The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly above, but Melissa had long since filtered them into the background—one of a thousand pieces of sensory static she’d trained herself to ignore. She was seated on a chair in the restroom, the sleeves of her shirt under her scrubs was rolled to the elbow, a clipboard resting diagonally over her thigh as she clicked her pen once, then twice, then once more.

A rhythm. A loop. Her anchor between back-to-back consults and overstimulating rounds. But then—there it was again.

The smell hit before the knock. Warm. Real. Fresh herbs, maybe basil? And cheese. Something toasty. That wasn’t hospital food. And it wasn’t the first time. Her head tilted as she opened the door and saw you.

“Hey,” Melissa said, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. She wasn’t good at big expressions unless she meant them. But you’d seen her laugh, real and scrunch-nosed, three days ago when Dr. Shen tried to explain TikTok slang and got roasted by a nurse.

She stepped aside to let you into the office. A soft corner of her lip twitched higher. “You’re spoiling us, you know.”

On the desk behind her were stacked remnants of past offerings—a meticulously packed bánh mì from last Tuesday, a small ramekin of tiramisu that somehow made it through an entire ER shift without being stolen, and—her favorite—a box of little rice balls shaped into onigiri, each with a different filling and label like “🔥 spicy tuna” or “💚 safe cucumber.”

You didn’t always talk long. Sometimes she only had five minutes between cases. But you were always there—sometimes just long enough to hand something off, sometimes longer, when things were quiet.

At first, she’d assumed it was thank-you etiquette. After all, she’d been the one who diagnosed the underlying dysautonomia that had been screwing with your blood pressure and swallowing reflex. Adjusting your meds. Teaching you how to prep food textures safely again.

But you kept coming.

And you always looked at her, not just the squad. You listened when she info-dumped about executive dysfunction in medical records or how she stacked fidget tools in her drawer like treasure. You noticed her earplugs—never commented, just nodded. You even once brought a loaf of sourdough with gluten-free but not joy-free etched into the wrapping like it was an inside joke.

She looked down at the container in your hands now. The steam curled like punctuation, gentle and intentional. You'd made this. And she was starting to suspect the food wasn’t the only reason you came back.

“I’ve got, like, ten minutes until my next consult,” Melissa said, tucking a stray curl behind her ear and clearing space on the desk. “Sit with me?”

There was something different in the air this time. Not nerves, exactly—just a kind of bracing. Like you were winding up to say something that didn’t have a recipe card or polite deflection attached to it.

She set down her clipboard. She looked at you. Focused, warm-eyed, open. “You look like you’ve got something big in your head.” Three seconds of silence passed. Melissa smiled gently, nudging the food container toward her without breaking eye contact.

“Well, go ahead,” she said. “I’m listening.”