He turned back around to face her. “How? What happened? She didn’t seem sick…she wasn’t getting worse. I don’t understand.”

“I don’t know all the details, but she’d recently had chemo and her white count was very low. She went into septic shock, and then multisystem organ failure—”

“Stop.” His voice was sharp. “Don’t talk to me like I know that medical lingo. I have no fucking clue what you’re saying.” His volume was near yelling, but his voice wavered, and he swiped at his eyes. “What are you saying?”

Lauren wanted to touch him, the desire to hug him almost overwhelming, but she wasn’t sure what he needed right now. His distress was clear and he’d walked away, and she’d dealt with more than one distraught family member. It was usually best to stay calm, collected, and to the point.

“She got an infection, and her body couldn’t fight it.”

Andrew bit his lip, squeezed his eyes shut, and turned his head away. “Dammit.” He suddenly lurched to the side and slammed his palm against the wall. “Fuck!” His forehead hit the surface beside his hand, and his shoulders began to shake.

Screw the breakup. Lauren went to him, raising her arms to wrap around him, but before she could, he turned his tear-filled eyes on her. His eyes were cold and angry, and she stopped in her tracks.

“Is this how you’ll be?” he spat. “If I die? Cool and collected, like I meant nothing to you?”

Lauren was speechless, and she took a step away from him, her mind whirring to process what he’d said. Shock, followed by indignation and disbelief, filled her.

“Well?” he demanded.

Her pulse pounded in her ears, hot blood rushing through her veins. Her thoughts were muddled, and time seemed to slow as she prepared to respond. He was in his own state of shock and was lashing out at her, but that didn’t excuse a question like that.

“Do you remember what I told you about the three categories I put patients in when they die?”

He stared at her with dark eyes, his lashes wet with tears.

“If you died,” she choked out, desperation and anguish building within her as she spoke, “I wouldn’t even have a category, because it would destroy me. It wouldn’t be that I couldn’t talk about you, I wouldn’t be able to speak at all. It wouldn’t be that I couldn’t think about you without crying, I wouldn’t be able to do anything without crying. I try to keep my patients at work and separate them from the rest of me to save my sanity and be able to do this job. But you’ve infiltrated every fucking inch of my life. If you died, I don’t even know how I’d exist.”