After moving in with my boyfriend, I got used to being woken by the things he said in his sleep.

"Phyllis… hemostat…"

"Phyllis, you take the lead on this one…"

Tonight made a hundred. A hundred nights lying beside him, listening to him say Phyllis Pruitt's name into the dark.

Never once mine, even though I was the anesthesiologist standing at the same table.

In the morning he looked at the dark circles under my eyes and said, all apology, "Couldn't sleep again? Maybe you should see a therapist, get something to take. I'll go with you."

So he'd known all along. Knew I was depressed. Knew I wasn't sleeping.

I didn't ask again why someone else lived in his dreams. I just held out a glass of warm water.

"You called out all night. Soothe your throat."

He froze for a second, then set the glass down hard, frowning.

"It's not like I was having some sex dream. What are you imagining now?"

He went looking for tape, irritated.

"Fine, you can tape my mouth shut when I sleep. Happy?"

I smiled, took the tape from him, and started packing.

……

Ray Delgado finished making breakfast before he noticed my suitcase.

"You're going somewhere for work? Why didn't I know about it?"

He took my hand, sweet and reluctant to let go, eyes full of how much he'd miss me.

As if nothing had happened half an hour ago.

I said nothing.

The department schedule had gone out days ago.

He just cared more about whether Phyllis would be operating with him.

When I stayed quiet, Ray decided I was still upset about the dream. He laughed and pulled me to the table.

"All right, still angry? I spent all night dreaming about surgery and still got up to make you breakfast. Don't I get any sympathy?"

"I promise I'll dream about you next time, okay?"

He'd promised that a thousand times. Not once had he dreamed of me.

He thought I'd do what I always did, sit and look at the lovingly made eggs and tuck all the hurt and the unease away.

He didn't know that hidden long enough, hidden deep enough, even my love for him had thinned out across all those sleepless nights.

At first, when he dreamed of Phyllis, I'd wake him and demand an answer.

His excuse started as too many surgeries in the day, too tired.

Then it became I'd woken him too early, before he got the chance to dream me into the scene.

Later it became that he'd just been about to talk to the dream version of me when I shook him awake.

It took three months to go from believing him completely, blaming myself for picking fights with a dream, to no longer waking him at all.

And a hundred sleepless nights to understand what it means that what fills the day fills the night.

A hundred nights of him calling Phyllis's name until dawn.

Not one of them mine.

Nearly a thousand surgeries side by side, and I'd never once made it into his dreams.

He had no idea how I got through it.

Got through it until something in me was simply dead, until I could look at his lovingly made eggs and feel nothing at all.

I drew my hand back and stood up to get the door key.

"Let's break up—"

His phone rang. One glance at the screen and he answered before it finished.

"Yes, I know. Ten minutes!"

He hung up, yanked off the apron, and grabbed the key out of my hand on his way past.

"Something went wrong in Phyllis's surgery. I have to go. I'll be with you when I'm done."

He never heard the breakup. Never noticed he'd taken the wrong key.

A life was on the line. I picked up the car key from the entry table and went after him.

When I stepped off the elevator, he was right there, eyes bloodshot, jabbing at the call button.

Phone to his ear, his voice gone gentle for whoever was on the other end.

"Tell Phyllis not to be scared. The sky can fall and I'll hold it up…"

I let it wash over me and held out the car key.

"You want my help in there?"

Ray snatched it, hand cupped over the receiver as he snapped at me.

"Did you hand me the wrong one on purpose? If anything happens to that patient, you and I are finished!"

I opened my mouth to explain, but he had already turned and strode away.

Watching his hurried back, I murmured under my breath,

"It's already over between us."

Back in the room, I looked around at the soft, pink little nest we'd built, and my eyes burned.

The truth was, the signs had always been there. I should have seen them long ago.

I love everything pink. Ray prefers cold, minimalist gray.

He'd lived here for the better part of a year, and though he always said I could decorate however I liked, in practice he resisted every bit of it.

The pink sheets I bought, he wouldn't sleep on. The throw pillow I'd stitched by hand, he wouldn't lean against. Even the bright red lucky underwear I'd bought him for his zodiac year, he refused to wear.

"I'm a grown man. Using girly stuff like that is humiliating."

"You like it, you use it. I'd rather die first."

Then Phyllis Pruitt came over, pointed at the pink-and-charcoal mix of furnishings, and laughed so hard she could barely stand up straight.

"This combination is so bizarre. If my boyfriend were ever this clueless, I'd dump him on the spot."

Then, still laughing, she reached over and tugged at her own boyfriend's waistband, ordering him,

"Come on, show Faith and the others your pink underwear!"

Her boyfriend didn't get annoyed at all. He just played along, indulging her teasing.

I looked at Ray, envy all over my face.

The next second, he threw out everything in gray and charcoal, and that night he ordered a whole pile of the pink couple's things I liked.

Back then, I was moved by what I thought was Ray's favoritism toward me.

Now, the pink filling every corner of the room only mocked me for being childish and stupid.

If Phyllis had never walked in, everything here would still be divided cleanly into his gray and my pink.

I picked up my phone and texted the director.

*Director Jennings, does the Overseas Medical Aid Team still need people? I'd like to go too.*

*Are you sure? Once you go, it's three years at the very least.*

*I'm sure.*

The director told me to get my things together and come to the hospital that afternoon to hand over my work.

