Work Text:
May 2026 - Present Day
You never thought you would step foot into this ER again, barring any insane emergency. And yet, you shifted from foot to foot, anxiously staring at the entrance to the hospital where your ex-boyfriend was surely working. The break up had been messy and painful, calamitous even. You’d cried so much you’d given yourself such a bad case of dry eyes you’d needed prescription eye drops.
But you had a client and that client needed you. And you would never ignore someone who needed your help.
Squaring your shoulders, as much as your far too heavy brief case allowed, you walked into the emergency room and was met with a long line to talk to the check-in nurse. She seemed to have a kind smile, more patience in her pinky finger than you had in a year and the watchful eye of a hawk.
It didn’t take long before you were standing up at the front.
“Hi, I’m from the Public Defender’s Office. I’m here for Anthony Williams. He was brought in from county a couple hours ago?”
“Can I see your ID?” She asked.
“Of course.”
You were fishing your wallet and ID out of your giant bag when you heard your name from behind the check in nurse. Looking up you saw Dana. She looked as no nonsense as ever, her platinum hair pulled back from her face and a pair of readers perched on the end of her nose.
“What brings you here? You okay?”
“Work, I’m afraid. I’ve been appointed to oversee the treatment and catalogue of care for Anthony Williams.”
“Lupe, buzz her through. I know her.”
May 2022
You had met Robby through Dana. Well, kind of. A friend of yours had invited you to her neighbor’s summer barbecue and you had been unceremoniously shoved on a cornhole team with a weary looking man. It was the adult version of making friends by diving into the deep end.
“Are you any good?” He asked.
“Not even a little bit. I can trash talk though, which won’t help but might be fun. You?”
“Also terrible,” he laughed. “Can’t trash talk either.”
“I’m good enough for both of us,” you replied, nudging him.
He had a soft smile that wrinkled the skin of his eyes. Over the years you had become very good at reading people. This man held a lot of grief, but he also held a lot of joy.
You heard the joy in his first chortle when, unbeknownst to you, you had called out to his best friend,
“You look like your favorite song is the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald!”
The light hearted jab had shocked the lithe, silver haired man enough his bean bag toss was just shy of the hole. Robby high fived you with a grin on his face.
“I think I’m looking forward to being on your team.”
You and Robby lost every game you played, but it was a blast to trade barbs with the others in the backyard. You’d gotten to know other neighbors, people from the hospital that Dana and Robby worked at, along with whatever stragglers had been picked up along the way.
Dana truly believed in “the more the merrier.”
You had gone home with Robby that night.
Present Day
“How have you been?” Dana asked. She did a remarkable job of not sounding deeply uncomfortable or awkward.
The overhead lights buzzed faintly, reflecting off the polished linoleum and the scuffed rubber wheels of passing gurneys. The hallway smelled like antiseptic, over-brewed coffee, and something metallic underneath it all that you tried not to name (blood, it smelled like blood, unfortunately you named it). She kept her tablet tucked against her chest with one arm and used the other to swipe open automatic doors with efficiency of someone who knew every inch of this place.
“Busy, stressed, planted an herb garden and then killed said herb garden,” you told her as she led you through the sterile hallways of the ED. Your briefcase strap dug into your shoulder with every step, and you shifted it higher, trying to keep up with her brisk pace. “You? How are the kids?”
You tried to sound casual, like this was any other morning walkthrough with a colleague and not a slow march toward your ex-boyfriend’s orbit.
“Applying to college and learning how to drive,” Dana said with a shudder.
“Linear time is a bitch,” you replied.
“Ain’t that the truth, sweetheart,” Dana laughed. She pulled you to a stop outside a back room.
There was a prison guard posted outside and you began to shuffle through your bag again looking for your paperwork, grateful for something to do with your hands. The guard’s stance was rigid, shoulders squared, boots planted like he was waiting for someone to attack him. The glass door had a curtain pulled over it, but it looked like there was a doctor or medical provider moving inside, a shadow crossing back and forth in the faint light. Your pulse jumped at the thought that it might already be him.
“Do relevant parties know I’m coming?” You asked.
“Not a clue,” Dana replied, with a tense look. Her mouth was set in a grim line now, the easy humor of the hallway conversation fading.
“Alright. Who is the physician on record?"
“Michael Robinavitch,” she told you.
Your stomach twisted so sharply it felt like you’d swallowed glass. Heat crept up the back of your neck, under the collar of your blazer. “Fuck. Okay, well, time’s wasting.”
“Sweetheart,” Dana said, grabbing your arm. “It’s been a number of years. He’s…he’s not the same.”
“You’re a good friend to him.”
“You were good for him too, ya know.”
“Dana, that’s not even remotely true.”
You huffed out a humorless breath, but your chest ached. You remembered late-night takeout at his kitchen table, him falling asleep on your couch mid-rant about hospital policy, the way he’d once called you from a stairwell just to hear your voice after a bad shift. None of that had mattered in the end.
“I’m not meddling, just saying,” she said, with her hands up. You couldn’t help but laugh.
“That was exclusively meddlesome.”
“Alright, alright,” Dana agreed. “I’ll tell you this though, that guard is a right fucking pill. He almost made Perlah cry and she’s the second toughest person in this ER.”
“After you?”
“Damn right.”
“Well, today is going to be a fun day, huh?”
“Best of luck. Better you than me.”
You couldn’t help but snort as Dana left and went back to her post, her footsteps fading quickly into the surrounding noise. The moment she turned the corner, the air seemed to thicken. With the judge’s orders in one hand, you approached the prison guard.
He was burly and tall. Probably somewhere in his forties. Up close, you could see the long sideburns that made him vaguely resemble a civil war era soldier, the kind who’d have been immortalized in a sepia photograph with a musket and a permanent scowl. His uniform pulled tight across his chest; his hand rested just a little too comfortably near his belt.
In your experience, there were two kinds of prison guards. People who were doing a job and recognized they were interacting with other human beings, and then there were people like this guard who seemed to enjoy having power and exerting violence. You’d spent enough hours in interview rooms and holding cells to recognize the difference in the first interactions.
“No one but medical professionals are allowed inside, ma’am,” he said sharply as you approached.
“I have an order from a judge. I’m his appointed attorney and I am to oversee his care and supervise evidence collection.”
“Figures, sending a public pretender to oversee something that isn’t even a problem. Kid just got sick. It happens,” he groused.
“And I’ll let the person with the medical degree inform me of that, thank you,” you replied, already exhausted. “Here’s the court order.”
You held the document out between two fingers, resisting the urge to jab it into his chest.
“I don’t care, lady. Just go in and see your pet criminal.”
You barely controlled your eye twitch, feeling it pull at the corner of your left eyelid. You stepped beside the man, close enough to smell stale coffee and something acrid on his breath, and lightly knocked on the door before opening it. The positive of dealing with the dickhead posted outside is that you briefly forgot that there was a good chance Robby was in the room you were about to walk into. For a fleeting second, Anthony Williams was just a client and this was just another hospital room.
Robby looked up and a number of emotions crossed his face. The first one you noticed was shock, like you were a ghost walking in. Then sadness. Then it landed on a mask of professionalism, the familiar flattening of his expression you’d watched him put on before walking into difficult conversations. There were two nurses in the room, one strictly medical and the other forensic, both moving around the bed.
Anthony Williams was unconscious. The harsh overhead lights bleached his skin, making the bruises stand out in ugly, mottled purples and greens. The monitors hummed and beeped steadily, a constant reminder that for now, at least, he was still here.
“Hello, I’m the public defender appointed to represent Mr. Williams during this investigation, I have a court order authorizing the hospital to inform me of his pertinent medical conditions and treatments. I do not have medical power of attorney but am allowed to make recommendations,” you rattled off softly.
The words had been said in countless rooms, but this time your tongue felt thick around them.
“Uh hi,” Robby said.
“Hi Robby,” you replied.
His name tasted strange in your mouth after so long—familiar, but edged with old hurt. You kept your gaze on the space between his eyebrows instead of his eyes, unwilling to risk drowning in whatever you might find there.
Perlah looked up and grimaced. You had only met her a couple times, but she had long been Robby’s second favorite coworker after Dana. She was tough, reliable, and a damn good teacher for nurses and residents alike.
“Oh, this is fun,” she muttered under her breath. You couldn’t help but snort, tension easing a fraction from your shoulders.
“It is certainly a unique set of circumstances,” you said, setting your bag in the chair in the corner. The vinyl cushion squeaked faintly under the weight. You flipped open your notebook, pen poised. “Can someone tell me what we know so far?”
Robby cleared his throat and gestured to the monitors, shifting his weight closer to the head of the bed. “Mr. Williams was brought in from the county jail about three hours ago. We alerted the authorities about two hours ago. He was unstable. According to his chart, he was being treated for a tooth absence. But he’s dehydrated and septic.”
His voice settled into that clinical rhythm you recognized, the one he used when he needed to put distance between himself and the harsh reality of what he was describing.
He flipped through the chart on the computer, his movements brisk, efficient. “However…what we have seen appears to be inconsistent with the records from county.”
You blinked. “Meaning?”
Robby exhaled slowly, eyes flicking from the page to the patient. “Meaning whoever filled out the jail medical record either didn’t look at him or didn’t care.”
Perlah let out a low, dry hum. “Or both.”
Robby gestured toward the bed, careful to stay clinical and unbiased. “We’ve documented extensive bruising that indicated internal bleeding along the ribcage–left side mostly, patterned contusions consistent with either a boot tread or baton strike. Older ones too, maybe a week old. His right wrist shows defensive abrasions, some starting to scar over. His dental infection is real, but it’s not the main reason he’s septic. It’s likely from soft tissue trauma along with the delayed care of his tooth.”
You scribbled furiously in your notebook. “Fuck.”
That earned a flicker of a smile, it was small. “And now his blood pressure dropped so low that his organs started to shut down.”
“Jesus,” you muttered, writing faster. The facts lined up in your head like dominos—delayed care, bruising, inconsistent records. You could already picture the motions you’d have to file, the subpoenas, the affidavits.
“Exactly,” Perlah said. “He was feverish, shaking, and had a pulse through the roof by the time transport brought him in. Not with a lot of kindness either.”
Robby lifted the patient’s arm gently, showing you the dark marbling along his inner elbow. The skin looked angry and fragile, stretched over veins that had been abused. “See that discoloration?”
You stepped closer, swallowing against the awkwardness of the room. “Yes.”
“That’s from prolonged IV infiltration. They probably missed a vein or left a line in too long and didn’t monitor it. It’s infected, too. We’ve started him on broad-spectrum antibiotics and fluids, but he’s severely dehydrated.”
You scribbled another note. “So, if I’m understanding you correctly, the delay in care caused—”
“Sepsis,” Robby finished. “Yeah. The bruises are too patterned to be from a fall. We’ve already done imaging—a couple of rib fractures, old and new. No indication of blunt chest trauma in his intake report, which suggests those injuries happened while he was incarcerated. There’s no record of him ever being looked at from them and we can’t tell who committed the acts against him.”
“We suspect the guards, because of the shape of some of the bruises, but proving that is your job,” Perlah added. You nodded and continued writing down notes.
The forensic nurse looked up from her station in the corner. “I’ll get photos of everything.”
“Please,” you said. “If you can email the files to me, I’ll get a preservation order for everything else.”
Robby nodded, but his voice softened when he spoke again. “He’s lucky they brought him in when they did. Another few hours and we’d be talking in the morgue.”
You met his eyes then, and for a brief second, professionalism faltered. The clinical precision in his tone couldn’t quite mask the anger underneath. You had seen Robby angry for a patient before, but not this kind of patient. It was a bit of a surprise if you were honest.
“How’s he doing now?” you asked quietly.
“Stable,” Robby said, “but fragile. Ideally he’d be up in the ICU, but there aren’t any beds. So we’ve got him on fluids, antibiotics, and supplemental oxygen. He’s sedated. We're hoping to avoid intubation, but…” He hesitated, glancing at the monitors. “He’s young. That helps.”
“Does he have any next of kin?” Perlah asked, looking at you.
You shook your head. “Not that we know of. He was waiting on transfer to a state facility.”
Robby set the chart down and rubbed the back of his neck. “You’ll need copies of the intake records and labs, right?”
You nodded, pulling your folder closer. “Yes. I’ll submit a request. If the hospital can send me copies directly under the court order, that would be helpful.”
“Anything else you need?” Perlah asked.
“No, thank you.”
You capped your pen and set it across the open notebook, forcing your fingers to unclench.
Perlah and the other nurse took their leave, the room briefly feeling too large and too quiet in their absence, which meant you and Robby remained in the room. You didn’t look at him, but you weren’t sure where to direct your eyes—Anthony’s bruises, the monitor, the scuffed toe of your shoe.
“We can get you set up in the break room if you want,” Robby said quietly. His voice came from just to your left, closer than you’d realized he was standing.
“Better stay here. I don’t like the guard outside,” you replied.
“He’s certainly an asshole,” Robby said.
“Yeah, I’ve gotten that impression.”
Robby lingered and you tried not to pay attention to the way the silence stretched, to the small sounds he made—the rustle of his scrubs, the soft click of his pen, the almost inaudible sigh as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
You weren’t sure what you were expecting when you saw him again. It had been years. Seeing him still hurt, but the wound was no longer raw, like you’d feared. The pain did not take your breath away, instead it clenched onto your heart. It was tolerable. Manageable, the way an old injury aches in bad weather.
You had taken months to heal from the calamitous break up. The precipitating fight had been a knock down drag out battle and neither of you took prisoners. One moment, you had been falling in love with one Michael Robinavitch and the second you had been walking out of his house, trying not to cry.
“How…how have you been?” He asked hesitantly.
“We don’t have to do this, Robby,” you said, quietly.
“Do what?” He almost sounded convincing.
“Pretend we left things…well. Pretend we didn’t go for the jugular.”
