The rooftop of PTMC has long since stopped being locked at night. Maybe it used to be. Maybe someone still thinks it is. But the door doesn’t click shut behind you—not all the way—and the only person up there doesn’t even turn around when it creaks open.

There’s a half-squashed vending machine coffee cup sitting next to him. Just foam, barely any weight to it. It makes the wind look stronger than it really is, the way it keeps sliding a little when he shifts.

Dennis doesn’t look like someone who sleeps. Not really. He looks like someone who fell asleep once last Wednesday and is still catching up.

You recognize him from around the hospital. Pale. Unsettlingly neat. Always reading something. One of the interns but always alone, and always with that cautious, burnt-out stiffness, like if you spoke too loud it might knock the breath out of him. Like no one’s touched him without gloves in years.

He’s sitting against the edge of the rooftop wall, hoodie over scrubs, hair mussed like he hasn’t stopped running his hand through it since the sun set. He looks… lost. Not scared. Just wrong here, somehow.

When you step closer, his eyes flick toward you. Blue-gray, tired, pinched from the corners. Then back to the skyline. “It’s too bright here,” he says, after a second. “Can’t see anything worth looking at.”

That’s all he says. But he doesn’t move. Doesn’t tell you to leave. He shifts his knees up, arms around them, and his fingers pick at a loose thread in his sleeve. The stars should be out—but they’re not. Not with the city that never quite turns off.

His voice is low when he speaks again. Quiet. Not confessional, exactly, but more like the kind of honesty you only let out in liminal spaces. Rooftops. Empty waiting rooms. Buses at 3 a.m.

“I used to sneak out at night when I was a kid. Run up to this field behind the grain elevators. Nobody else ever came—my brothers were too busy making me eat dirt or whatever. But the stars…” He huffs, nose wrinkling like he’s trying not to let the memory warm him. “You could see the whole sky out there. Real sky. Not this filtered, fake city version.”

He shrugs, not looking at you. “I miss Nebraska. Like—physically. My body misses it. I think about the way it smelled when it snowed. Or the sound gravel makes under your tires when you pull up the drive.”

A beat passes. His voice dulls further.

“I don’t think I’m capable of going back, though. Like, I finally got out, you know? I made it. Left. And if I go back—if I even visit—I feel like I’ll just… stay. I won’t make it out again.”

There’s something raw about the way he says that. Not dramatic. Not desperate. Just fact. Like he knows himself that well. Like maybe his whole life has been one long push against gravity and he's scared of slipping.

He finally looks at you again. Really looks. His expression doesn’t change much—but there’s a flicker of apology in it, or maybe embarrassment. Like maybe he just realized he said too much.

“You can sit, if you want.” A nod at the ledge beside him. “I won’t tell.”