I Confirmed the Deployment That Broke Him Chapter 05

I Confirmed the Deployment That Broke Him Chapter 05

I started working through the handover paperwork. Frontline Medical Corps deployments followed a strict protocol – psych evaluations, safety training, emergency contact registration, all of it.

Leo didn’t reach out again, but I heard through colleagues that whatever was going on between him and Chloe had become an open secret. Someone had seen Chloe driving his car back and forth to the hospital.

Chloe’s final probationary review came back “Outstanding” – a rating almost no research intern in the organization had ever gotten.

I moved out of Leo’s apartment and into the spare room above Hannah’s clinic. Hannah helped me sort through my deployment gear and kept asking if I’d really thought it through.

“The situation there is way worse than what the reports say,” she said. “Last week, two more stations were marked as targets by armed factions.”

“I’ve thought it through,” I said. “If I stay, I’ll have to watch Leo and Chloe every single day.”

I didn’t want to spend two years sitting around waiting for him to change his mind. I checked the seal on my protective suit and looked up at her.

“You know what hurt the most?” I asked. “It wasn’t Leo’s attitude. It wasn’t Chloe’s little games.”

“No – my first instinct was to second-guess myself. To wonder if I was being too sensitive, whether I wasn’t doing enough for him.”

“You know I’ve never once hesitated in a field operating room,” I said. “But over the last seven years, I passed

on three high-risk deployments and turned down two overseas research positions just to build my life around

his.”

I smiled at that. “If I can walk into a warzone on my own terms, nothing should be able to make me back

down again.”

A week before I left, I went through the full round of pre-deployment physicals and psychological

evaluations. I also received vaccinations for yellow fever, cholera, typhoid, meningitis, and rabies.

The psychologist was a soft-spoken man in his fifties. He reviewed the evaluation report, then looked up at

“Dr. Lane, your PTSD scores are elevated,” he said. “Is what happened in Northern Lyra still weighing on

you?”

I nodded. He asked whether choosing an even higher-risk posting this time was my way of proving something to myself.

“I’m taking my life back,” I said after a moment.

Before I left, the organization gave me a low-key send-off. Leo wasn’t there – reportedly tied up at an

emergency research conference out of town.

Chloe did show up, and she handed me a sealed supply pouch.

“There’s a new hemostatic agent in there – you might find it useful,” she said.

I took it and thanked her. “Good luck with your research,” I said. “Make the most of working with Dr. Vance.”

Chloe’s smile stiffened for a moment.

After the party, I ran into Leo by the elevator. He must have rushed back – his jacket was still speckled with

rain.

“We need to talk,” he said.

“There’s nothing left to say.” I pressed the elevator button.

“Stella, don’t go.” He suddenly grabbed my wrist, his fingers ice-cold. “I was wrong, and I know I didn’t handle things with Chloe well. But a warzone is no place to nurse a grudge, Stella. You could die out there.”

I looked at him – the man I’d once thought I’d spend my life with – and saw bloodshot eyes and dark circles

even concealer couldn’t quite hide.

For a moment, I almost let myself soften. Then I remembered the way my heart had lurched when that deployment confirmation hit my inbox.

I remembered how he’d written it all off as just a joke. I remembered standing alone on the rooftop in the dark while my mother lay at the bottom of a staircase.

He was in his apartment with another woman, giving her a gift he’d once promised himself, while I stood on a rooftop trying to figure out how to come up with eighty thousand dollars.

“It’s too late, Leo.”

I pulled my hand free as the elevator arrived.

“If you get on that plane, we’re done!” he called after me.

His voice was hoarse. I stepped into the elevator and turned to face him.

“We were over a long time ago,” I said. “We ended the moment you let someone turn my career and my name

into a punchline.”