“I’m not…” he trailed off seemingly unsure of what to say next.
“I don’t plan on relitigating the fight,” you promised.
“I didn’t think you were,” he replied. You gave him a look.
“Really, I just…I know we left things badly, but I only wanted to know if you’re okay?”
There was something in his tone. It was earnest and forlorn all wrapped up in his doe eye look, even if you were doing your best not to meet it head on. The part of you that had once adored that softness in him gave a small, involuntary stir.
“Most days, I’m fine,” you replied. You didn’t mention the therapy or the medication or the way your friends forced you to go to yoga now. You didn’t mention the nights you lay awake replaying that last argument, wondering if you’d missed a chance to say something different. “You?”
“I wasn’t—good, that is—for a while. Everything at the hospital compounded how terrible COVID had been for me, and then Jake was at Pittfest a few months ago,” Robby said.
Your stomach dropped. “Oh, Robby, I'm so sorry.”
“Jake is fine, his girlfriend,” Robby cleared his throat and flicked his eyes back towards Anthony’s vitals, “didn’t make it.”
“That must have been tremendously hard."
“The police tried to arrest one of my residents that night,” he added.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, she—sorry, I don’t know what I’m telling you this,” he said.
“We’re water under the bridge, Robby. Too much time has passed to hold on to anger.”
It was partly true. The sharp edges had dulled. But there were still sediments settled at the bottom, stirred now and then by moments like this.
“Of course,” he replied, clearing his throat. “I’ll leave you to it.”
He stepped back toward the door, and you listened to the soft squeak of his shoes on the floor, the quiet click as he opened it. For a moment, you were left with the steady hum of the monitor and the sound of your own heartbeat in your ears, wondering when exactly the version of him you’d known had turned into the man you’d just spoken to.
Late July 2022
At first the thing with Robby was a hookup. Almost-friends with benefits. It started easy and low maintenance—late texts after bad days, meeting at his place or yours when it made sense, leaving before dawn if one of you had an early start. And it was nice, far nicer than trolling for someone on an app or at a bar, trying to decode whether a stranger understood basic hygiene or boundaries.
Robby was fastidiously hygienic, understood the importance of condoms, and was more than happy to cuddle or say goodbye depending on the mood. He would ask, every time, if you wanted him to stay or if you’d rather have the bed to yourself, and he seemed genuinely fine with either answer.
Even actual romantic partners paled in comparison to the attentiveness of a non-romantic Robby in the bedroom. Along with frankly asking about your likes and dislikes, he paid close attention to your reactions. You could feel him adjust when your breath hitched, when your hips tilted, when your fingers tightened in his hair or on his shoulders.
It was overwhelming and exhilarating all at once, like being under a microscope and somehow not minding. The first few times you almost laughed at how focused he looked, brow furrowed as if he were solving a particularly satisfying puzzle. You weren’t used to that kind of care from “just” a hookup, and the contrast with past experiences made it stand out even more.
You did the same, of course. Ever the lawyer, you kept a shorthand note in your phone about what went well and what didn’t—disguised under a boring name in case anyone ever scrolled too far. Not only that, you kept a long list of what you wanted to try and what you thought Robby would like, mentally cross-referencing his responses with your half-serious theories about his control issues, his stress levels, and his need to be taken care of for once. It was an organized little ritual that helped you feel like you had some control over a connection that otherwise felt entirely unplanned.
Sex with him was fun. When he was present, you felt like you were in the center of the galaxy, everything else dropping away until it was just you, him, and the sound of your shared breathing in a dark room. He could be goofy and self-deprecating one minute and devastatingly earnest the next, and that mix made you feel disarmed in a way you weren’t used to.
However, sometimes there would be days or weeks where you never heard from him—text bubbles left unanswered, shifts that ran long, vague comments about “a bad week.” When he popped back into your life he always looked more haggard, shadows under his eyes, shoulders tense, and assured you that work was busy and nothing more.
Then one evening, you were curled up behind him on his bed, enjoying being the big spoon despite the fact Robby was far longer than you, your front pressed along the length of his back. One of his old, soft T-shirts was twisted in your fingers, your knee slotted between his.
You were warm, sated, and hovering in that pleasant, drifting state where you weren’t quite ready to move. The apartment smelled like laundry detergent and the lingering scent of dinner. You could feel the slow rise and fall of his chest under your arm.
He shifted, then awkwardly turned around to face you, half rolling onto his back and propping himself on an elbow so he could see you better. The movement broke the comfortable tangle of limbs, leaving a sliver of cool air between your bodies.
“You know I enjoy this, right?” He asked.
“Based on the sounds you make and telling me how much you love me touching you—yes, I put it together,” you laughed
Robby’s face remained serious, eyes darting away for a second before coming back. You assumed he was about to end your little dalliance and it surprised you how sad that made you feel, how quickly your stomach dropped at the thought. You’d told yourself you were fine if this stayed casual, that you liked him but didn’t need him. In that moment, it became uncomfortably clear that might not be entirely true.
“Yes, well, I’m glad that’s clear,” he stopped talking and avoided making eye contact. He fiddled with the edge of the blanket instead, thumb worrying at a loose thread.
“And?” You prompted.
“That’s it,” he replied.
“Michael,” you sighed. “You shouldn’t play poker; your face is a picture book.”
You shifted to face him more fully, tucking one hand under your cheek and studying him. His eyebrows were drawn together, lips pressed in a thin line, the way they did when he’d had a rough shift and didn’t know how to start talking about it, not that he ever talked about it with you.
“And what does it say?”
“That there’s something bigger on your mind than making sure I know you like fucking,” you said plainly.
“We can talk about it tomorrow,” he replied, still not making eye contact.
“If you want to call this off, I’d rather know sooner than later,” you stated.
“Wait, what?”
“Aren’t you going to call this quits?”
“No! No,” he said quickly. He pushed himself up a little straighter, finally looking at you with wide, startled eyes. “The opposite actually, but I chickened out.”
“The opposite?”
“I wanted to ask you on a real date. I like you and I want to go to dinner with you and call you my girlfriend or whatever romantic shit people say nowadays.”
You blinked at him. Your brain stuttered over the words, caught somewhere between relief and disbelief. “A date?”
“Yes?”
“With me?”
“Well, there’s only one woman half naked in my bed right now and I think it’d be weird if I was talking about someone else. You don’t have to say yes. I’ll be okay—”
“Yes, I do want to go on a date with you,” you said quickly. The answer came out before you had a chance to filter it, which told you everything you needed to know about how far past “casual” you’d already drifted.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” you whispered against his lips as you leaned in, closing the small gap between you. “You are already better than half my other boyfriends.”
“God that’s such a low bar,” he mumbled as he kissed you, deepening the kiss while pulling you closer against his body. The last of the distance vanished as his arms wrapped around you, and you let yourself sink into the familiar warmth, feeling something in your chest unclench.
“You’re raising it,” you told him.
He gave you such a sweet and genuine smile that you felt warmed from the inside out, a slow, steady heat rather than a sudden flare. Lying there with him, your leg hooked over his hip, wrapped in his arms, it was the first time you let yourself think that maybe this was more than something convenient. Maybe, if you let it, it could be something that lasted.
Present Day
The Robby of today felt like a different Robby. In some ways more nervous, but in others even more steady. From your perch in Anthony William’s room, you had a perfect view for most of the ER. You couldn’t hear much—the soft hum in your noise-canceling headphones swallowed most of the clatter—but you could see everything. And watching helped settle the knot in your stomach more than rereading your notes for the tenth time.
Dana stood at the threshold of the ED: one hand on her hip the other holding a tablet simultaneously directing a baby med student somewhere. Perlah sat beside her charting and chatting with another nurse with beautiful dark shiny hair. They leaned their heads close together, almost conspiratorially.
Robby was talking to a blonde haired doctor, she had on dark rimmed glasses and a serious look of concentration and Robby pointed out something on the tablet. He was always a wonderful teacher. When you both were together he loved explaining complex medical concepts in ways that someone who didn’t even take college biology could understand—it almost seemed like nothing had changed.
Yet it wasn’t nostalgia that kept your eyes on him—it was the tension in his jaw. He didn’t like the guard. That was obvious. The Robby you knew wouldn’t have been pleased about a prison guard shadowing his patient’s room, but he might have been relieved that someone was handling security. This Robby cast sharp, deliberate glances toward the guard whenever the man drifted too close to one of the residents, his shoulders stiffening in a protective way that seemed new. Or maybe you just hadn’t noticed it back then. Maybe this was always inside him.
A few moments later, Robby and the blonde resident walked toward the room. You watched as he subtly shifted, angling his body to place himself between her and the guard.
Interesting.
When they walked in Robby introduced you and said, “This is Mel King. She’s a third year resident.”
“Very nice to meet you,” Mel said.
“You as well, Dr. King.”
“Mel, please.”
“Okay, Mel. Now that we have the blood tests back, what are the next steps?” Robby asked.
You settled further back into your seat, one leg crossed over the other, notebook balanced on your knee. Your pen hovered, ready. Despite eighteen months of dating him, you had never seen this version of Robby—working, focused, unfiltered by the version he curated for dates and dinners. He’d tried to keep work separate from you. You had tried not to notice how poor his attempts had been.
He and Mel were physically examining one of the wounds on his torso when she paused, leaning in a little closer to trace the edge of a bruise with her gloved fingertip. The mottling had spread since the last set of photos, blooming in darker shades beneath the skin. Robby steadied the patient’s shoulder so Mel could see the full extent of the injury, his voice low as he pointed out areas of swelling that hadn’t been present on intake. You watched the two of them work.
You found yourself staring—at the way he moved, at the ease he had with teaching, at the calm precision in his motions. It reminded you of moments in his apartment when he had patiently explained medical metaphors or drawn diagrams on the back of restaurant napkins because you had asked one question too many. You weren’t sure whether remembering felt good or horrible.
Something in Anthony’s vitals shifted, and a quiet beeping alarmed. Mel flinched only slightly before both she and Robby sprang into action—adjusting his IV, checking the fluids, muttering quick updates to one another. Mel lifted his eyelid and ran her penlight across his pupil, her expression tightening.
And then the door exploded open.
The hinges rattled as the guard slammed it with the force of someone convinced danger lurked behind every corner. He barreled into the room, filling it with his bulk and the smell of stale coffee and cheap body spray. His hand hovered near the equipment on his belt, eyes sweeping with frantic suspicion as though he expected Anthony to leap out of bed swinging.
“Step away from the bed. The patient is dangerous,” he announced.
“Dr. King and Dr. Robinavitch are treating him. They don’t have to do anything. Not to mention the kid is unconscious," you said from your seat in the corner, not even bothering to stand. Your heart rate spiked, but you kept your face neutral. You’d had worse men try to intimidate you in smaller rooms.
“Forgive me if I don’t take a public pretender’s word for it,” he snapped.
You rolled your eyes. At least he could try rotating his insults. The repetition was almost insulting in its laziness.
“She’s right. His blood pressure just dropped, we’re only trying to figure out why,” Mel said.
“Fine. But if he wakes up I’m the first to know. He’s a dangerous criminal.”
“He’s awaiting trial. He’s not a ‘dangerous’ anything,” you grumbled.
“You’re not in the prison. You don’t know anything,” the man said. He bent over you, invading your space so abruptly you caught the sour scent of his breath. His name tag read Benning.
“Well, Officer Benning, neither are you since you both came from the county jail not the state prison,” you replied blandly. “I’m not disputing that some real characters come through, but perhaps the 20-year old with his first charge isn’t one of them.”
“And you would know that how?” The guard hissed.
“I think it’s best if you step outside and let us finish our examination,” Robby said, trying to guide Benning back.
“Whatever,” the guard hissed.
You narrowed your eyes and, because you were petty and furious and needed an outlet, you scribbled something utterly nonsensical in the margins of your notes. You knew he’d notice. You hoped he would.
It worked.
“What the fuck did you write down?” He asked.
“None of your business,” you replied, closing the file with exaggerated calm. You had written “dickhead officer,” which wasn’t legally relevant, but it gave you a flash of satisfaction. “As Mr. Williams’ attorney, I’m not at liberty to share any information with you.”
“And how does it feel knowing you’re defending scum?” Bennings asked.
“I sleep well at night, if that answers your question,” you replied back coolly.
“Well, the world is better off if this kid dies, trust me.”
“Whoa, whoa,” Robby said sharply, stepping fully in front of Benning now, blocking him with his entire body. “I’m going to ask you one more time to step outside and let us do our job. I won’t tolerate that kind of discussion in front of a patient.”
“Patient,” scoffed Bennings, but he went back outside.
“Still an instigator,” Robby said, but it almost sounded fond. You ignored him.
“Are you okay?” You asked Mel. She looked rattled.
“Y-yes…yes, um, I wasn’t expecting such a show,” she stated.
“Yeah, that’s fair. A lot of prison guards aren’t like that. A lot of them are fine, he’s a real piece of work,” you told her. “Do you want me to make sure he doesn’t come in here when you’re in here?”
“Can you do that?” Robby asked.
“You and Perlah seem to think that Mr. Williams was attacked by guards, with that information I can do quite a lot.”
“It might be a good idea,” Robby mused. “I don’t love the idea of anyone worrying about the patient and the guard.”
“I’ll file the motion and see if my boss can get it in front of a judge soon,” you told him.
You began the process of filing a TRO, temporary restraining order, for your client and his medical team.
“Do you want me to get you a coffee? I…I still know your order,” Robby said softly.
The words struck something deep and tender in your chest. It didn’t feel sweet—it felt like pressing on an old bruise. Robby had been kind, and caring, and attentive. And at the end of it—cruel. Somehow knowing he remembered your coffee order made everything ache a little deeper.
“No,” you said, desperately hoping your voice wasn’t betraying your emotions. “No, I’m good.”
“Okay, well, let me know.”
