The quiet is oppressive, broken only by the soft rhythm of my footsteps, muted by the wet ground, and the occasional hiss of a car passing through the misty air. The temperature has dropped, but it’s not the sharp cold of winter, it’s a damp chill that seeps into your bones, settling deep. A low fog rolls in from the outskirts of the town, curling around the corners of buildings and clinging to the edges of the road like it’s afraid to let go.
I rub my temples, exhaustion clinging to my bones, but my mind won’t settle. The words of my John patient still echo in my head. Another overdose case, another half-delirious man spouting paranoia, yet something about him felt... different.
I shake it off. I’m too tired for conspiracy theories.
The drive home is muscle memory, left at the old gas station, right past the diner that never closes. By the time I pull up to thedriveway, my hands are trembling, and I don’t know if it’s the lack of sleep or the fact that the Prozac has worn off.
I unlock the door and step inside. The house is dimly lit, but I can tell someone’s still awake. A faint glow spills from the kitchen, and the sound of a spoon clinking against ceramic reaches me before I see her.
Ada sits at the counter, a mug of tea in front of her, hair pulled into a loose knot. Her eyes flick to me immediately, sharp and observant even in the low light.
“Didn’t think you’d be back this late,” she says, her voice quiet but steady.
“Double shift.” I drop my keys onto the counter with a clatter, rolling my shoulders. It’s better we don’t always work the same shifts together. The tension there feels permanent now, like I was carved from stone and forgot how to be anything else.
Ada watches me carefully, her fingers tracing the rim of her mug. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks.”
She doesn’t smile. She’s studying me, the way she always does when she thinks I’m slipping through her fingers. We’ve had this same conversation before, a hundred times in different variations. It always ends the same.
“You eating?” she asks.
“I’ll eat later.”
That’s a lie, and we both know it.
I head toward the bathroom, desperate to wash off the smell of antiseptic and sweat clinging to my skin, but before I can take another step, her voice stops me.
“What happened tonight?”
I pause, one hand gripping the doorframe. “Nothing unusual.”
Another lie.
Ada exhales slowly, setting her mug down. “You ever get tired of saying that?”
I turn back to her. “Saying what?”
“That everything’s fine when it’s not.”
She’s staring at me like she already knows the answer. Like she already knows that the cracks in my foundation are widening, that the weight of everything is pressing down harder than usual.
I should tell her. I should sit down and tell her about John, about the way his hands shook, about the way his eyes darted to the door like he was expecting death to walk through it at any second. But what’s the point? She’d only tell me to let it go. That it’s not my job to carry other people’s demons.
So instead, I force a smirk. “I don’t get tired of it, no.”
Ada’s lips press into a thin line. She doesn’t like my answer, but she also doesn’t argue. That’s the thing about her; she knows when to push, and she knows when to let me destroy myself in peace.
I step away from the doorway and walk to the kitchen instead. Open the cabinet above the sink. Reach for the orange bottle tucked neatly behind a box of herbal teas.
Ada watches. Of course, she does.
“You still on those?” Her voice is softer now, but there’s an edge beneath it.
I pop the lid off the Prozac bottle, shake out a single pill. “Still on them? Ada, I’d be dead without them.”
She doesn’t laugh. I swallow the pill dry, let the bitterness coat my tongue.
