I sigh. I try to always give him the Kat he needs to see, the one in charge of a situation, of her patients, the one trying to ensure that this mess is mended by me, for them, to the best of my ability, and I can’t admit to him that between him and Susan, I’ve begun to see myself as someone choosing to opt out of my future.

‘Why do we hide from the things that might make us?’ he asks.

‘Because they can just as easily break us,’ I answer, easily. ‘Because we’re too tired to cope. Because we don’t want to feel pain again like we’ve felt before.’

‘And yet we risk not feeling anything ever again,’ he says. ‘Is that better?’

‘I don’t know.’

He looks at me for a moment, before stepping forward suddenly and taking my face in his hands. ‘Risk the pain, you deserve to be happy,’ he says, a look of focus and intensity in his eyes that I’ve not seen before. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see Mark through the glass, watching us. I want to move and tell him to come in, tell him what’s happened, but before I can, he’s stepped out of sight. I pull out of Rhys’s hold and go to the window.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Oh God, sorry, was that a bit…’ He stands back, ruffling his hair, colouring slightly.

‘No, it’s fine. It was just a colleague…’

‘Go, if you need to,’ he says. ‘Like you say, I should probably go home.’

‘It’s fine.’ I shrug it off. ‘He’s… I don’t know.’

‘I mean it though,’ says Rhys, moving towards the door.

‘What?’ I ask, occupying myself with papers like I do every time someone risks reaching inside of me and making me listen.

‘If this situation has taught me anything, if Susan has, it’s that we all deserve to be happy. You deserve to be happy. To believe in yourself. Letting people in isn’t easy, I know. God, I know! But imagine what might happen if you did…’

I give a shallow nod, biting my lip. ‘Look, you should go, get some sleep. I’ll call you in the morning and let you know how she is. Or you can come in. Whichever, just get some rest,’ I instruct, nurse status fully reinstated.

Rhys yawns and nods.

‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow,’ I shout after him, trying to regain authority yet feeling distinctly like someone has just opened me up and seen inside. My door slowly clicks shut and I drop back behind my desk, lifting my glasses away to run finger and thumb across my eyes till I see stars.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe we can all learn from Susan.

Chapter Fifty-Three

RHYS

It’s late, almost midnight, as I pull up to Mum’s. Maybe I should have just gone home. I don’t know that I want to talk to her about this yet. Or even how I feel about it all. It’s everything I wanted that day I asked for my papers and everything I thought I’d lost when I saw what they said.It’s everything our David wanted too. And there’s nothing I can do to change things for him. Why couldn’t this have been him? His story? Perhaps then he’d still be here. Maybe.