Then he and Mel stepped out of the room, leaving you alone with your notes, the beeping monitors, and the confusing tangle of emotions you’d been trying not to pick apart since the moment you saw him again.
January 2023
Robby was surprisingly sentimental at times. On your three month anniversary—a date you had totally forgotten—he showed up at your door with flowers and a surprise night planned. On your birthday he drove you out of the city and took you stargazing because you had offhandedly mentioned you’d always wanted to try it.
So it stood to reason that when he invited you over on your six month anniversary, you walked into what could have only been a four course Michelin star meal. He was wearing an apron when he answered the door.
“Now this is a sight,” you said, grinning at him.
“Yeah?”
“Oh yeah,” you replied, setting down your bag and taking off your shoes. “If you ever want to only wear the apron, call me I’m sure I can make time.”
“The apron really does it for you, huh?”
“It really does. I’m just as surprised as you are,” you laughed.
He pulled you against him and leaned down to gently kiss you. Smiling against his lips, you fiddled with the straps of the apron.
“Never gets old,” he said, satisfied.
“What?”
“Kissing you.”
“Pretty cheesy there, Michael,” you smiled. He pressed another kiss to the top of your head.
“Sure is. Come in, dinner is almost ready.”
The two of you chatted as he finished dinner. You were mid rant about the DA when the timer went off and Robby pulled out an elaborate sheet pan of exceptionally roasted vegetables to go along with his main course.
“Why do you hate this man?” Robby asked as he began plating the food.
“I work really well with a lot of the county prosecutors, most of them in fact, but Zicarelli goes out of his way to be an obstinate dickhead. Most of the assistant attorneys aren’t like that at all. And a few of them I think are really trying to make a difference. They think the system can be fixed from the inside and on my optimistic days, I believe them. On less optimistic days…well, I am one step away from burning everything down and starting over,” you grumbled.
“Mmm, that’s familiar,” Robby said. He handed you the plate and your drink then you followed him out to the balcony on his condo. It was cold, but with the fire pit and heater, th porch was cozy. It overlooked a calm but picturesque street near the university and hospital.
You sat next to him at a small wooden patio table where he had already set out fake candles and silverware.
“I can imagine,” you said. “You don’t really talk about it—the hospital I mean.”
“It feels too bleak for a good date conversation topic,” he shrugged. “I’d much rather talk to you about the tv show we’re watching or the complex philosophical musing on if you can reform a system as big as healthcare or the legal system. My job is just…a lot of the same thing,” he replied.
“So do you?” You asked, taking a sip of your drink.
Robby looked out to the street for a few moments. You speared a roasted asparagus and took a bite before he finally said,
“No, but I think people can make it hurt less.”
“What do you mean?”
“Fixing the healthcare system in this country would require more money and more policy changes than anyone is willing to commit to. The people who have the power don’t seem to give a shit. But if I do my job, if I’m attentive to patients and make sure they are treated fairly and quickly, then maybe it isn’t as shit.”
“I think that’s admirable,” you told him.
“Glad someone does. Some days it feels Sisyphean," he said simply while taking a bite of dinner.
“I mean, it is, but only if Sisyphus was rolling up the boulder to make sure the people at the bottom didn’t get crushed,” you said.
Robby snorted. “Still sucks when you don’t make it to the top.”
“I know that feeling well,” you hummed.
“It’s frustrating when someone comes to be so sick and it’s a sickness that could have been avoided if they had access to healthcare earlier. I see so many lives taken because of pointless shit like that,” Robby grumbled. “We live in a liberal city in a kind of liberal state, but we can’t do anything for healthcare.”
“It is a surprisingly conservative city for how much we vote for Democrats,” you replied.
“At least the criminal sentence things make sense. But healthcare? It seems like a no-brainer.”
“What do you mean the ‘criminal sentence things make sense’?” You asked confused.
“Just that I can at least understand where people are coming from when they vote against changing bail procedure or vote for Zicarelli. But healthcare is just so…important, I guess.”
You hummed, and a weird feeling settled in your stomach but you couldn’t quite pinpoint the reason. Something about what Robby said rubbed you the wrong way, but you’d often been described as confrontational or combative by past partners and tonight was so nice, it wasn’t worth bringing up. Instead, you changed the topic to something easier,
“So instead of dwelling on the hellish professions we choose—”
“Yours more than mine,” he laughed, adding to the upset feeling in your gut.
“—we talk about our Severance theories and the fact my book club is reading some of the worst writing known to man kind.”
“I still don’t know where they thought they would run to,” Robby grumbled. “It’s the severed floor, where are they going to hide?”
“It’s a take on Orpheus and Eurydice,” you laughed at his dramatics.
“Well, I wouldn’t look back,” Robby declared.
“I would,” you shrugged. “To love someone so desperately you go to the Underworld, and after successfully freeing them, you wouldn’t want confirmation nothing had happened? Think of how long their journey was. I can’t imagine not looking back. We look back all the time. I still read old texts from friends; I keep letters in my office.”
“Huh,” Robby said. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. I have a whole box of cards and notes from patients I look at after rough shifts.”
“If you think about it, that necklace is looking back. Your grandmother gave it to you—a way to honor your heritage and remind you of the spiritual comforts. Wearing it everyday is looking back for her.”
Robby was silent for a long while. Out of the corner of your eye you saw him fiddling with the necklace. There was a lot of emotion on the balcony as the slow cars ambled through the darkened street. The buzz of the street lights hummed, adding a soft amber glow to the ambiance of the dinner.
“I have a photo of us, you really,” Robby finally said with a thick note of emotion in his voice. “It’s tiny, but I keep it on the back of my badge. It’s that one of you absolutely cackling after bowling your fifth gutter ball on our third date.”
It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to you. So you replied,
“I think I could fall in love with you, Michael Robinavitch.”
And that weird, uncomfortable feeling was all but forgotten.
Present Day - 10:00 am
Later that morning, you managed to slip out of the room while the guard’s attention was fixed on whatever game he was playing on his phone. You eased the door shut behind you and exhaled slowly, grateful to put a few feet of distance between you and a man whose mere presence made your shoulders lock tight.
The hallway outside South 15 was its usual mixture of fluorescent glare, scuffed linoleum, and the low-level hum of activity that never really stopped. The Pitt, for all its faults, was predictable in at least that way—it always felt a little overworked, a little understaffed, a lot too busy.
It hadn’t changed much since the last time you’d walked these hallways years ago. Same faded signage above each bay, same rolling vitals machines half blocking the path, same antiseptic scent clinging to the air. Even the coffee dispenser was in the exact place you remembered—tucked beside a column near the nurses’ station like a sad shrine to caffeine dependence.
You stepped toward it automatically, muscle memory guiding you more than conscious thought. Your mind was still half in the room with Anthony Williams, half with Robby, half trying not to feel anything at all. The math didn’t add up and neither did the way you were feeling.
You were on your way back, styrofoam cup warming your hand, when you heard it.
“What do you think he did?” A hushed female voice asked.
You froze mid-step. The words weren’t loud, but they bounced off the hallway walls. You shifted back toward the corner and leaned your shoulder against it, the cool plaster holding you while you eavesdropped. You didn’t need to see them to know they were talking about your client. The tone alone—morbidly curious, speculative—gave it away.
On one hand, you could walk past them, shut it down with a single look or a pointed reminder of confidentiality. On the other hand…you were curious what the rumor mill had churned out in the last hour.
“I mean that guard is pretty nasty. Surely it was something bad?”
The next couple of minutes unfolded like a deranged episode of Dateline, complete with dramatic pauses and whispered theories pitched somewhere between absurd and insulting. Serial killer. Bank robber. Gang hitman. At one point you were fairly certain someone suggested “domestic spy,” which almost made you snort into your coffee. Anthony Williams’ alleged crimes had apparently become a popular form of entertainment in the lull between patient charts.
You understood the psychology of it—high stress jobs bred gossip like mold. But the casual disrespect, the lack of empathy, the gleeful speculation about a kid who might not live through the night…that part sat poorly in your gut. It reminded you too much of prosecutors who described your clients as monsters without ever reading their files.
“I see a lot of talking and not a lot of working,” you heard Robby’s voice say.
The volume in the hallway dipped immediately. You remained still behind the corner, listening.
“You gotta tell us what he did, Dr. Robby,” a higher voice said. It sounded young. “Is there a dangerous criminal here?”
“There is a man accused of a crime in South 15,” Robby confirmed. “But he hasn’t been proven guilty in a court of law. More than that, he’s fighting for his life right now, so I really don’t think speculating about what he’s charged with is appropriate.”
“Oh, no you’re right,” another voice said sheepishly.
“It doesn’t matter who the patient is, we treat them the same either way. And it would be good to get rid of that gut instinct to now, it’s a lot harder to get rid of when you’re older, trust me.”
You heard heavy footsteps headed towards you.
You straightened instantly, heart thumping, and pivoted on your heel in a practiced motion, heading briskly back toward Anthony’s room. You slipped inside before the footsteps rounded the corner, shutting the door behind you with care. The guard glanced up with mild suspicion, but you ignored him, sinking into the chair beside your notes.
You weren’t sure what to do with what you’d just heard. You weren’t sure what to do with a Robby who thought about carceral bias at all—who chastised staff for judging a “criminal”, who spoke about preconceived notions like it was something he’d spent years wrestling with.
The Robby you knew had a blind spot a mile wide and thought he saw the whole landscape clearly. Hearing him acknowledge otherwise…left a strange, complicated ache simmering behind your ribs.
March 2023
You spotted him before he saw you, slumped in the dim corner booth of your usual bar, the overhead bulbs casting a warm amber glow across the tired line of his shoulders. He looked wrung out—scrub top wrinkled, jacket sleeves shoved up haphazardly, hair messy like he’d run his hands through it one too many times.
Even from a distance, you could tell it had been a rough shift. Your own day had been long—court delays, an irritable judge, a client meltdown—but the exhaustion in his posture tugged at something soft inside you.
“Hi handsome,” you said softly.
The smile he gave you still made butterflies erupt in your stomach.
“Hi,” he said, pushing himself up to greet you.
His arms wrapped around you in that way only Robby could manage: warm, enveloping, making you feel sheltered without crowding you. You were not a small woman, but somehow he always made you feel like he’d been waiting for you to fill his arms. He pressed a brief, gentle kiss to your lips before letting you slide into the booth across from him.
Robby already had a cold beer half-drained in front of him and your drink waiting beside it—your order, exactly right, even after the day he’d each had. His reading glasses were hooked crookedly into the collar of his scrub top, and his badge, keys, and wallet sat in a disorganized pile in the middle of the table, like he’d emptied his pockets the moment he sat down. His phone lay face down.
You silenced your own device and set it on top of his, the ritual familiar now. After three dates in a row being interrupted, you’d adopted the rule: phones down, face-down, for at least the first hour.
“Have you been here long?” You asked.
“Ten minutes, maybe.”
“How was work?”
He just groaned and rolled his eyes dramatically. “Apparently my jokes are unprofessional.”
You smirked into your drink, “Your mean and snarky jokes? Unprofessional? Crazy.”
“I got written up,” he replied.
Your mouth fell open. “You’re shitting me. What did you say?"
“A bird flew into the ambulance bay and Gloria made some stupid announcement that we had to make sure vermin didn’t come inside. She did not appreciate my comment asking ‘what if they have good insurance’ apparently.”
You barked out a laugh before you could stop yourself. “God, that isn’t funny that you got written up. But the insurance joke was good.”
“Well, at least you enjoyed it.”
You watched him take another sip of beer, shoulders still slumped like nothing could quite shake the day off. You reached for your drink, you asked, gently, “Why do you and Gloria butt heads so much anyways?”
Robby sighed. “When Adamson passed during COVID, it was hard. COVID was just so fucking hard. And for a minute it really felt like Gloria was on our side. She wanted us to get the PPE, wanted us to get the meds and the oxygen. She fought for us and she's good at fights.”
You listened quietly, hands wrapped around your glass. Every time he talked about COVID or Adamson, his face changed—older, worn, a decade of grief settling behind his eyes. There was a day in July that he always disappeared during and it wasn’t until you saw Adamson’s memorial photo on the wall with his date of death that you put two and two together. Robby wasn’t often forthcoming about that era of his life. You knew he had been dating someone and the relationship fell apart but that’s about all he actually told you about COVID. The rest you’ve gleaned from conversations like this.
“But when COVID became less emergent. When the other floors were cleared out, it’s like she forgot it was still affecting us. COVID lingered in the ER and ICU far longer than anywhere else. And all of the sudden that fight was directed at us. We weren’t fast enough, or seeing enough well paying patients or whatever. We lost eight doctors and ten nurses and four techs to COVID. It just feels…like a bitter pill to swallow. And she refuses to negotiate. She just demands things and expects me to pull resources out of my ass.”
“I can’t imagine being in either of your positions,” you said, shaking your head. “COVID was hard for me, but in a very different way. It can’t be easy.”
“Well it’s not easy for me. Gloria seems to having a good fucking time,” he groused.
You hummed and sipped on your drink. “I mean, she’s in charge of a huge hospital. I doubt her job is easy.”
“She sits behind a desk all day,” Robby snapped.
“Except when she’s harassing you about birds,” you joked.
It fell flat. You knew instantly you’d misjudged the moment. His jaw tightened, shadows settling across his features.
“Did you know that attacks against healthcare workers have skyrocketed since COVID? It’s shitty especially when there was a moment when we were the most respected profession.”
“I think most people still respect you guys. You’re just a safety net and not always given the resources of one,” you said.
“Doesn’t feel like anyone gives a shit about us. Most of the time we can’t press charges when someone assaults us or if we can the DAs refuse to prosecute.”
“It’s hard to prosecute those cases,” you said sympathetically. “Proving beyond a reasonable doubt is a high bar even for a simple assault.”
“Nothing about it is ‘simple’,” Robby bit.