Departure in seven days.

I put the phone away and cleared out every pink thing in the apartment, hauling all of it to the trash station.

By the time I left, dragging my suitcase behind me, everything had turned back into the gray and charcoal Ray liked.

I dropped my luggage at the staff dorm, and the moment I reached the lobby I ran into a patient dispute.

I was in a hurry to hand over my work and had no interest in the commotion.

Halfway across, someone called out to me.

"Faith, please, talk Dr. Delgado down! If he keeps hitting him, someone's going to die!"

I turned my head, and only then saw that the man at the center of the crowd was Ray, locked in a fight with a patient's family member.

He was straddling the man, driving his fists in, each blow landing on flesh.

"Why did you hide his medical history?"

"He has hepatitis B and syphilis—why didn't you say anything?"

"Do you have any idea this could get someone killed? This is attempted murder. You could go to prison for this!"

…

The relative kept insisting he hadn't known either, but Ray didn't believe a word of it.

He beat the man until his face was swollen and bloody.

Then I saw the blood spattered across Ray's surgical scrubs, and my chest seized.

He'd been exposed to the patient's blood.

Fear surged up in me, and on instinct I rushed over and grabbed his arm.

"Ray, stop, you need to go clean up right now and get the prophylactic shots—"

Before I could finish, he wrenched his arm free and shoved me away.

"None of your damn business!"

He didn't even glance at me, just grabbed the relative by the collar and started in again.

I went down hard, and pain tore through my abdomen and my tailbone at the same time.

Head Nurse Coleman hurried to help me up.

"Faith, are you all right?"

I shook my head, swallowing the pain.

Seeing that even I couldn't stop him, the head nurse was beside herself.

"If even you can't talk Dr. Delgado down, what are we supposed to do? The patient was unconscious when they brought him in, the family didn't know he had an infectious disease either—blaming them now won't help anything! Who could have guessed Dr. Pruitt's protective mask would slip off mid-surgery, ugh…"

It hadn't been Ray who got contaminated by the patient's blood.

It was Phyllis.

No wonder a man this steady had come apart.

I pressed a hand to my abdomen and told Head Nurse Abbott quietly,

"Go get Dr. Pruitt. She's the only one who can stop him."

She didn't believe me.

"This whole thing started because of her. Bringing her here will only make Dr. Delgado worse—"

She'd barely finished when another voice cut in, cold and furious:

"Ray! Stop it! That's enough!"

Phyllis only shouted it from the edge of the crowd, and Ray's raised fist froze in midair.

Then he let go of the man, scrambled up, and stumbled toward her.

As if remembering the filth all over him, he backed off three steps and kept his distance.

But his eyes clung to her, frantic, full of worry.

"Are you all right? Did you get the shot? Are the results back? Were you infected?"

Four questions in a row, and each one knocked me a little further off balance.

A year ago he and I had been in surgery together. The patient was unconscious too, and the family had deliberately hidden his HIV status.

I'd finished the anesthesia and was pulling the needle when the patient suddenly woke and thrashed.

The needle that had been in him drove straight into the back of my hand.

All Ray said was,

"Go clean it. Take the meds."

Afterward, when I wanted to hold the family accountable, he stopped me.

"Let it go. It's already happened, there's no point chasing it, and doctor-patient tensions are bad enough. Don't make trouble."

He told me not to make trouble.

He never asked if I was scared. He never asked how the results came back.

Now, for Phyllis, he was using that precious right hand of his to beat a family member who hadn't known a thing.

Beating it until the hand was swollen and raw, and not caring in the least.

Anyone who didn't know better would think he was Phyllis's boyfriend.

The next second a man rushed over, shoved Ray aside, and pulled Phyllis into his arms.

"Phyllis, are you okay? Are you scared?"

"Don't worry, you're going to be fine!"

Phyllis's real boyfriend, Byron Jennings, had come.

Ray staggered backward and knocked me to the floor a second time.

Only then did he notice I was there at all.

A bitter, hollow smile crossed his face.

"What are you doing here?"

I didn't answer. I just watched him, watched the way his gaze kept sliding back to the man and woman locked in that embrace.

The envy and jealousy in it, he didn't bother to hide.

He was in love with Phyllis.

But he could never hold her like that, out in the open.

So that was the real reason he dreamed of Phyllis night after night.

I gave a small, self-mocking laugh and walked toward the office.

At the door, I looked back once.

Ray hadn't followed me.

He was doing as Phyllis told him, head bowed, apologizing to the patient's family.

They hadn't forgiven him. They were giving back, blow for blow, every bit of the violence they'd just taken.

And he knelt there on the floor, silently taking one ringing slap after another.

As if he felt my eyes on him, his head snapped up.

There was guilt in his eyes, and hope.

He wanted me to do what I always had: rush to the family, shield him, make his excuses, take the blame for him.

Remembering how he'd once pulled me out of the path of a runaway truck, I turned and started back.

Then a warm rush spilled out of me from below.

That was when it hit me. My period was already half a month late.

I stared at the blood dripping to the floor, and the color drained from my face inch by inch.

I opened my mouth to scream for Ray.

But he was already lurching to his feet, rushing toward Phyllis, who had clutched her head and fainted.

"Phyllis!"

But Phyllis had collapsed into Byron's arms.

Ray's outstretched hand froze in midair, then drew back, useless.