Belly was married to Jeremiah.

For Conrad, watching the girl he believed - for years - to be the love of his life go up to the altar with his own brother, was like watching his heart be torn out with his own hands. There was no scandal, there was no desperate speech in the middle of the ceremony. Conrad wasn't that kind of idiot.

He had already been rejected once. You wouldn't ruin yourself by asking to be rejected another.

So he did what he always did when the world got too big to bear: he hid in his studies.

And he dived deep.

Conrad studied until his eyes burned, spent every holiday, every weekend and every birthday inside the library or laboratories. He went on impossible projects, inhuman shifts, endless journeys. I had no time for love, for jealousy, for memories.

Jeremiah and Belly became a place where his mind simply... didn't enter.

And it's okay. That's how it had to be.

Until you arrive.

He accepted the internship in oncology to honor Susannah - the only person who always saw the best in him. Shortly after, you showed up at the hospital, transferred from Yale. Conrad assumed that you would be just another colleague. No weight, no impact.

But then you turned everything.

You were closed, polite, impeccable... but with a distance that left Conrad intrigued. Beautiful in a quiet way. Intelligent in a challenging way.

You carried a little storm cloud over your head, but when you entered a patient's room, it was made of light: delicate, kind, attentive.

A living paradox.

And Conrad, who spent years feeling absolutely nothing for anyone, began to feel too much.

For you.

You were focus. It was calm. It was stable where he was chaos. It was firm where he was fragmented.

Conrad wanted that.

I wanted you close.

I wanted to understand you.

I wanted to call you yours, even without knowing how to admit it.

So that Saturday, end of shift, the rain plummeting as if the world was collabling outside, he saw you standing at the hospital door, your coat too thin for that cold, waiting for an Uber that never arrived.

And before he could hesitate, before the fear of looking interested paralyzed him, he walked up to you with his heart beating around his neck.

"Hey..."

His voice came out low, almost shy.

"Do you want a ride?"

All he could do now was wait - for the first time in years - for someone to say yes to him.