You held up your hands, “It’s a legal term, Michael. I’m not negating your experiences.”
“Get better legal terms,” he grumbled. Despite the tension in the conversation you couldn’t help but snort.
“Yeah, there’s a lot about the penal code that needs adjusting,” you sighed.
“Have you ever defended someone like that?”
“No, but if I had I couldn’t tell you. I’m pretty strict about attorney client privilege. But no, most of those cases tend to be misdemeanors and I almost exclusively handle felonies—murders mainly.”
“I didn’t know that,” he said. His tone sounded weird.
“Most of them plead guilty, so it’s about making sure the state is proving their case and sentencing is fair. When they plead innocent it is a lot more stressful,” you told him.
“Why’s that?”
You hesitated, then answered with the honesty he’d always claimed to appreciate. “Well, when your client did the crime, or tells you they did, you don’t have to worry about them going to jail for no reason. They’ll serve prison time and my job is to make sure it’s fair and as equitable as the law can get. When they’re innocent, all of the sudden I have someone’s life in my hands. About three quarters of my clients plead guilty, but the other ones? Those are just a little bit harder. Though, they all keep me up at night.”
“Because of their victims? What they did?”
“No,” you replied. “No, there’s only been a handful of clients I’ve had over the last decade and a half that haven’t had only terrible choices and murder was just the terrible choice they chose. What keeps me up is how lucky I am in comparison. My family didn’t abuse me or I wasn’t homeless or poor. I went to law school. I live in a nice apartment and I have access to mental health care. A lot of my clients don’t have that.”
“What about the victims?”
“The prosecutors office typically has resources for them. But, frankly, it isn’t my job to worry about them. My client is my responsibility.”
“I don’t think I could do that,” Robby said looking down at his beer. “I’ve seen too many people lose their loved ones in the ER.”
“I have compassion for them, but I can’t put their emotions over my client’s rights.”
“Sounds like something Gloria would say,” snorted Robby.
You raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“That’s just a very utilitarian take. It doesn’t feel very compassionate.”
“Sometimes it isn’t compassionate for the victims, but that’s not my job.”
“It should be someone’s job.”
“It is,” you said through lightly gritted teeth. “There are victims' advocates and social workers.”
“But not you.”
“And so what if it isn’t me?” You snapped.
The conversation was slipping—tilting from debate into something sharper, more personal. His eyes flashed with a frustration you hadn’t seen aimed at you before.
“I just don’t think you understand what it’s like to lose someone in such a horrific way. You don’t know what it’s like to be the victim of these crimes. I’ve seen them. Treated them.”
His voice hadn’t gotten louder, but it was taut with emotion, heavy with something deeper than irritation. You stared at him—your heart dropping—because there it was, the thing that had lodged under your ribs a month ago on his balcony: a blind spot so large he didn’t even see it.
“That’s a lot of assumptions, Michael,” you said finally. You had paused to let your voice calm, despite the anger boiling in the back of your throat.
“You basically defended Gloria!” He added.
“And when the fuck did I do that?”
“When you said both of our jobs are hard.”
You held his gaze. “They probably are. Different ways, sure. But you don’t get to sit here and assume that you’re the only person who has the monopoly on how the world should work.”
“Am I wrong, though?”
“In general? No. But you certainly are determining who does and does not deserve compassion and that’s not a call you can make. Not to mention you can’t just assume I’ve never lost someone or been hurt. We haven’t even been dating for a year.”
“And what? You have?”
“Do you really think I’m going to divulge sensitive history to you right now? When it seems like your reaction will be to dismiss it?”
The shock on his face landed like a small, painful punch. He looked away, toward the bar, shoulders deflating.
“I wouldn’t do that to you,” he said quieter.
“And based on our previous conversation, how was I to know?”
He looked away towards the bar. Silence stretched between you. You hated it. You hated the heat behind your ribs, the way the evening had turned. You sighed, softening your tone.
“Look, you care so deeply about people—especially people you don’t even know. I think that is one of the best things about you. But my job isn’t to do that. My job is to make sure the state proves its case before throwing someone in jail, even if they plead guilty. The government isn’t a good guy, Robby.”
“No, they aren’t,” he sighed. “Sorry, I think I took my frustration out on you.”
“Oh you definitely did,” you snorted. He had the good sense to look embarrassed. “But I understand where you’re coming from. A lot of people feel weird about my job. But if you can’t deal, we should reevaluate where this is going.”
“No, no,” he said quickly. “I can deal. I just…I lost a patient today and then everything with Gloria compounded.”
“And you bottled it inside?” You asked. He nodded. “Maybe you need a healthier way to deal with that anger than taking it out on your girlfriend.”
He sighed heavily, “You’re right. What do you do?”
“Scream in my car,” you said blandly. It startled a laugh out of him.
“I walk to work,” he said.
“Think about how few people would talk to you on the street if you started your walk home with a loud scream.”
Robby snorted, the corner of his mouth lifting.
“Well, I would certainly be the talk of the hospital.”
“See? You’d be so popular.”
He finally allowed himself a real laugh. “Sure, with psychiatry.”
You shrugged. “We could drive to the middle of nowhere and just scream for a bit.”
“Like a joint screaming date?” He asked, amused.
“Why not?”
“Fuck, might as well,” he laughed.
And just like that, the two of you found your way back to each other across the table.
Present Day - 11:30 am
You were stretching out a tight spot in your back when Mel finally came in with test results. You barely understood what she was telling you, but you knew enough to realize that Anthony Williams was going to have an uphill battle getting out of this hospital bed. It was frustrating and heartbreaking for a myriad of reasons. Not least of which was how minor his charge was. Misdemeanor theft shouldn’t lead to a kid in a hospital—it shouldn’t lead to anyone in a hospital, but something about this felt particularly unfair.
“I wish there was more I could do,” Mel said. You could hear the frustration in her voice.
“The deck seems to be stacked against, Mr. Williams,” you sighed, sitting back down.
“What happens if he doesn’t make it?” Mel asked tentatively, not taking her eyes away from the man.
“Honestly, not sure,” you replied. “There will be an investigation, but my ability to intervene typically stops after my client dies. Pennsylania has a uniquely corrupt criminal justice system, but i have a friend in the ACLU who is suing them. I might hand her the case.”
“What do you mean?”
“A few years ago a bunch of judges were disbarred for taking bribes from a private prison and sentencing juvelines to extreme sentences for their charges. Essentially taking kickbacks to ensure the prisons are full enough to keep their state funding.”
“I knew that Dr. Robby wasn’t joking when he was lecturing us about it,” Mel said, still sounding unsettled. “I didn’t realize he meant…this.”
You shifted in your chair, studying her. “He talks to you about that?”
“Oh yeah,” she said, finally tearing her gaze away from Anthony to look at you. “If we get an incarcerated patient or someone brought in with police, he makes sure we know that we’re treating the patient, not the cops. He tells us if we don’t interrogate our biases now, we'll kill someone later because of them.”
You blinked at her, your pen hovering over the page. That didn’t sound like the man you’d fought with across a bar table about compassion and who deserved it. Mel kept talking, unaware that every word felt like it was rearranging the way you had viewed this man for the last two years.
“He had us do a whole teaching conference on incarcerated patients and people in behavioral health holds. All of the attendings are good at making sure we view them as people and not…well, problems, I guess.”
You let out a slow breath. “That doesn’t go over well with everyone, I’m guessing.”
Mel gave you a sheepish smile. “No. But he doesn’t care. I’ve always had a harder time in emergency medicine; I can get kind of emotional. But Dr. Robby told me that the emotion is important to care. Sometimes people need emotion in their corner.”
You looked over at Anthony, at the constellation of injuries mapped across his body, and then back at the closed door where Officer Benning was no doubt glowering at anyone who walked by. The Robby you knew had believed in compassion, yes, but he’d also believed in his own read on who deserved it. He’d talked about victims and families and the horror of what they went through, and he hadn’t been wrong, but he’d spoken as if the rest of the system was at least somewhat fair. As if, on balance, it more or less worked the way it was supposed to.
This Robby—teaching residents to question authority, to assume the system could be cruel, to see a twenty-year-old ‘prisoner’ as someone the world had failed rather than a problem to be managed—felt like you were coming face-to-face with a whole new person.
“He sounds like he has been a good teacher,” you said finally, keeping your tone even.
Mel nodded. “He really has been. I owe a lot to him. He doesn’t talks about his own mentor, Adamson, a lot. But he’s kind of legendary—we’ve all heard about him. Personally, I think in some ways he sees teaching us as an extension of his appreciation for Adamson, but that’s speculation.”
“Of course,” you replied quietly. You wrote down a few more lines in your notes, the words seemed like gibberish—habit more than anything. Something to do with your hands while Mel pulled the rug out from under you.
You weren’t sure what to do with this version of him, the one who seemed to have finally taken off the blindfold you’d spent an entire relationship trying to point out. All you knew was that sitting in this room, watching him fight quietly for a kid your old Robby might have viewed with wary distance, made the past feel both closer and more foreign than it had in years.
June 2023
You were sick. Sick as a dog, sick. You had a hacking cough, congestion and more sinus pressure than you knew what to do with. Calling in sick to work was more stressful than it was to just be sick at work. You had three court hearings today and it’s not like you could easily reschedule them.
Donning a mask, you made your way to the office–wearing your most comfortable work pants and blouse. You grabbed your files and made your way across the street to the court house. Taz, the security guard on the north entrance, took one look at you and simply waved you through.
“You look rough,” he said, as you walked by.
“What everyone wants to hear, Taz, thank you,” you croaked.
“Girl, do you think a judge can even understand you like this?” he asked.
“Don’t be mean to me,” you complained. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to be.”
“Hmm, all right. Do you want me to grab you a tea or something from our break room? It’s free and I know y’all don’t get paid much more than we do,” he said.
“Taz, I would literally die for you if you did that,” you said, far more pitifully than intended.
“Well, don’t do that,” he replied with a frown on his face. “We like having you around here. Wouldn’t want whatever monster cold you’ve come down with to take you out.”
“You’re the best,” you told him.
He disappeared behind the check-in desk and came back out with a disposable coffee cup full of steeping green tea.
“If you ever need anything, I got you,” you said.
“Well, hopefully I don’t ever need your kind of helpful,” he replied. Quieter he added, “but we’ve both met some of these cops, huh?”
You snorted and waved as you made your way to your courtroom.
The hearings were simple, thankfully, and they allowed you to check in with your clients. You kept the mask on when in close contact with people, but when addressing the court—and staying far away from anyone else—you removed it so people could hear you.
When you finally made it back to your office, you collapsed into your chair and with one look at your inbox knew you weren’t capable of any type of high level thinking. It was a shame, because you had a date with Robby tonight that you were looking forward to. He had been on night shifts for a while and it had been nearly two weeks since you both had seen each other; only communicating via texts and quick phone calls.
You dialed his number on your way to your car and was surprised when he picked up,
“Hey,” he said cheerfully.
“I thought you were working today?” You replied. The horrible croak in your voice couldn’t be disguised even over the phone.
“You sound terrible.”
“You’re not the first person to say so,” you sighed. “I think I’m cancelling our date tonight. I can’t even answer emails right now. I want to go and melt into my bed, I think.”
“Well, I traded shifts with one of our other attendings, so if you want me to, can I come by?”
“I don’t want to get you sick, though,” you whined.
“Incredibly enough, I doubt you’ll get me sick. I have a pretty good immune system after all these years,” he rumbled.
“Come over,” you grumbled.
“How generous you’re being,” he replied. You could hear the smile on his face.
“Fuck off.”
“Want me to bring you anything?”
“Does it make me a bad person if I ask for a milkshake and fries instead of chicken soup or whatever the fuck you’re meant to eat when sick?”
“As long as you have some actual protein, I will bring you a milkshake and fries,” he said. The laughter in his voice was evident.
“Fine, I’ll have protein.”
“Drink at least one water bottle when you get home please,” he added.
“Anything else, Doctor?” you asked sarcastically.
“Take ibuprofen or something, I can tell you’re running a fever from here.”
“Well, I didn’t know they taught you how to diagnose over the phone in medical school.”
“I don’t think you’d sound this pitiful on purpose.”
“I do not sound pitiful!” You exclaimed getting in your car. The exhaustion rested heavy against your bones and you took a few deep breaths before turning your car on.
“You’re right, ‘pitiful’ is an understatement.”
“You’re mean. I want a large milkshake now and I’m not paying you back,” you grumbled.
Robby’s laughter was the last thing you heard before you hung up on him.
Despite your complaining, you did follow his instructions when you got home. You chugged your water bottle and then refilled it and chugged it again. Then took the medicine that he instructed. By the time Robby let himself in, you were in ratty pajamas curled up on your couch covered in blankets and pillows.
“Decided to make a blanket fort, too?” he asked, kneeling down in front of your face.
With the back of his hand, he felt your forehead and then his fingers slid against your neck to feel your pulse.
“Are you evaluating me right now?” you asked.
He shushed you.
“Did you fucking shush me?”
“You’re a terrible patient.”
“You’re not my doctor,” you snapped.
“Do you want your milkshake or not?”
“Yes please,” you pouted.
Allowing Robby to pull you up into a seated position, he handed you a to-go container. With a chicken sandwich, fries and a milkshake.
“Thank you,” you said, when he sat next to you. He was on the opposite end of the couch, held in place by about a half dozen blankets.
“You’re welcome. Have you gone to the doctor?”
“It’s just a cold,” you replied.
“I also would like you to take a COVID test,” he said softly. There was an anxious twinge in his voice you didn’t like hearing, so you shoved your hand out of your blanket cocoon and he popped a box in your palm.
“Can I finish eating first?”
“Sure.”
Once you had eaten, he threw away your trash and kneeled down in front of you again. He gently took the box from your hand and instead of letting you take the COVID test, he did it for you. It felt weird letting your boyfriend shove a q-tip in your nose and you couldn’t help but say,
“Is this foreplay for you?”
