Chapter Thirty-Three: The Friction of Proximity
The resolve forged during the call with Liam solidified into a daily discipline. Amaya became a machine of professional diligence. Her case notes were exhaustive, her literature reviews cited the most current studies, her treatment plans included multi-axial considerations that would make a seasoned psychiatrist pause. She was the first in the department library in the morning and often the last to leave the supervised therapy suites at night.
She observed Dr. Rowon's session with the refractory OCD patient. She did not just take notes; she transcribed, analyzing his every question, mapping the logic of his Socratic dismantling of the patient's catastrophic cognitions. It was masterful, cold, and devastatingly effective. She saw no therapist's warmth, only an engineer rerouting faulty wiring. She filed the observation away, a lesson in ruthless clinical precision.
They spoke only in their scheduled supervisory meetings. Each one was a tense, minimalist exchange.
"Your revised plan for Davis relies too heavily on behavioral activation without addressing the underlying core schema of defectiveness." He would tap her paper with his pen. "It is a superficial fix."
"I've incorporated schema-focused interventions on page four," she would reply, her voice level, pointing to the addition. "Drawn from the Young and Klosko protocol."
He would scan it, give a curt nod. "Adequate. Execute it and monitor for paradoxical anxiety."
"Yes, Dr. Rowon."
It was a war fought in margins and cited journals. He was the immovable object of medical rigor; she was becoming the unstoppable force of psychological depth. They were fencing with diagnoses, parrying with treatment modalities. Personal history was a ghost neither acknowledged.
But the hospital was a living organism, and ghosts had a way of manifesting in its crowded arteries.
It happened on a rain-lashed Thursday afternoon. Amaya was rushing from the child psychology wing back to the adult outpatient department, a thick stack of files clutched to her chest, her mind already on the family therapy session she was due to co-facilitate in ten minutes. She rounded a corner near the pharmacy pickup zone, her low heels slipping slightly on the polished linoleum.
At the same moment, he came around the opposite corner.
There was no time to stop, to pivot, to avoid. Her shoulder collided squarely with his chest, the files erupting from her arms in a chaotic flurry of paper. A sharp gasp was punched from her lungs, not from pain, but from the shocking, solid reality of him—the starched cotton of his white coat, the unexpected warmth beneath, the familiar, clean scent of soap and something faintly antiseptic that was uniquely him.
His hands shot out, one steadying her by the upper arm, the other making a futile grab at the cascading pages. The contact was brief, lasting only as long as it took for her to find her balance, but it was the first time he had touched her in five years. Not a clinical grip on her wrist to demonstrate a point, but an instinctive, human gesture of prevention.
"Apologies, Dr. Snow," he said instantly, releasing her arm as if it were hot. His voice was its usual flat baritone, but his eyes, for a split second, were not on the mess of papers. They were on her face, scanning it with that same rapid clinical assessment—checking for injury, for distress.
"My fault," she managed, her voice unsteady. She dropped to her knees, frantically gathering the scattered files, her cheeks burning. "I wasn't looking."
He knelt beside her, his movements efficient. He began collecting pages, his long fingers sorting them with swift precision. They worked in a silence broken only by the rustle of paper and the distant hospital intercom. Their hands brushed once, reaching for the same sheet—a psychometric evaluation for a child with suspected dysgraphia. She snatched her hand back as if scalded.
As he handed her a neat stack, their eyes met again over the paper. The rain lashed the window behind him, casting a grey, watery light that caught the gold flecks in his hazel irises. For a fleeting, suspended moment, there was no Dr. Rowon, no Dr. Snow. There was just the shocking proximity, the memory of a different collision years ago on his bedroom floor, and the electric hum of a thousand unsaid things.
Then his gaze dropped to the file in his hands, to the child's name on the assessment. His expression, which had been momentarily unguarded, shuttered closed. The professional mask slammed back into place, harder and colder than before.
"You are assigned to the Pearson case?" he asked, his voice now pure ice.
"I… yes. For the psych-ed component. Dr. Elna is leading."
"I see." He stood up abruptly, handing her the remaining files. "Ensure the sensorimotor integration assessment is included. The school's report neglects it." He didn't wait for a response. He simply turned and walked away, his stride brisk and purposeful, leaving her kneeling on the floor surrounded by the evidence of their collision.
She remained there for a long moment, her heart hammering a frantic, traitorous rhythm against her ribs. The place on her arm where his hand had been felt branded.
No.
The internal rebuke was swift and sharp. She gathered the last of the papers and stood, smoothing her skirt with trembling hands. She looked down at her left hand, at the simple, elegant diamond solitaire on her ring finger. Richard's ring. A symbol of a promise, of a debt, of a quiet, orderly future she had chosen as penance.
Richard, who had waited five years without complaint. Richard, who was stable and respectable and expected loyalty. Richard, who deserved a wife who wasn't kneeling on a hospital floor, her pulse racing from the accidental touch of another man.
A married man. A father.
The gossip echoed in her mind. No one's ever seen a wife… sole custody. The specifics didn't matter. There was a child. A family. A line she had no right to even approach, let alone cross in her mind.
She was committed. She had made her choice in a hospital room five years ago, trading her heart for her father's life and her family's peace. This—the frantic heartbeat, the remembered scent, the dizzying pull of his presence—was not just disloyalty. It was a betrayal of the person she had vowed to become: the good daughter, the dedicated professional, the redeemer of past mistakes.
She couldn't afford this. Not the confusion, not the resurrected ache. Her career was her redemption, her path to making her parents truly proud, to finally balancing the ledger of the shame she had caused. She couldn't jeopardize it for a feeling that belonged to a ghost—a ghost who was now a superior, a critic, and another woman's husband.
Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she squared her shoulders. She walked to the nearest restroom, splashed cold water on her wrists and the back of her neck. She met her own gaze in the mirror—the eyes of Dr. Amaya Snow, Psychologist. Not the eyes of a heartbroken girl.
She adjusted the ring on her finger, a conscious, physical reminder. Then she gathered her files, now neatly ordered once more, and walked out to her family therapy session. Her focus was absolute. Her path was clear.
She would master her field. She would be the best. She would fulfill her obligations. And she would freeze out the ghost, no matter how warm, how solid, how heartbreakingly familiar it felt in a crowded hallway.