It started small.
Talia noticed it first in the way her hands trembled ever so slightly when she held her morning coffee.
In the way she blanked on the name of a medication she knew by heart.
In the way Ezra's voice sounded far away, even when he was standing right next to her.
They were surviving, not living. Functioning, not feeling.
Residency had a way of eroding things slowly. Not all at once, like a storm. But over time, like waves against a cliff—soft, steady, relentless.
One Thursday, the dam broke.
Talia had just finished her third 12-hour shift in a row. The ER had been a war zone of respiratory failure, trauma patients, and one too many parents who came in clutching children with worried eyes and stories that didn't quite add up.
She was charting when the nurse beside her said, casually, "Dr. Talia,are you okay? You've been staring at that screen for ten minutes."
Talia blinked.
Her notes were unfinished.
She didn't remember what she was trying to write.
She stood abruptly, muttered something about needing air, and left the room.
Outside, on the back steps of the hospital, she let herself cry.
She hadn't cried in weeks.
Not since the man with liver failure asked if he could call his daughter before he went to sleep — and never woke up.
She sobbed now. Ugly, broken sobs that she tried to muffle with the sleeve of her white coat.
That's where Ezra found her.
"Talia."
She looked up, startled. Her eyes were bloodshot, face flushed, jaw clenched tight.
"I'm fine."
He sat beside her.
"You're not."
"I can't fall apart right now."
Ezra was quiet for a beat. Then:
"Yes, you can. And you should."
She looked away. "We're supposed to be strong."
"No," he said softly. "We're supposed to be human."
That night, they didn't go home.
They booked a cheap hotel room two blocks away.
It wasn't romantic. It was quiet. Still. Safe.
Talia curled up under the covers and let Ezra pull her into his chest. She let herself breathe — really breathe — for the first time in days.
"You ever wonder," she whispered, "if we're burning ourselves out trying to save everyone else?"
"All the time," he said.
"Do you think we'll make it?"
Ezra kissed the top of her head.
"As doctors?"
"No," she said. "As us."
He was quiet for a long time. Then he said:
"I think we already are."
The next morning, she called in sick.
She slept until noon, ate pancakes in bed, and spent an hour on the phone with her mom just talking about nothing.
Ezra read her the first chapter of a fantasy novel they'd started together before med school swallowed them whole.
It was small. Simple. Necessary.
They learned, in those weeks, to honor the signs.
To say no.
To say, I'm not okay without guilt or shame.
They weren't invincible. And that didn't make them weak.
It made them honest.
It made them brave.
And slowly, they found pieces of themselves again.
One deep breath at a time.