“You’re annoying when you’re sick.”
“Take that back. I’m always annoying,” you replied.
He chuckled to himself as he finished preparing and executing the test. When he stood to throw the trash away he planted a kiss on the top of your head and you felt it sink through your body all the way to your toes.
“Thank you for coming over,” you said. It was nice to feel bad with company.
“Anything for you,” he replied, setting a timer on his phone for the test. “I don’t think you have COVID, but your cough is terrible. You should really go to the doctor.”
“But I’m tired,” you whined. Robby gave you a flat look and you sighed, “Fine. I’ll go to the doctor.”
“Thank you,” he said. “COVID wasn’t long enough ago for me not to worry.”
You fell into a companionable silence until Robby’s phone time went off and he got up to check the test.
“COVID free,” he said with more relief than you were comfortable hearing in his voice. How anxious was he that you had gotten COVID? The height of the disease had been over two years ago, and despite being fully vaccinated, he seemed terrified that you had gotten ill with it. But still he seemed to be able to take a breath and ease down on the couch next to you.
“It’s because you brought me a milkshake,” you told him. He smiled and rolled his eyes at you.
Present Day - 12:00 pm
You spent another hour or so alone in the hospital room, desperately trying not to notice if Robby walked by. You worked on parole packets, answered countless emails, wrote a recommendation letter, you even started your taxes—all in an effort to distract you from the man that had lightly haunted you for the past two years. It didn’t work.
You knew he didn’t wear cologne or even strong smelling deodorant at work, but you could swear every time he walked by you could smell him. Distant calls of his name made you look up suddenly, and each time Anthony Williams’ monitors beeped you waited with baited breath to see who walked in to check on him.
More often than not it was Perlah.
She was as witty and dry humored as ever. And yet, she was tender and gentle with Anthony. Despite his unconscious state, she spoke to him like he was awake. There was an odd emotion building in your throat. It felt like a mixture of respect and appreciation. The kindness Perlah doled out was not unappreciated.
Still, you spoke very little to the staff beyond getting informative updates and logging them for evidence.
Around lunch time you realized that in your rush to get to the hospital, you hadn’t grabbed your lunchbox from the break room fridge. Your stomach grumbled and you began debating the merits of leaving your post for food versus the risk of missing something.
The door opened and without looking up you knew it was Robby.
“We’re taking him to get another CT,” the man said softly.
“Okay,” you replied, making a note of the time. You knew the hospital records would reflect everything, but being cautious was the name of the game.
“I…I, uh, grabbed you lunch and a coffee,” Robby said, handing over the small cafeteria salad and coffee. “I remembered you really liked those salad we have here and, uh, if your coffee order is the same—well, there’s some caffeine.”
You took the food and coffee from him. There was a dusting of a blush on his face. He stepped out of the way—much closer to you—in order to allow the techs to roll Mr. Williams out, the guard followed at a distance being unceremoniously blocked by the tiny Perlah.
“Thank you.”
“It is good to see you,” Robby said.
You were really sure how to reply to that; mainly because you weren’t sure if it was good to see Robby. Every time he walked by or spoke to you, even in a completely professional manner, it felt like poking a bruise you thought had healed. It technically wasn’t creating more damage but it sure hurt.
“I’m glad you’re doing well,” you settled on saying. It wasn’t a lie, but it didn’t echo his sentiment.
He glanced over at the large screens over Dana’s kingdom. Shifting from foot to foot, he surprised you by sitting down in the chair next to your own. His long legs stretched out and almost bumped against yours. It took all of your self control not to move them back. Even without looking down you were hyper aware of his presence.
“I’m glad Mr. Williams has you,” Robby said. “I’m glad he has someone like you in his corner.”
“Oh, uh…thank you,” you replied, though it sounded more like a question.
“I just wanted to make sure you don’t need anything else. I know that you get cold, so I could see about grabbing you an extra jacket or maybe one of the blankets…”
Suddenly, though perhaps it really wasn’t, perhaps it had been building all morning, your body washed cold. The anger and grief that you thought you had processed all those years ago welled up and crashed against your ribs begging to burst out and wail on Robby.
How dare he bring you lunch? How dare he keep remembering you in such gentle ways? How dare he sit there like he didn’t call you the devil last time you spoke?
You stood suddenly. “I can’t fucking do this.”
Striding from the room, you quickly skirted around milling medical workers and patients until you were outside and slightly beyond the reach of the ambulance bay. Robby’s presence was suffocating and infuriating and heartbreaking. Maybe it hadn’t been poke a bruise, maybe it had been picking at scab that hadn’t healed—maybe it would never heal.
“Fuck,” you croaked, squatting against the building, hoping beyond hope for a peaceful five minutes to collect yourself so you could go back inside and pretend to be fine and untouchable until tonight when you would go to yoga and probably cry during savasana.
Squatting on your heels, the palms of your hand squished against your eyes causing dancing spots to trail across your vision, you heard your name. Robby was still a few paces away, but you could hear his footsteps approaching.
In your mind's eye, you briefly imagined pushing him in front of an incoming ambulance. It wasn’t practical nor legal, but the thought gave you a modicum of comfort.
“Not now, please,” you said. You couldn’t even find it in you to be horrified at how tearful you sounded.
“What happened? I thought…well, I didn’t think…” he trailed off.
“Robby, I can’t do this.”
“I just want to know what I did, so I don’t do it again,” he replied. He sounded as sad as you did and for some reason, that swallowed the grief and sadness, replacing it with the fiery anger and fury that had been neatly tucked away in a small pocket of your heart.
“Fuck off,” you almost laughed, wiping your tears away and standing. “What you did?”
“Look, I know how we ended was—”
“Cruel. You were cruel,” you said. The blood pumping in your ears made it nearly impossible to tell how loud you were being. “Do you remember one of the last things you said to me?”
Robby grew pale and shook his head.
“You said the devil had no need for an advocate when I was around,” you hissed. “You—you were so mean and nasty and you broke my heart. And then I spend years trying to get over it. I spend years trying to convince myself that someone somewhere might not see me as an awful monster.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but you kept going.
“I never wavered in my love of this job, you know. It sucks. Every day there is some new horror I’m faced with, but what I do makes a difference. The world is better, or Pittsburgh is better, because I do this job. And someone else would replace me if I left, but I haven’t. Did you know that I was named Assistant Director for the Allegheny Public Defenders while we were dating? I didn’t tell you because I couldn’t stomach the shitty judgment I knew I would get.”
“Sweetheart,” croaked Robby.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” you nearly spit. “Don’t call me that. You basically said you hated me. So no, you don’t get to be familiar and friendly with me today. You don’t get to remember my favorite salad or remember my coffee order.”
The tears welled up in your eyes again.
“Fuck you for thinking you could break my heart, break me, and think that you retained the right to remember me. You hated me, Robby. I’ve never been as hated as I was by you, don’t know what that’s like? For one of the people you care about most in the world, someone who should care about you back, to despise you? To think you’re evil? Just…” you took an angry breath, “just leave me alone. Talk to me only about Mr. Williams, and we can go back to pretending the other person doesn’t exist tomorrow. You can stop pretending not to hate me or whatever.”
For the first time since your rage against him started you looked at him. He looked, well, he looked like you imagine you did. Devastated and broken hearted and like one gust of wind could knock you over. Well, that was his problem. You brushed past him and managed to bump into Dana.
“Where’s the bathroom?”
She looked up at you sharply and simply pointed down a hall. You nodded and rushed off, not before noticing how she began to walk in the direction you came from.
Good, she can deal with her pet emotionally stunted doctor. Robby’s inability to deal with how he feels was no longer your problem. Your only problem now was to hide how puffy your eyes were from crying and compose yourself for the next inevitable fight with Officer Benning.
When you finally found yourself back in th hospital room things had drastically changed. You had only been in the bathroom less than ten minutes and yet you somehow found yourself in the middle of a western stand off. Two police officers had spawned in your absence and they seemed to be staring down Mel, Perlah, and to your muted surprise, Robby.
“You are not taking this man anywhere,” Robby said in a voice you’d never heard from him before.
“We have orders,” tall cop said.
He looked too young to radiate the amount of confidence that he spoke with. He was far too confident for someone who held a gun and—as you liked to remind everyone around you—a monopoly on violence. His use of violence was always justified, not true for anyone else. His partner to his left seemed bored. She leaned more than stood.
“Orders from whom?” You asked, tugging on your blazer.
“Who are you?” Tall cop asked.
“I’m Anthony Williams’ attorney,” you said simply.
Officer Benning, who had been standing towards the back with a gleeful look on his face, spoke up, “She’s a public defender.”
You didn’t react, but out of the corner of your eye saw Perlah scoff.
“We have orders from our sergeant and the warden of the state prison to transfer him to the in-unit medical facility,” the female cop said.
“Not without a court order,” you said. “Right now there’s an internal investigation occurring in regard to Mr. Williams’ injuries. IA and the presiding judge need to sign off on moving orders.”
“Look, we were just told to pick him up and drive him north,” Tall cop said.
“And how do you plan to do that?” Robby asked. “You arrived in a cop car. The patient is not in a state to be transferred, but certainly won’t be walking out of here to sit in the backseat.”
“Can’t you put him in wheel chair?” The female cop asked.
Robby’s jaw tightened. “Are you asking me to put a patient who should be in the ICU in a wheel chair so you can toss him in the back of your cop car?”
“Yes?”
“Do you hear yourself?”
It sounded like something you would say, but it came from Robby’s lips.
“That’s a person. A human being. Someone who is our neighbor—and you want to treat him with such blatant disrespect?”
You weren’t sure if you shocked look was showing on your face or not. But Robby wasn’t looking at you. It seemed like he had forgotten you were even in the room.
“Mel, what are the possible outcomes of such an egregious transfer on an unstable patient in Mr. Williams’ condition?” Robby asked.
Mel began to rattle off medical jargon that simply went over your head. The whole time you were staring at Robby. Briefly, you wondered if this was an elaborate ploy to prove to you wrong—to prove he was…better, maybe? But that didn’t sound right. Robby was petty at times, but not like that. No, instead you thought back to what Dana had mentioned so many hours ago. Perhaps he had really changed. Perhaps he was really different.
Once Mel finished, you jumped in.
“What are your names?” You asked grabbing your notebook. The power of a lawyer and a notebook could not be understated. It struck fear into many a cop and prison guard alike.
“Greggs and Frobishire,” the woman said, bored.
“What precinct?”
“The one-twelve,” Greggs replied in the same bored tone.
“Oh perfect, I know Rodney,” you said calling their sergeant by his first name.
The only thing worse than a public defender writing down your names was when she knew your sergeant by his first name. You reveled in the way they recoiled. Grand conspiracies weren’t wildly common (neither were they wildly uncommon), but more often it was people calling in favors and taking advantage of structures that didn’t have built in check points. Favorable situations were spotted by clever people and exploited.
If you had to guess Benning had called the warden who called Rodney who hadn’t been informed about the reality of the situation. As much as you were anti-cop, Rodney was about as good as they came. Your job would be a lot easier if the police force was filled with more Anthony’s.
You pulled out your phone and dialed the precinct number. While it rang, you said, “My boss just received an injunction order preventing any further communication with this patient, so let’s leave the room and allow the doctors to complete their work.”
Jan had sent over the injunction order while you had been having a small bathroom breakdown about facing your ex boyfriend. You had seen it come across your phone and then proceeded to blubber for another five minutes.
“Rodney?” You said as he picked up and you ushered the cops and guard out of the room, “Hi how are you? Tell me, how up to date are you on the situation of Anthony Williams?”
You watched as the faces of the people in front of you spasmed. It never got old, being the stanchion in the way of people who believed they could bulldoze across those less powerful; it certainly wasn’t old now watching Benning’s face grow more and more red. As you continued your conversation with the sergeant of the 112, Greggs and Frobishire began to inch farther and farther away from the unconscious body of Anthony Williams. It wasn’t a long phone call. Nor did it take long for Rodney to call the officers back to the precinct.
“Don’t you get it?” Benning hissed. “This man is dangerous and you’re putting everyone in the hospital at risk.”
“This man has rights,” Robby sighed. He looked exhausted and you weren’t sure if it was from the intense stand off you just had with Bennings and the cops, or because of the intense personal stand off the two of you just had not twenty minutes earlier. “And whether you respect them or not is irrelevant. This man is not leaving without my approval, his attorney’s, nor our legal and administrative team. Because guess what?”
You stood a little mesmerized as Robby stepped forward towards Benning. Robby wasn’t as bulky as the prison guard, but he was taller and just slightly broader.
“I can call my boss, too. And I can guarantee she is much scarier than yours,” he continued simply.
In a tiny alcove of your brain–one you hadn’t known even existed until this moment–you realized that might be the hottest thing you’ve ever seen Robby do, and you’d experienced his above average bedroom skills.
He glanced at you quickly; you were unsure what exactly your face looked like, but he seemed to flush at your gaze. Greggs and Frobishire exited not long after that and Benning returned to his post right outside the door of Anthony Williams tiny ER room.
“Mel, let Gloria know what’s going on down here. She’ll want to make sure legal is in the building and nearby in case this happens again,” Robby said after Benning finally took his leave. “Even with his lawyer in the ED they still tried to take him; I want eyes on this room at all time.”
“Got it, Dr. Robby.”
“Include all of this in your chart, too,” he added. “And see if the CT results are back yet.”
“I’ll page you when I’ve had a chance to look at them,” she replied as she headed out the door.
There was a moment, a split second really, when you realized you were alone with Robby again. During your relationship with him, during all of your relationships really, you had prided yourself on being even keeled, emotionless during arguments and fights. You never raised your voice. You didn’t need to.
But if you weren’t careful, and there were plenty of times you weren’t, your words were sharper and more painful than any raised voice could be.
