I never thought I would ever have children and I left Dax partly for that reason,” she continues. “But he still wanted me anyway. And I bet he would have stayed with me even if I hadn’t gotten pregnant with the twins.”

I look up, meeting her eyes for the first time since she arrived.

“Of course, we can’t have anymore, but you know what he said to me one day?” She pauses, smiling. “He said, ‘There are a thousand ways to make a family, but only one you.’”

“That’s Dax,” I say, though something inside me wavers. “Gabe is?—”

“Just as stubborn and loyal,” Harlow interrupts.

“Look, I’m not saying POF isn’t serious.

It is. And I’m not saying your concerns about age and fertility aren’t valid.

They are. But making unilateral decisions about what Gabe can or can’t handle, what he will or won’t want in the future? That’s not fair to him. Or to you.”

Her words hit uncomfortably close to home, echoing the doubts that have been circling my own mind. “What if he stays out of obligation? Out of pity?”

Harlow actually laughs at this, the sound jarring in the somber room. “Have you met Gabe Vasquez? The man who’s spent the last decade dating half of northern New Mexico without ever committing to any of them? You think he’s suddenly developed a martyr complex?”

Put that way, it does sound ridiculous. Gabe has never been one to do anything out of obligation, especially when it comes to relationships.

“Besides,” she continues, “these are preliminary findings, right? You haven’t even had a follow-up appointment to confirm the diagnosis.”

“The bloodwork was pretty clear,” I say, though I know as well as she does that initial readings aren’t always definitive.

“And how many times have we seen anomalous results corrected upon further testing?” she challenges. “Even if the diagnosis is accurate, there are treatments, options. You know this, Andie. You’re a doctor, for God’s sake.”

“I know,” I admit, the first tear finally escaping despite my efforts. “But knowing something professionally and processing it personally are two different things.”

Harlow’s expression softens as she wraps an arm around my shoulders. “Of course, they are. But that’s all the more reason to have someone by your side through this. Someone who cares about you. Someone like Gabe.”

“I was trying to protect him,” I whisper, the tears coming freely now. “Trying to be selfless.”

“There’s nothing selfless about making decisions for other people,” Harlow says gently. “Real selflessness is being honest, being vulnerable, and letting the other person choose for themselves.”

We sit in silence for a while, her arm around me, my head eventually dropping to her shoulder as the exhaustion of the past days catches up.

“I’ve made a mess of things, haven’t I?” I finally ask.

“Nothing that can’t be fixed,” she assures me. “Gabe isn’t going anywhere. He’s giving you space because that’s what you asked for, but he’s hurting, Andie. Call him. Talk to him. At least tell him what’s going on.”

I shake my head, straightening. “Not until after the follow-up appointment. I need all the facts first, need to be clearheaded when I talk to him.”

Harlow studies me, then nods reluctantly. “When’s the appointment?”

“Day after tomorrow. Nine AM.”

“Want me to come with you?” she offers. “Doctor to doctor, friend to friend?”

The offer is tempting—having Harlow’s steady presence would make the consultation easier to bear. But this is something I need to face on my own. “Thanks, but I need to do this myself.”

She nods, understanding in her eyes. “Promise me you’ll call Gabe afterward? No matter what the results say?” She pauses. “I won’t tell him about what you said but I will tell him we talked and that you’ll call him.”

“I promise,” I say, meaning it. Whatever Dr. Reyes tells me, whatever the future holds, Gabe deserves the truth—even if that truth is that I panicked and pushed him away based on incomplete information and my own fears.

Harlow stays another hour, making me eat something, talking about the twins, about work, about anything but my diagnosis or Gabe. Her presence is a balm, reminding me that even in my worst moments, I’m not alone.

After she leaves, I pick up my phone for the first time in hours. The notification counter shows seventeen missed calls and twenty-three text messages, most from Gabe, some from Tristy, a few from concerned colleagues who’ve sensed something is wrong.

I don’t read them—not yet. I can’t bear to see the pain I’ve caused, the confusion I’ve created. But I do send one message to Gabe, the shortest, most honest communication I can manage:

Andrea:

I’m okay. I’m sorry for the silence. I’ll explain everything after my doctor’s appointment. Please don’t come to ABQ.

His response is almost immediate, as if he’s been holding his phone, waiting:

Gabe:

Thank you for letting me know you’re safe. I’ll wait. Whatever this is, whatever you’re going through, I’m here when you’re ready.

The simple message—so understanding, so patient, so quintessentially Gabe—brings fresh tears to my eyes. What have I done to deserve such grace? And what if I’ve thrown it away over a diagnosis that may not even be accurate?

I set the phone aside, curl back into the couch, and for the first time since seeing those test results, allow myself to truly cry—for what I might lose, for what I might have already lost, and for the hope that somehow, it’s not too late to make things right.