When he didn’t answer, she glanced up and caught Elise’s eye. She supposed they didn’t know him well enough to know what was going on in his head, but something about what she’d said had affected him.

“Harry?” she asked, searching his eyes. “I know you’ve been through a lot, honestly I know more than most how a man feels and acts when he’s been injured in the field. I’ve been tending soldiers for months now, and every single one struggles at some point. Plenty of men have been where you are.”

“I should have died out there with all the others,” he suddenly ground out. “It’s not fair that I’m here and they’re not, that I was the one to survive. I don’t deserve any medical attention.”

She was grateful when Elise came over and sat beside him, quietly taking his other hand and holding it as Cate continued to inspect his wound. She didn’t know what he was talking about, but in a way she didn’t need to; many of the men she’d treated since being in France suffered from a kind of survivor’s guilt. “They would have wanted you to survive, trust me,” she said. “No soldier wishes any of his own dead, and that means that you need to stay alive for them, to fight for them. Don’t let their loss of life be for nothing, Harry. What’s it all been for if you let that happen?”

Harry finally looked up at her then, and she saw that somehow she’d managed to get through to him, even if there was still a wariness to his gaze. But he was listening to her, and that was what mattered.

“There’s something that feels shameful about living when others don’t, once the reality of surviving sets in,” he said, his voice so low she had to listen carefully to catch each word, not sure whether he was talking to her, Elise, or both of them. “It starts with a desperate need to survive, I suppose it’s human nature to fight to live, but no one tells you what it feels like afterwards.”

She breathed deep, his words resonating with her, washing over her as if she’d thought them herself. Hadn’t she done the exact same thing? She’d fled with barely a second thought to save her own life, leaving the others behind in a split-second decision.

“I know,” she whispered as tears filled her eyes. “Trust me, I saw everyone else from my hospital taken, so I know how that feels, to be the only one.”

She nodded and quickly wiped away her tears, snuffling them back as she fought against the first big wave of emotion she’d felt since leaving. She’d felt scared and worried and outright terrified, but until now, she’d kept the deep, choking emotion inside her at bay.