The guilt was an engine I didn’t know how to shut down.
He’d asked me once, months ago, why I couldn’t just be with him without turning everything into a project. I’d laughed it off at the time, told him it was a doctor thing. But standing there now, scribbling notes like a man on trial, I finally understood what he meant.
This wasn’t about medicine. It was penance. I was terrified that if I stopped moving, I’d feel the full weight of what I’d almost lost.
The screen blurred as I stared at it, my reflection staring back—drawn, hollow, and desperate. I turned off the tablet and leaned against the counter, the smell of cooling coffee thick in the air.
In the hallway, a nurse laughed softly at something someone said. The sound didn’t reach me. All I could think washow close I’d come to living in a world without his heartbeat in it.
And that even now, even with him alive, I wasn’t sure how to start breathing again.
Eli stirred sometime after sunset. The room was dim, except for the glow of the monitors. I’d meant to take a walk, maybe grab food, but I’d ended up in the chair again—half-dozing, one hand still looped through the safety rail like I might fall away without it.
“Hey,” he rasped, voice rough with sleep, raw from the breathing tube that had been removed only hours ago.
I straightened instantly. “Hey. You’re awake.”
He gave a faint, crooked smile. “You look worse than I do.”
“I doubt that.” My voice came out quieter than I meant it to. I reached for his hand before remembering the IV line, settling for brushing his wrist instead.
He looked around, eyes adjusting. “You’ve been here all day.”
“Of course.”
“You should rest.”
I huffed a laugh that didn’t sound like one. “Yeah. That’s not really working out.”
He studied me for a long moment, his gaze sharper than I was ready for. “You’re doing it again.”
I blinked. “Doing what?”
“Fixing everything.”
My throat went dry. I looked at the tablet still open on the counter, at the list of follow-ups, schedules, and check-ins. “Someone has to.”
He squeezed my fingers weakly. “Not like that, Adrian. Not this time.”
The breath I’d been holding for days came out all at once. “I can’t just—sit here and do nothing.”
“You’re not doing nothing.” His words were slow but deliberate, threaded with a calm I couldn’t find for myself. “You’re here.”
That was what undid me. Not the words, but the way he said them, as if that was enough. That my presence mattered more than action.
My face folded before I could stop it. The tears came fast and soundless, years of restraint collapsing into the hollow between us. I bowed my head, pressing it to the back of his hand.
“I thought I’d lost you,” I whispered. “And the only thing I could think was—what else didn’t I say? What did I leave undone? I’ve spent so long trying to hold everything together that I forgot how to just—be with you.”
His thumb brushed against my temple, barely there but grounding. “You didn’t lose me.”
“I almost did.”
“Almost doesn’t count.”
A small, broken sound escaped me that somehow still felt like air returning to my lungs. He let his eyes drift shut again, his breathing evening out. And I just sat there, holding on.
For the first time since the crash, I didn’t reach for the tablet. Didn’t check his vitals. Didn’t plan.
