The man standing in front of her had blood on his hands. Not his own. He'd washed them in the bathroom down the hall, but the crescents under his nails had turned rust-colored and stubborn. He'd given up scrubbing.

He said it like it was a confession. Because it was. Because he'd been three states away when her phone had rung in his pocket, and he'd answered it anyway, because a part of him had always known this call would come someday. Just not from her. Not like this.

The words sat in the stale air between them, heavy as lead. Two years since he'd said her name out loud. Two years of not calling, not checking in, not knowing if she still wore that silver ring on her thumb or if she'd finally stopped leaving the lights on when she slept. And now here he was, and the only reason he knew she was alive was because someone else had used her phone to dial his number.

The words landed like a punch. Dean stood there in the humming fluorescent light, and for a moment, the bravado, the swagger, the shrug-it-off—all of it fell away. What was left was just a man who'd spent two years pretending he didn't care, standing in a hospital hallway with her blood under his nails.