It seemed to have shocked Robby, that you had finally reached your threshold. You yelled at him. Raised your voice. And now you both had to go back to being professional like it never happened. Like he hadn’t seen you finally reach a breaking point that he caused.
“Thank you,” you said quietly.
“Doing my job,” he said gruffly.
You snorted. “No, you weren’t.”
He just hummed and busied himself with Mr. Williams monitors. You knew next to nothing about the medical world–it was hard to tell if he was actually doing something or just trying to look busy.
“I heard you earlier,” Robby said quietly. “I am going to respect your space, but I just wanted to apologize for not getting it while we were together. I’m sorry I didn’t understand what you were telling me.”
You weren’t sure what to say to that. But it made your chest ache and you couldn’t find the strength to respond.
“I just…” he trailed off. “You made me better, even if I didn’t pick up on it until after you left.”
He left the room and you weren’t sure if you were relieved he didn’t give you time to respond or sad. If he had stayed, you doubted you would have known what to say.
Whoever this Robby was, he was fundamentally different from the man you knew.
September 2023
Robby was reading when you walked into his condo. You had just celebrated your one year anniversary and as much as you enjoyed dating Robby, there was this fear in the back of your head that he really wasn’t as “okay” with your job as he pretended to be. He still made odd comments about some of your clients here and there, but most of the time when you brought up the specifics of your job he tended to change the subject.
“Hey,” he said, setting down his book. You couldn’t tell what it was from where you stood, easing off your heels. “Court day?”
“Yes, fuck those heels,” you grumbled collapsing against him. “They were sent from hell to kill me.”
“You must feel important that something was sent from hell to kill you, then.”
“You’re not funny.” You had a small smile on your face.
“Sure,” he replied, leaning over to kiss you.
The kiss was chaste at first, but there was still a fire brewing inside of you after your day and it wasn’t long until you were pulling Robby closer, deepening the kiss. It definitely wasn’t long until you were stripping off your blazer and throwing one of your legs over his laps.
“Is this okay?” you asked a little breathlessly.
“More than,” he replied. Beneath you, he looked flushed and a little shocked at the turn of events, but his hands held on tightly as you adjusted your weight over him. It wasn’t long until you felt his arousal against your legs.
You were a little more aggressive than you would normally be. With one hand fisted in his hair, you tilted his neck so you could kiss and nip at his skin more effectively. Robby's skin was a little dry from the fall air, but even that couldn’t discourage you when the sounds he was making went straight to your core.
“What brought this on?” he asked, panting when you finally pulled back.
“I got a little worked up in court today,” you told him, wrapping your arms around his neck. “Fucking Zicarelli was being a bitch.”
“The District Attorney?” Robby asked, confused.
“Yeah, I had a client who killed her abuser and that motherfucker was going for the death penalty,” you grumbled. “Insane since no one has been executed in this state since before the turn of the century.”
“Why would he go for the death penalty?”
“Because the victim was a wealthy and ‘upstanding citizen’ and there was 'no real proof’—whatever that means—he was abusing her. As though her medical records and multiple domestic calls weren’t enough,” you said. Sighing a little you finally said, “So I’m a little pissed. And I figured fucking you would be more productive than toliet papering his house.”
“Do people still do that?” Robby asked, amused.
“No idea, but I would. Although I think he lives in an apartment and that’s a lot of effort.”
“And so you ended up in my lap.”
“No need to worry about cognitive decline with this level of brain power,” you snarked. Robby rolled his eyes.
“It sounds like you need to talk about it," he stated, brushing some of your hair out of your face.
“No,” you replied, grinding down on him, “I need to ride you so well neither of us can walk tomorrow.”
“You won’t feel better,” he added.
“I think that’s the pot calling the kettle black.”
“Do as I say and not as I do?” he replied, but it sounded more like a question.
Taking a deep breath, you eased off his flagging erection and sat back on his legs. He seemed content to let you continue sitting on his lap as you talked through your day.
“I can’t say much about the case, although I guess it’s all public record now,” you mused. “My client was being abused and her husband threatened to kill their baby. She snapped and shot him with his shotgun. His family is rich. They are also donors to Zicarelli.”
“So you think he’s more motivated to seek harsher penalties?” Robby inquired. He was stroking your thighs through your work slacks. It was grounding as you thought back to your miserable day in court.
“I don’t know how directly they are truly correlated. More like they exist in the same circles and that tends to breed loyalty. He played every dirty trick in the book. He ‘forgot’ to disclose evidence in discovery, he added a witness last minute—all things I couldn’t prepare for. Not to mention the victim’s family donated to the judge’s campaign too–same circles and shit, so he wasn’t willing to cut me some slack or hear a motion to strike some of the prejudicial statements from the record. It felt like they were ganging up on this woman because she finally stood up for herself.”
“Maybe, but she also killed someone, babe,” Robby said softly.
“I’m well aware of that, Michael. I saw the crime scene photos,” you snapped. His lap suddenly didn’t feel near as comforting as it had a few moments ago.
“Maybe it isn’t a conspiracy, but they’re doing their jobs—seeking justice for the man who was murdered.”
“It wasn’t murder, though. It was self-defense. He beat her,” you nearly snarled, getting off of his lap and standing. You began to pace. “Her medical records could be used as a textbook example of abuse.”
“It’s hard to prove abuse just from medical records,” he disagreed.
“No offense, but I think I’m more familiar with what abuse looks like than you are,” you snapped. “Nearly every single female client, and even some of my male clients, have been abused by a partner. This man alienated her from her family, locked down her access to money and the real world, and then when she upset him, he made sure he hurt her where no one could see.”
“I’m not saying he didn’t abuse her,” Robby defended. “I’m just saying that it doesn’t excuse murder.”
“And I’m telling you that if she didn’t kill him, she would have been dead. Likely with their kids,” you exclaimed. “I don’t think she should get away without recompense—although, I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed—but she shouldn’t be facing the fucking death penalty!”
“Plenty of people are abused everyday and they don’t kill another human,” Robby huffed.
You stared down at the man on the couch in front of you gobsmacked. This man, who cared so deeply for his patients and the community he served was sitting in front of you completely unable to sympathize with a woman who had been abused by her husband.
“And a lot of those people are killed, Michael. Surely you know the statistics?”
“Of course I know the statistics,” Robby said. “But I also know that real life can’t be neatly summarized by numbers.”
“Okay? What does that have to do with my client and the poor behavior of the district attorney?”
“Maybe he just didn’t want to see someone escape justice.”
“Is it justice? Or is it really vengeance because the family has money and friends in government so they can use the state as their personal firing squad?” you shot back.
“I think that’s a little extreme.”
You felt your eye twitch. The sour feeling returned to your gut and you couldn’t be in this room any longer.
“I’ve been doing this job for a long time, Michael. I have seen things that would shake your very dumb belief in our criminal justice system. Sometimes the only answer is to burn it down,” you snapped. You grabbed your blazer from the ground. “I think I need to leave. I’m really pissed and I don’t want to say something I’ll regret.”
“C’mon, sweetheart—”
“Don’t start with me, Michael. If I stay I’ll say something mean, and neither of us want that.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yeah, I fucking am. You just sat there and implied that you think that there is a good reason the district attorney, a man I have repeatedly said is not trustworthy, is above board seeking the death penalty against a battered woman!”
“I’m just saying that there were other options than murder!”
“And I’m saying that you can’t make that call when you don’t know what her life was. It was hell, Michael. Absolutely hell. Get the fuck off your high horse and recognize that sometimes violence isn’t always the actions of an evil person. Sometimes violence is the response of someone with very few other bad choices.”
You didn’t wait for him to reply. Instead of trying to put your shoes back on, you grabbed them along with your bag and walked out his door. You slid your heels back on in the elevator and once you got to your car, you allowed yourself a deep, shuddering breath.
That sour feeling still sat heavy in your gut.
Present Day - 7:30 pm
The rest of your day was spent in Anthony Williams hospital room. Dana brought you a sandwich for dinner, but you noticed she didn’t make eye contact with you. It was nice to know that Robby had people in his corner—even if his corner was defined by being a piece of shit. As the day shift slowly transitioned to the night shift, you let our a breath of relief. It meant Robby was going home. His last update had essentially been telling you not to get your hopes up, that it was unlikely Anthony Williams would last through the night.
Shortly after shift change you saw Jack, Robby’s friend, and he introduced Cassie McKay. Except, you already knew Cassie McKay.
“Robby filled me in,” Jack said, stepping in the tiny hospital room.
“On which part?” You asked blandly. Snorting, Jack replied,
“Medical and personal.”
“Hmm,” you replied.
“Mind if I bring a resident in on this?”
“Are they as good as Mel?” You asked, making Jack laugh.
“Of course they are.”
A few minutes later, you saw Cassie walk through the door.
“This is Cassie McKay, she’s a third year,” Jack said.
The problem with this is due to the fact you knew Cassie. You had been her attorney during her ongoing assault charges. You had been given the case because her ex-husband’s family was rich and you were uncowed by those with money. It also meant that you couldn’t disclose that relationship, so you stood and smiled.
“Nice to meet you, Dr. McKay,” you replied.
Cassie laughed. “It’s nice and very ethical of you to pretend we don’t know each other.”
“Oh?” Jack asked.
“She got me on probation and an ankle monitor, instead of jail time,” Cassie told Jack. “She also helped keep me out of jail after Pittfest last year.”
“Fucking ankle monitor bullshit,” your grumbled the same time Jack said,
“Cops trying to arrest you after the biggest mass shooting our city had seen was beyond unreasonable. Robby and I about lost our shit.”
Oh. That meant Cassie was the resident Robby had mentioned this morning. What a small, terribly-too connected world.
“Doing my job,” you said simply. “How up to date are both of you on what’s happening with Mr. Williams?
“Oh, we’re well aware of the showdown you and Robby had with the state of Pennsylvania,” Cassie replied, laughing.
“I wouldn’t call it a showdown,” you hedged.
“Well, it made them stand down for now, whatever it was,” Jack said. “Are you getting tagged out at all?”
“No, not tonight. I was scheduled for night court anyways, so they switched me to this. So it will be a nice change compared to getting our favorite drunk and disorderlies out on bail,” you replied lightly.
“That happened one time and I was not drunk,” Jack grumbled.
“You sure as hell were disorderly, though,” you commented with a small smile on your face.
“Well, I can’t argue with that,” he said.
“You’ve been arrested?” Cassie asked, surprised.
“I have been a lot of things. This hospital doesn’t know everything about me, McKay,” he commented lightly.
“But she seems to,” grumbled the doctor. You laughed.
“My clients get the same confidentiality, Cassie,” you replied.
“Is that what I am to you? Only a client?” Jack asked. Your stomach swooped uncomfortably.
You couldn’t exactly say, “No actually, you're the best friend of the man that tore me inside out, and then a few months later got into a bar fight where I had to get your ass out of the drunk tank and then get your charges dropped.”
So instead you said, “It’s unethical for you to be anything else.”
“Whatever you say, counselor,” he replied, winking. Jack had always been a bit of a flirt. It was, perhaps, the most normal thing that occurred today.
“Do you want to increase the pressors, Abbot?” Cassie asked looking at Anthony Williams’ monitors.
“Yes, maybe it will help his heart rate as well,” Jack hummed. They began to speak in medical jargon that went so far over your head you could barely remember what they said.
“I’ll let Dr. Robby know about the changes,” she said, moving to leave.
“Dr. Robinavitch is still here?” You asked. The tension that had been sitting heavy on your frame all day had returned. You looked over at Jack who was dutifully avoiding eye contact.
“Oh yeah, he is pretty invested in the case and wants to be here as the chief attending in case anything else goes awry,” Cassie said. It was hard to tell if she picked up on your tension. But she certainly caught the awkwardness that Jack brought—well, more than normal. “What am I missing?”
“Nothing,” Jack said the same time you said,
“Nothing relevant to Mr. Williams.”
“Ooo-kay,” she drawled. “Well, that’s not ominous. I’ll go put in the orders and update Robby.”
“Thanks, McKay,” Jack said.
When Cassie had left the room, you stared down the man in front of you. “Still here?”
“He’s…invested in the case.”
“Jack.”
“He won’t come bother you. He’s not the doctor of Mr. Williams right now. He really only wants to be here for backup.”
“I’ll poke him in the eye if I see him,” you grumbled.
“Well, it’s not a bad place to poke someone in the eye.”
Against your will, you huffed out a little laugh. “Level with me, Jack. What are the kid’s chances?”
Jack sighed and looked down at the tablet with the chart. “Not good. We’re throwing everything we can at him. If he makes it to discharge tomorrow, he’ll get a bed in ICU. Robby called in a few favors.”
“Robby did?” Your surprise was evident.
“He’s…not different, necessarily, more like he evolved some,” Jack said.
“All because of me?” You snorted disbelievingly.
“He say that?” Jack asked. You nodded making Jack snort his own disbelieving sound. “You certainly started it. That breakup knocked him on his ass for a long time. He still hasn’t talked about it.”
“He doesn’t come off well in the tale,” you grumbled.
“I have no doubt,” Jack nodded. He eased in the seat next to you and steepled his fingers for a moment, thinking. “After my little…indescretion, we had a guy from the state prison come in with complications from cancer. He had murdered a couple in their car during the nineties or something. Made away with like fifty bucks.”
“Where is this going?”
“Robby hated that he was here. Hated that he wasn’t in a state prison run hospital. I wasn’t here, so I couldn’t shake some sense into his dumb skull,” Jack said. He wasn’t looking at you, but kept his eyes on Anthony Williams. “He was so…cautious, I suppose, about the man, he only allowed himself and Perlah to treat him.”
You snorted. “That sounds about right.”
“And I have no idea what happened in that room, but they came out a couple days later as friends.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“Not even a little bit.”
“He befriended a convicted murderer?” You asked shocked.
