Chapter Forty-Six: The Door in the Wall
The car, predictably, arrived at 7:29. A sleek, black town car with a driver who wore white gloves and a face of professional neutrality. Aris did not appear to see her off. He had left the guest bedroom door open after his final ice-pack rotation, a silent signal that her time in the neutral zone was over. Amaya had used the ensuite to freshen up as best she could, changing back into yesterday's slightly rumpled work clothes, the silk blouse feeling like a costume from another life. She carefully folded the little dinosaur shirt and left it on the perfectly made bed, the chocolate coin placed on top. A return of gifts. A closing of the parenthesis.
Hobbling to the elevator on the makeshift crutch Aris had silently left for her—a polished walking stick that looked like it belonged in a museum, not a medical supply closet—she felt like a ghost leaving a building that had never truly acknowledged her presence. The driver took her bag and helped her into the plush interior without a word.
She was delivered not to a hospital, but to a discreet, boutique medical clinic on the ground floor of a five-star hotel two blocks from the Warwick. The care was immediate, efficient, and impersonal. A handsome, young orthopedist confirmed a grade two sprain, prescribed stronger anti-inflammatories, fitted her with a proper walking boot, and gave her a sleek pair of crutches that matched the clinic's aesthetic. It was all handled within an hour, the bill presumably sent directly to Richard's office. A hired nurse, a cheerful woman named Rosa, was waiting for her in a suite at the Warwick when a hotel bellman wheeled her upstairs.
"Mr. Thorne has arranged for me to stay with you for the next forty-eight hours, Dr. Snow," Rosa explained, already unpacking a small medical kit. "To assist with mobility and ensure you follow the recovery protocol."
Amaya nodded, sinking into an overstuffed armchair that overlooked the city. The suite was beautiful, silent, and felt as much like a gilded cage as her parents' home had five years ago. Richard had solved the problem. She was safe, cared for, and completely isolated from the emotional fallout of the previous night.
Richard himself arrived just before noon, between meetings. He swept in, smelling of crisp air and expensive cologne, and gave her a brief, careful hug. He examined the walking boot with a satisfied nod.
"See? Proper care. No waiting, no… ambiguities." He didn't mention Aris's name. "How is the pain?"
"Manageable," she said. And it was. The physical pain was. The rest was a dull, persistent ache of something lost before she'd even had a chance to name it.
"Good." He glanced at his watch. "I've rescheduled my afternoon. We can have lunch sent up. I want to hear the full details of this… incident. For the insurance report, if nothing else."
So, she told him. The sanitized, professional version. Lost keys, a fall, a clinical intervention by a senior colleague. She mentioned Rihan only as "his young son who was also home," framing the child's appearance as a brief, neutral footnote. Richard listened, taking notes on his tablet, interjecting with questions about the exact timing, the medical assessments. He was building a timeline, a case file.
When she finished, he set the tablet aside. "It's fortunate he was there. But from now on, Amaya, if there's an emergency, you call me. Or 911. Not a colleague with a… complicated history. We avoid the appearance of impropriety. It's cleaner."
Cleaner. The word echoed Aris's neater. Two men from different worlds, united in their desire to tidy up the messy human elements she seemed to attract.
"I understand," she said, because it was easier than arguing.
He stayed for lunch, discussing the upcoming merger and a potential vacation property in the Swiss Alps. He was being the attentive fiancé, painting a picture of their impeccable future. Amaya nodded and smiled, feeling the distance between them yawn wider with every perfectly planned detail.
Three days later, her ankle, while still tender, was bearable with the boot. The dutiful Rosa had been dismissed. Amaya insisted on returning to work. Richard argued, but she held firm. Her patients, especially Lina, needed her. He relented, on the condition the hospital car service would take her to and from the entrance.
Walking back into Victoria Hospital on crutches felt like stepping onto a stage after a bizarre intermission. The gossip had clearly spread; she felt eyes on her, heard whispers hushed as she passed. Did you hear about Dr. Snow and Dr. Rowon? Locked out, he took her home… The story had undoubtedly morphed into something juicier than the truth.
She avoided the psychiatry wing entirely, heading straight for the child and adolescent unit. Her heart hammered as she approached the soft-interview room. She hadn't seen Lina in four days.
She pushed the door open. Lina was in her usual chair, but she wasn't staring blankly out the window. She was drawing. And she wasn't alone.
Dr. Elna was there, kneeling on the floor beside her, a gentle smile on her face. Lina was adding careful, green strokes to a large sheet of paper—a garden, it looked like, outside the walled house from her first drawing. The wall was still there, but now a single, small, door had been drawn into it. It was open.
Lina looked up as Amaya entered. Her eyes, those deep, watchful pools, took in the crutches, the boot. For a long moment, she just stared. Then, without a word, she set down her green pencil. She stood, walked to the shelf, and picked up the plush rabbit. She carried it to Amaya and held it out, not for herself to hold, but offering it to Amaya. A comfort. An understanding.
Tears pricked Amaya's eyes. This child, who had been locked in silence, was now speaking in the most eloquent way she could. You were hurt. Here is my soft thing.
"Thank you, sweetheart," Amaya whispered, her voice thick. She took the rabbit, holding its softness for a moment before handing it back. "I'm okay. I'm just a bit wobbly."
Lina accepted the rabbit back, clutching it to her chest. Her gaze drifted to Amaya's boot, then back to her face. Then, she did something she had never done before. She pointed to the new drawing on the table, to the little door in the great wall. She looked at Amaya, and she gave a single, small, deliberate nod.
See? I made a door.
It wasn't a cure. It was a crack. A beginning. A testament to the silent, patient work they had done together. Amaya felt a surge of pure, professional joy so profound it momentarily eclipsed the tangled mess of her personal life.
This was why she did this. For the doors in the walls.
Later that afternoon, she could avoid it no longer. She had a scheduled, albeit now overdue, supervisory meeting. She crutched her way to his office, her stomach a knot of dread and a strange, resigned defiance.
She knocked.
"Enter."
He was at his desk, writing. He didn't look up as she entered and awkwardly navigated to the chair, setting her crchets against the wall. The silence stretched. He finished his note, set his pen down precisely, and finally lifted his gaze.
It swept over her, from the crutches to the boot to her face. His expression was the familiar, impenetrable mask of Dr. Rowon. No mention of the Warwick, the private clinic, the hired nurse. No reference to dinosaur shirts or predawn conversations.
"Your revised treatment plan for the Miller case is adequate," he began, his voice devoid of inflection. "However, your proposed timeline for behavioral activation is optimistic given the severity of the anhedonia. I've made notes."
He slid a paper across the desk. She took it. Red ink, precise as surgical incisions. He began dissecting her work on another case, his critiques sharp, logical, and utterly impersonal.
It was as if the last forty-eight hours had never happened. The hallway, the car, the apartment, the child climbing into her arms—all of it had been erased. They were back to square one: the rigorous supervisor and the deficient intern. The vault was sealed, the crack she'd glimpsed through welded shut with clinical steel.
She should have been relieved. This was the clean solution. The neat one. This was what Richard wanted, what protocol demanded.
But as she sat there, listening to his dispassionate voice pick apart her clinical reasoning, a cold, hard certainty settled in her chest. The door in her wall, the one she'd been building for five years out of duty and penance, had just slammed shut. And the man on the other side of the desk, the one pretending nothing had changed, was the one who had bolted it.