Chapter 1

Day three hundred and seven of chasing my doctor boyfriend, Tim Simmons, was the day he gave me a watch.

"My work keeps me busy. I don't have time to wait around. If you can live with that, we can give it a try."

I said yes, over the moon. What I didn't expect was that his sense of time ran so strict that if I was one minute late to an anniversary, he'd cancel the date on the spot.

If a meal ran more than five minutes past, he wouldn't wait for me either.

For years, every place we dated had to be within a ten-minute trip of home and the hospital.

I told myself he was a man devoted to something bigger, and I never complained, never let myself feel wronged.

Until the storm, when I slipped and fell and was fifteen seconds past the time he'd agreed to pick me up.

He hit the gas and drove off, leaving me chasing after him until a streetcar clipped me.

That night, I ended up at the hospital, battered and a mess.

And then my cousin's video came up in my feed.

【A once-in-a-century meteor shower. An hour late, sure, but at least I had company.】

And in the frame was Tim Simmons, who was supposed to be pulling overtime in his department, sitting up on a hilltop watching the stars fall with her.

On his wrist, the same couple's watch as mine.

All at once it felt pointless.

So it wasn't that he wouldn't wait. It was just that the person he was waiting for wasn't me.

If that was how it was, then my time shouldn't go into a relationship that gave nothing back either.

1.

I turned off my phone and looked out the window, where two familiar figures were walking through the courtyard.

Sophie Gilbert chattered and circled Tim, laughing. He said little, but his expression held a tenderness I'd never seen on him.

Most of the time, he was just telling me, worn thin, to keep it down.

The two of them walked into the lobby, where the doctors and nurses at the station were huddled over a phone, gossiping about Sophie's post.

"Dr. Simmons really doesn't care at all, does he? His girlfriend's admitted here and he's off watching a meteor shower with the little cousin."

"You know, I told Adela Swanson before, her cousin's got a scheming heart, told her to watch out. And here we are."

Before they could finish, Tim rapped his knuckles on the desk.

"Done with your work already, standing around wagging your tongues?"

Several heads came up, and they scattered.

Sophie tugged at his sleeve. "Let it go, don't blame them. It's my fault for not checking on how my cousin was doing."

Tim swept his eyes over them.

"Slacking off on the clock, neglecting your duties. Five points off each of your evaluations. I'll be speaking with your head nurse."

His words were salt in an open wound.

Back then, there'd been an intern who liked him. After he turned her down, she spread rumors about me. I was upset and asked him to write what she'd done into her final evaluation, but he said he was her supervisor, that he only judged professional ability, that the innocent had nothing to fear, and I shouldn't read too much into it.

So it turned out he could shield someone after all.

As I lowered my eyes, he walked into my room, and Sophie, behind him, saw me and her eyes went red.

"Sis, I'm so sorry, I didn't know you were hurt. If I'd known, I never would've had Tim take me somewhere that far to see the meteors."

Before I could open my mouth,

Tim gently helped her up straight.

"It's got nothing to do with you. We'd planned to watch the meteors a long time ago."

Something in my chest went tight and bitter. They'd planned it, and I hadn't known a thing.

And every year on our anniversary, I'd remind him half a month ahead that we had a date, and by the day itself he'd still forget.

As if he'd read what I was thinking, Tim's voice went flat.

"It's not that I left you out on purpose. You don't like traveling that far, you're not into meteors and all that, and the mosquitoes up on the mountain are bad. You wouldn't have lasted up there anyway."

The old me would probably have decided long ago that he just didn't say it out loud, that in his actions he understood me and cared about me deeply.

Was it that I didn't like it?

Half a year ago there was a spot only fifteen kilometers from them, and I said I wanted to go watch the meteors and make a wish.

Tim called it superstitious nonsense, said it was a twenty-minute drive, over the time limit for how far a date could be, and I'd be better off reading a few more books, going through a few more case studies. More worthwhile, he said.

Seeing me stay quiet, he cleared his throat.

"She's had a long day and she's worn out. I'm taking her home. Next time, say something sooner if anything's wrong."

It took me a long while to catch what he meant.

But was it really that I hadn't said anything?

One glance at his phone and he'd have known that the second after I was hit, I sent him a message.

The time he gave me was always this little.