“Mm-hmm. Continued visiting him after he was sent back to prison once he was stable.”
“So I spent almost two years begging him to see their humanity and he did it for someone else?”
“You could see it that way,” Jack agreed. “Or you could see it as a man who heard all the things you were saying and when he finally interacted with it in a more substantial way, it finally clicked. It’s one thing to see the poor and small time criminals that we normally get. We don’t often deal with the people you deal with. It’s hard, I think, to understand we’re just one bad day away from being them until you come face to face with it.”
You sat there long after Jack left, the room settling back into its familiar rhythm—the soft hiss of oxygen, the steady beeps of the monitors, and the faint murmur of voices drifting in from the hallway. Anthony Williams hadn’t moved. His chest still rose and fell with mechanical assistance. You watched it because it was easier than letting your thoughts fully percolate.
It hurt in a way that felt almost petty to admit, even to yourself. You had loved Robby. You had argued with him carefully, patiently, sometimes angrily, about the things he refused to see.
You had tried to hand him the language, the framework, the moral through-line, hoping he would meet you there. Instead, he’d dug in. He’d told you you were being too naive and unrealistic. He hadn’t wanted to grow with you. And now—now he was standing his ground for a stranger, for a kid he’d never met before today, for someone whose name he’d only learned because the system had nearly killed him.
You didn’t begrudge his previous patient or Anthony Williams. In some way, you were grateful for it; that it resulted in defense of the broken man in the bed next to you. The timing was fucking shit, though. You hated that Robby’s growth arrived too late for the two of you, that it had required distance and damage and silence before it could take root and sprout into something substantial. It felt unfair—useful and necessary, sure, but still deeply personal in its cost.
And yet.
You couldn’t deny the quiet pride that lingered behind the hurt. You had been right. The things you had tried to teach him weren’t theoretical anymore. They now had consequence he could see and feel. He was using his authority the way you had always believed it should be used: not to sort the deserving from the undeserving, but to slow the banal bulldozing of a person by an uncaring system long enough that hopefully they could survive it.
You pressed your pen to the margin of your notebook, trying to ground yourself. Maybe this was what it meant to love someone and leave them. Not to stop caring whether they became better, but to accept that you wouldn’t always be the reason. That the seeds you planted might grow a tree whose shade you’d never stand beneath.
October 2023
It had barely been a month since your last fight about Zicarelli seeking the death penalty. Things were still fragile between you—patched over only because Robby apologized for snapping at you. It wasn’t the full conversation you’d hoped for, but you also weren’t sure you could handle a breakup on top of everything else happening at work.
So you kept things to yourself. You didn’t tell him when the State Association of Public Defenders gave you an award, or when one of your clients was finally found innocent. You didn’t mention your promotion to Assistant Director, either. You knew that if you couldn’t share moments like these with him—moments that were important and celebratory, but about work—you couldn’t keep pretending this relationship was sustainable.
But it was hard to reconcile those doubts with the man who showed up for you so consistently in other parts of your life. The man who took care of you when you were sick without hesitation, who fought bitterly for his patients and residents, who never stopped arguing for resources for his safety-net hospital. He worked with the street team without complaint, showing a level of compassion most people didn’t. And yet something about your job snagged on him, you doubted he was all that conscious of it.
He was sweet and attentive, carrying more COVID-era trauma than he admitted, but kind despite all of it. Kind—until you reminded him that you defended people accused of murder.
So you shouldn’t have been surprised when you went over for your weekly dinner and he ambushed you about your newest case, the one that had turned into a minor media circus.
The irony was that being a public defender hadn’t even been your plan. You went to law school aiming to be a prosecutor. Then one presentation from a Philadelphia County Public Defender turned your entire sense of purpose on its head, and you never looked back. You loved the work. You believed in it deeply.
But whenever you talked about your job—specifically that you defended people accused of violent crimes—Robby slipped into a worldview you recognized in so many others: that there were two kinds of defendants, those who deserved a lawyer and those who didn’t.
You couldn’t even fault him for it at first. The world conditioned people to think that way, especially in a culture convinced that anyone touched by the criminal legal system is already guilty of something larger than the charge.
It didn’t help that your newest client, already buried under an intense media frenzy, was exactly the sort of person the public decided wasn’t “worthy” of defense at all. He’d been accused of felony assault of a nurse. Normally your caseload was full of more violent felonies, but because this case was becoming a public relations nightmare, your boss assigned you as attorney of record.
You weren’t surprised Robby didn’t love the case; you were surprised by how fast the argument flared when you mentioned the news report that listed your name. It felt like it came out of nowhere—except it hadn’t. It had been building for months.
“Well I’m not exactly happy about it,” Robby grumbled.
He sat back from the table, arms crossed, the vein in his temple starting to pulse. You could see the tension in his jaw, the faint tremor in his hand as he tried to keep his voice even.
“About what? That I’m doing my job and can’t get your personal approval for each case I take?”
Your voice was sharper than intended. Maybe you shouldn’t have gone from zero to one hundred, but it felt like you all had gone through this conversation before.
“I would have appreciated a heads up.”
“I can’t give you a heads up,” you grumbled. “Attorney client privilege.”
“Not even when the newspaper quotes you saying that your client deserves a “robust defense in a court of law”?” Challenged Robby.
“He does!” You exclaimed. “Everyone does. Even people you don’t like!”
“It’s not about like!” Robby finally said, with a raised voice. He slammed his hand on the table, silverware rattling. You jumped. “It’s about loyalty! You know how terrible patients are to us. Do you know how it feels to see your girlfriend defend someone who attacked us?”
“You’re accusing me of not being loyal?”
Robby’s eyes were fixed on you, blazing. “If the shoe fits, counselor.”
You leaned forward now. “Do you think I went through our docket trolling for cases that were going to hit a little too close to home? Do you think I sought out ways to hurt you?”
“I just don’t think you care who gets hurt in your defense of these people,” Robby said.
“These people? Elaborate on that one, Michael,” you nearly spit.
“It’s good, important even, to defend poor people from the overreaches of the police, but that’s not what this is. This is someone who was caught on camera punching a nurse. Her nose was broken in three places.”
“And what? Because he may have committed a crime you are particularly sensitive to, the government shouldn’t have to prove their case?”
“He shouldn’t have a chance to get off!” Robby exclaimed. His chair scraped back as he stood, pacing now, hands flexing at his sides. “People cannot treat healthcare workers like punching bags on their bad days!”
“I agree with you! But what if it wasn’t him? What if the camera footage is misleading? What if the cops have some agenda against the guy they arrested and pinned this crime on him?”
“Please, that’s not what’s happening here. I saw the guy’s mug shot and the camera footage,” Robby said. “And the fact that you agree with me but still insist on defending him is insulting.”
“You are not the final arbiter of morality, Robby! Just because you think you know what you saw doesn’t mean my client should forgo a defense.”
“Trying to get him off on a technicality isn’t a defense, it’s…it’s underhanded!”
“Underhanded,” you scoffed.
“Yeah underhanded. So what if they didn’t fully read his rights or miss a fucking filing date? Criminals shouldn’t get off because of a loophole.”
“Criminals are human beings. Criminals deserve the same rights that you and I do,” you shot back.
“Criminals deserve jail! They don’t deserve to hurt my nurses!”
“That isn’t my problem! My problem is the government not taking advantage of the kind of people you hate. Oppression starts with the people society despises!”
“C’mon,” scoffed Robby. “That does seem a little dramatic,”
“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.” You recited. “If that means I represent rapists, murderers, and whoever for the rest of my career, so be it.”
“And you would feel good about that? Seriously?” Robby asked.
“Ah, I see now. I always wondered why you were so fucking weird about my job and this is the real reason—you don’t agree with it. You don’t think criminals should have a defense. You think we should lock them up and throw away the key,” you said slowly. “Very ‘do no harm’ of you.”
“Hey, back off. Don’t make this personal.”
You laughed once, bitterly. “And what has this been, then? Not personal? You attacking my character isn’t personal?”
“I think it would make me feel a little better if I knew that you felt somewhat conflicted about it. That it bothered you in some way,” Robby replied.
“Well, it doesn’t. I don’t think of my clients that way. I think of their cases in terms of what the state, the government—the only institution in our country that has a monopoly on violence, by the fucking way—has to prove in order to take away their freedom.”
“And when they’re guilty and you get them off?” Robby challenged.
“Not my problem, the burden of proof is on the state. If the cops and DA can’t prove their case they don’t get to throw someone in prison.”
“I just don’t understand how you could do it,” scoffed Robby.
He was pacing again, running both hands through his hair now, his movements jerky and restless. The tension in the room was suffocating.
“Then lay it out for me. I must not be as smart as you high and mighty doctor. So explain to me like I’m an idiot. What is wrong with me doing my job?”
There was a silence around the table and you scoffed.
“When you’re my age—” Robby began.
“Oh fuck off,” you laughed. “What? In ten years my moral compass will change? Or do you not think I understand the consequences of my actions?”
“People look at me differently because you’re defending him!” Robby snapped. He pointed at you now, the gesture sharp and trembling.
“Be around better people then,” you replied. “It’s not my problem how people treat you. You knew exactly who I was before we started this. I haven’t hidden anything. I haven’t changed. I’m doing the same job I’ve always done. I’m protecting people from the overreaches of the state. And I’m so sorry you’re understanding of the criminal justice system began and ended with Willie Horton, but read a fucking book and don’t attack someone you claim to care about.”
“You just don’t get it,” Robby said softly, shaking his head. “Every day I worry one of my staff members is going to be injured on the job. We’re harassed, assaulted, yelled at on a daily basis. And as soon as someone finally, finally is willing to take it seriously you jump in trying to make sure justice doesn’t happen.”
“I know. And that is so tremendously unfair. But it’s also not my job to deal with that. My job begins and ends at the court house. I’m trying to ensure justice does happen, Robby. You have to prove someone is guilty. If we don’t then the only thing standing between the two of us and a jail cell is an accusation,” you sighed.
“Wow, how righteous of you,” Robby snapped.
“Christ, hang up the martyr hat Robby. It’s a bad look,” you snapped.
“Only one of us gets attacked for doing our jobs, and it isn’t you.”
Your jaw tightened. “I’m glad you think so. Next time I get a threatening email, it’ll be nice to know it wasn’t really me they wanted to kill.”
“It’s not a surprise when you defend people who have caused real pain and misery in the world. Why would the devil need an advocate when you’re around.”
Fucking ouch.
You blinked at him. “Okay, well, I’m not sure I really want to date someone who thinks so low of me.”
“I’m not sure I want to date someone I think so low of,” Robby replied back harshly.
“It would have been really great if you had figured out you hated me before you made me fall in love with you, you absolute bastard.”
You didn’t wait for a response before walking out the door. As you drove away from his condo, you realized this is what heartbreak felt like.
Incredible how it really does feel like someone reached inside your chest and squeezed your heart until it burst. Incredible that it was caused by the person you thought cared about you. Incredible that you fell in love with someone who seemed to hate you.
You were back at your own apartment before you realized you hadn’t told Robby you loved him before that moment.
But, it didn’t matter because you never heard from him again.
Present Day - 10:00 pm
It happened quickly but not unexpectedly. One minute the room was holding steady in an anxious equilibrium and the next breath found everything tilted. Alarms cut through the air, voices stacking over one another as the bed was flattened. and hands went everywhere at once. Someone called out numbers you didn’t understand. Someone else swore. You pressed yourself back into the corner automatically, spine against the wall, notebook still in your hand like you might take notes on how Anthony Williams died so needlessly.
The room filled with bodies and motion—determined people who did this everyday and continued to come back for more. You heard Robby’s comment in your head: “Sisyphean.” and you finally understood what he meant.
Jack was at the foot of the bed, Cassie at Anthony’s side. And then Robby was there—seemingly out of nowhere—sliding into place without hesitation. He took over from Jack, barking out orders trying to keep a young man from dying.
You knew it wouldn’t matter. You knew it with a certainty that settled heavy and cruel in your chest, even as your heart insisted on hoping anyway. The body failing despite everyone’s best efforts. The neglect catching despite the endless efforts of everyone at The Pitt.
You watched Robby work—his face set, jaw clenched, hands steady and relentless—and the anger flared hot and unproductive. You were angry that Anthony Williams had been twenty years old, scared, and brutalized in a place meant for safety. You were angry that the people fighting hardest for him now were meeting him for the first time at the end. You were angry that Robby finally saw how fucked the system could be, but only when it was too late.
When they finally stopped, the silence was worse than the alarms. Someone called time of death. Robby stood there for a moment longer than necessary, hands still braced on the mattress, chest heaving. You couldn’t look at him. You couldn’t look at Anthony, either. You stared instead at the floor, at the scuffed linoleum, at the spot where your shoe had left a faint mark earlier in the day.
You felt hollowed out and raw, grief and rage tangled so tightly you couldn’t separate them. You had known this was coming. You had prepared for it professionally, legally, emotionally. And still it felt like a small, brutal theft—another life swallowed by a system that never seemed to pay for what it took.
“What do we do from here?” Cassie asked. She was looking at you.
Clearing your throat of the anguish that threatened to suffocate you, you said, “I’ll inform the court. Write a report to internal affairs.”
“That’s it?” She asked, her tone was furious.
“Yeah,” you sighed. “That’s it.”
“And there’s nothing else we can do? Nothing else you can do?”
“Cassie,” Jack said.
“No! No way! This child was killed but that motherfucker out there and we can’t do anything about it? Fuck that!” She snapped.
Cassie shucked her gloves off and stormed out of the room. Her exit took your anger with her and all that remained was sadness and the reality of the next steps.
“Can you send me the death certificate?” You asked no one in particular. “I’ll need to file it with the update.”
“I’ll get it for you,” Jack said. “Don’t take Cassie’s words to heart…she just really cares.”
“It’s not like I’m not feeling the same way,” you huffed.
Jack squeezed your shoulder as he walked out. The rest of the team began clean up. They covered Anthony Williams body, began unconnecting wires and tubes from him. You continued to stand against the wall, staring at the body of a boy you never really knew.
“Mel said something earlier,” Robby said, leaning against the wall next to you.
“Hmm?” Your brain wasn’t full processing his words.
“She mentioned you had a friend at the ACLU, who is suing the state for things like this,” he said softly. You doubted anyone else could hear it.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Can you tell them about this?”
“I can give them a filing number. They’ll have to file a motion for discovery to get the information I’ll have collected. It will take a second, but yeah, in a roundabout way I can.”
“I’m glad.”
“A really, really small silver lining. Maybe Anthony Williams will get justice in death.”
“Maybe he will. But he also had you to advocate for him—try to keep him alive.”
“I think you did that part.”
“Not very well.”
“Based on what Jack was telling me, I think the only person who could have changed this outcome is God himself.”
“You don’t believe in God.”
“No I do not.”
The two of you lapsed into silence for a few moments, watching as the bed was rolled out by techs. Eventually facilities would come through and sterilize the room, preparing it for another person.
“Does it always feel this…bad, when it doesn’t go your way?”
“Not always,” you replied. “But often.”
“I didn’t know.”
You couldn’t help but snort. “Yeah, I’m aware of that.”
“Let’s get some fresh air while you wait for the paperwork,” Robby said softly. “I don’t think you should be in here any longer.”
Against your better judgement, something you would chalk up to how emotionally strung out you felt in the wake of the day, you followed Robby out of the Pitt, across the street, and to some benches in the park. You both sat on a bench, a stone’s throw away from the place that Robby spent most of his career and you spent one of the worst days of your career.
The grass beneath your feet was dull and flattened, patches of mud showing through where people had cut corners on the paths. A few lights from the street and the hospital spilled over the trees, casting everything in a tired yellow haze. Robby had sat down beside you, close enough that your knees almost touched, far enough that he wasn’t assuming anything.
For a long moment, neither of you spoke. You stared out at the empty park and tried not to think about how young Anthony had been, how you’d never even spoken to the kid before he died. You really tried not to think about how scared he was.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work,” Robby said finally. His voice was hoarse and you heard his own grief.
“For what?”
He snorted humorlessly. “Everything, I guess. But specifically that we couldn’t save him.”
“Is this how you feel when you lose a patient?” You asked, mirroring Robby’s own question from before.
“Not always, but often.”
“Suck ass.”
“Yeah, it fucking does.”
He went quiet again, shoulders rounding in on themselves, and you could see the weight of it settling—the familiar, cruel calculus of emergency medicine where effort and outcome never line up the way they should.
“I’m sorry I didn't understand it back then,” you said. “I always tried to understand both sides of your shit and that wasn’t what you needed, huh?”
“No,” he replied quietly. “I wanted someone to be angry with me.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t get that. I’m sorry it sounded like I was trying to defend the people who made this harder,” you told him.
“I’m sorry I did the same.”
“Thank you.”
“Seriously, I’m sorry I was so stubborn and mean about it. I was so focused on the grief I saw in those walls, I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.”
“Why now?”
“What?”
“Why not earlier? Why not when we…why not when we still could have salvaged something?”
He blew out a breath and leaned back against the bench, tipping his head back. You remained tilted forward, your elbows on knees, resting your head in your hands.
“Yeah. Jack told me what you said earlier. About…about how it must look. Me changing now. You were right. About a lot of things. Back then. You were responsible for a big shift in me—even if I wouldn’t admit it at the time.”
You let out a humorless breath. “Funny way of showing it.”
“I know.” He didn’t argue. “I thought you just hadn’t experienced what I had. That time would make you more like me, instead of considering that maybe I needed to become more like you.”
You felt his words settle somewhere deep and sore, equal parts vindication and grief.
“I wasn’t asking you to agree with me about everything,” you said quietly. “I just wanted you to see how fucked things could be. That what I did…wasn’t evil, I guess.”
“I know,” he said again. “And I wish I could say I never thought that. I was so caught up in grief, my own and others, that forgot that the people who created those grief were also humans, also our neighbors.”
“Neighbors?”
“I listened to that Mister Roger’s audiobook when I went on a sabbatical roadtrip a while back,” he laughed, sounding almost bashful.
“No shit,” you chuckled. “I can’t believe you took sabbatical.”
“It was that or Jack was going to admit me,” he told you. “And I had to come to terms with how not okay I was. COVID, Adamson, Pittfest…you. God I was a mess. Still a mess, honestly.”
“Makes two of us.”
“About a year after we broke up, I met Charles. He was in jail for killing an old couple for the fifty bucks in their car console. I’ll spare you the deeply embarrassing details of my early behavior—but I’m sure you could guess. Anyways, he was reading that Mister Roger’s book. And he read me this quote and I have it fucking memorized now:
“What happens when you’re so convinced about the rightness of your cause that human beings are less important than values or commitments or commandments?
“We talked and talked about this man who has a radical view of how to treat people—treat our neighbors. And during those conversations, I realized Charles was just like me. He made bad choices, monumental mistakes that have long lasting consequences, and yet I don’t think he is evil.”
“Sucks doesn’t it?”
“I hate it,” Robby laughed.
“It’s hard to realize the people we vilify, the felons and criminals we hate so much are just human. They aren’t monsters. Their bad choices are choices any of us could make with the right circumstances.”
“I am so sorry for how hard of a time I gave you. I’m just so sorry,” Robby said quietly.
“I can’t believe it took Mister Rogers and an honest to god murderer for you to get your head out of your ass,” you laughed, lightly.
It still hurt, the fact you weren’t enough for him to take the blinders off for. But perhaps the point was they came off. You planted the seeds and Charles nurtured the sapling.
“I guess, but it wouldn’t have happened without you. Don’t sell yourself short on this. You did more than enough.”
“You still see Charles?”
“Every couple of months. He writes, I write back. It’s an odd friendship, I suppose.”
“No kidding.”
The park’s silence seemed to echo. Each critter that skittered in the dark, each gust of wind that ruffled the leaves in the trees lingered between you both. It was the closest you’d been to Robby in so many years. You simultaneously wanted to push him away and hold him close.
“Dana said you’d changed,” you said.
“What?”
“This morning, she walked me back to the room and said you had changed. She was was right.”
“She’ll love to hear it.”
“I’m just sorry I didn’t get to experience it.”
Robby let out a long breath and you heard him scrub his hand over his face. Your eyes hadn’t strayed from the darkness of the park. It was hard to look at him.
“I wish I’d been ready sooner. I wish I’d been ready when it might have meant…us.”
Something about his tone made you look over at him. He looked, grief stricken. His face was filled with real regret. You had imagined this conversation a million times. You had imagined what it would be like for him to say those exact words, to tell you he changed. It wasn’t as satisfying as you thought it would be, just sad.
“Me too.”
As much as the break up had destroyed it, the relationship hadn’t been all bad. Robby taught you so much about how to show up for people, not just fight for them. He showed you how to be kind and funny in the face of impossible odds. He held you with love and gentleness, despite your rough edges.
“We were bad for each other sometimes,” you admitted. “We hit each other’s worst pressure points. You were mean; I was meaner. And I think both assumed the other one would eventually bend.” You swallowed.
“But we were also good. I spent my career railing against the machine. Fighting tooth and nail, burning it down again and again. But you taught me it isn’t just about confrontation. I need to show up for people otherwise there’s no one to burn it down for.”
“I didn’t even know I was doing that,” he murmured.
You gave him a rueful half smile, “I didn’t either. Not until after.”
“I owe you an apology for that, too,” he nearly whispered. The remorse was clear in his voice. “That last fight. I was so mean to you.”
“I wasn’t much better.”
“Maybe, but you wouldn’t have lashed out if I hadn’t,” he said. You weren’t sure that was true, but he kept talking. “I said unforgivable things. And I’m so sorry for that.”
“I forgive you.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Well, too bad. Not your call to make,” you shot back. He laughed.
“You’re incredible, I hope you know that.”
“That’s kind of you to say.”
Again, the pair of you fell silent. It wasn’t as awkward and uncomfortable as you feared. It almost felt like it used to. There was a quiet comfort radiating from Robby like this. He always felt like the last bastion of protection between you and the world. He was full of terrible jokes, smiles, and warm hugs that could thaw even the coldest of hearts. Sitting here, on this park bench suffocated by grief—grief of the present and past—you found yourself surprisingly content.
“Do you think we could try again?” Robby asked after a while.
You sat back against the bench sighed. “That was a really hard breakup. It…I am a different person now.”
“Yeah, I think we both are.”
“I used to go home every night and replay that last fight until I couldn’t tell what I’d actually said versus what I wished I’d said. I second-guessed every instinct I had. I wondered if I was too much.” You let out a shaky breath. “It took months to sleep through the night. Longer to stop crying everytime I thought about it. The person I loved, it felt like he hated me.”
“I never, ever hated you,” he said in such a serious tone you glanced over at him. Robby’s face had gone pale, guilt written plainly across it. He looked small.
“It felt like it, Michael. Now, I’m more careful. More closed off. I plan exits in my head even when things are good.” Your mouth twisted. “Everyone tells me that’s natural, not bad, not good. But I don’t know. Some days it just feels like I lost a much more hopeful version of myself.”
You finally looked at him, really looked at him, and the familiar tenderness flared. Sitting next to you, in scrubs he had worn all day trying to keep your client alive, it was hard not to feel that thread of connection between you. It was hard not to reach out and wrap your fingers in between his.
“I don’t regret us,” you said. “I don’t regret loving you. Love isn’t a waste just because it didn’t last. Even a short love teaches you something. And ours taught me a lot. But it also cost me a lot.”
“I miss you,” Robby said again, like he couldn’t stop himself. “I miss us. And I still love you. That never really went away.”
“I still love you, too. But I don’t think I could survive another heartbreak from you.” Your voice felt small, smaller than it had ever been.
You let the quiet settle again, heavier now, weighted by everything you’d already said. The park felt suspended in time, the city noise dulled by distance and cold, like the world had decided to give the two of you a narrow pocket of stillness. Robby shifted beside you, rubbing his hands together, staring out at the same dead patch of grass you’d been studying like it might eventually offer answers.
“I’m a different dickhead than the one who broke your heart—and that’s not something I’ll forgive myself for, even if you have” he said finally. “I thought for a long time that I was the reasonable one. That I’d seen enough to justify my cynicism. Losing you certainly corrected that assumption.”
You stayed quiet, letting him talk.
“I kept hearing your voice in my head,” he went on, a faint, rueful huff of a laugh escaping him. “In meetings. In patient rooms. When I caught myself making snap judgments. I’d think, she’d hate that. Or worse—she’d be disappointed.”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees now, posture folding in on itself even more. “I didn’t suddenly become you, but I stopped assuming my way of seeing things was the only reasonable one. That maybe my version of realism was just my own grief clouding my judgement.”
Your chest tightened despite yourself.
“I miss you,” Robby said again, but this time he didn’t rush past it. “I miss the way you challenged me. I miss how infuriatingly principled you were, even when I didn’t agree. I think about you all the time.”
He hesitated, then gave a self-conscious grimace. “I set up Google alerts for your name.”
You turned, startled. “You did what?”
He winced.
“Yeah. I know. That sounds…not great. I promise it’s not stalker-y. Mostly professional stuff. Articles. Awards. Panels. Sometimes your name just pops up attached to something impressive and I—” He broke off, shaking his head. “I always knew you were brilliant. I just didn’t realize how much you were doing while we were together. How much you weren’t telling me.”
You looked away from him again, your eyes following a stray ant.
“I put it together a few months after we broke up,” he continued quietly. “I started seeing your name places. A state association award. That promotion. A couple of cases that made the news. Some of it happened while we were together and you felt you couldn’t tell me”
“It wasn't just you,” you said automatically, but the words tasted hollow.
“I think it was,” Robby replied. “I realized I was dating someone extraordinary and treating her like she was just…there. Like she’d always be there. Like she didn’t need the same kind of attention and care I gave everything else in my life, simply because I didn’t understand her fight.”
The admission caused a complicated mix of validation and grief to bloom in your chest.
“I miss you in the small ways,” he added. “Stupid ways. I still know your coffee order. I still catch myself wanting to text you when something absurd happens at work because you were always the one who thought my dumb jokes were funny.”
Robby cleared his throat and continued, “I’m sorry I changed you in bad ways, when I got to keep the good ones.”
You weren’t sure what to say to that.
He took a deep breath before continuing. “I just wish I’d been brave enough to meet you where you were before it was too late.”
“So do I,” you said.
“I don’t expect anything. I just needed you to know that loving you changed me in ways that have made me a better person, a better doctor.”
You sat there together, the park quiet around you, both of you holding the same truth: that sometimes love arrives exactly when it’s needed to transform you—and leaves before it blooms.
Robby’s phone buzzed and he said, “Jack has everything ready for you.”
“Thanks.”
You both stood and Robby said, “I know that I made a monumental mistake with you. But if there’s even a chance that I can prove to you I’m different, I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
“Because you’re a different dickhead, now?” You asked, a tiny smile playing on your lips.
“Because I’m a different dickhead, now,” he agreed mirroring your smile. He looked...almost hopeful. It wasn't a bad look on him.
“It has been surprisingly good to see you, Robby,” you said, standing on your tip toes to press a kiss to his cheek. The contact burned against your skin. “Go home and get some sleep.”
“As long as you do the same.”
“If that’s what the doctor ordered.”
You walked back into the Pitt. Back into the world of the man that had haunted you for the past three years. It didn’t feel as suffocating anymore. You weren’t sure what you were going to do about Robby’s offer, but the anger and devastation that had long hung heavy on your heart had been excised and assuaged tonight.
You had changed.
But so had Robby.
Maybe it was enough to begin again.