Why did this still hurt so much?
I pressed my palm flat against my chest and rubbed slowly against the ache building there. Something unpleasant climbed my throat, and I swallowed hard against it.
Dmitri would leave eventually. Not because he was cruel. That would have been almost easier. The good ones left too. The people who made staying feel permanent were always the ones who could destroy you completely once life pulled them elsewhere. Business would call. Duty would call. Something bigger than love would arrive, and they would go.
I would not wait for him to leave. I would leave first.
The nausea rose suddenly before I could finish the thought. I shoved the blanket aside and rushed toward the bathroom. I made it to the toilet and bent forward.
Dmitri appeared behind me so fast I never heard him move. One hand gathered my hair away from my face while the other moved slowly in circles on my back. My body shook through each wave as I emptied everything left in my stomach. Tears blurred my vision.
He held me until I finished and helped me up. I moved to the sink and turned on the water, splashing my face. The room tilted slightly, and I didn’t realize I was falling until his hand closed around my waist from behind, steadying me. He wet a cloth and pressed it to my face, cleaning me up with a care that made my chest ache.
My body felt weak, and all I wanted was to lie down and disappear into sleep. Dmitri pressed his lips briefly to mine and murmured against them, “You’ll be alright.”
I wasn’t sure if I heard him well.
He carried me back to bed and lay me down. “Take a sip.” He pressed a glass to my lips, and I drank before sinking back against the pillow.
At some point, he was talking while his hand moved through my hair. The ceiling softened above me. Everything drifted out of focus until the doctor appeared somewhere over me, saying something I couldn’t hold on to long enough to understand.
The sleep dragged me under, and I let it.
When I woke again, it wasn’t Dmitri’s voice or the doctor’s that pulled me back. It was Cole’s.
I stayed still for a moment, blinking at the ceiling while the room rebuilt itself around me. The light was brighter now. It wasn’t night anymore.
“I remind her every single day that I’m grown up,” Cole complained, “but she still treats me like I need supervision.”
Someone chuckled. “You are grown up. That is true.”
I sat up too fast the second I heard Dad’s voice. Pain split through my head, making me groan, pressing my fingers to my forehead while the room swayed around me. I waited for it to settle before opening my eyes again.
Cole was already beside me on the bed. “Should I call the doctor? You look terrible.”
I barely heard him because I was staring across the room on the sofa where Dad sat watching me. He was awake. He was here.
Cole squeezed my hand until I looked at him. “You’ll be fine,” he said with complete confidence. “You’re strong. Should I remind you the same way you always remind me?”
A weak laugh escaped me. “I’m fine.” My free hand covered his smaller one and held it there.
“Dad is back,” Cole announced proudly, turning toward him with a smile so bright it hurt to look at. “He said he’s done with work. No more leaving. Right, Dad?”
Dad smiled at him. “Yes.” He pushed himself up slowly, and I noticed the strain, the slight stiffness in his movements, the pain hidden beneath the effort. “Go bring your sister some warm water.”
Cole jumped off the bed and disappeared from the room.
Dad moved closer after Cole left, the limp subtle but impossible to miss once seen. He stopped beside the bed and looked down at me.
I didn’t know what I was supposed to feel. He was here. After years of silence, years of not knowing whether he was dead or suffering or simply gone by choice, he was standing in front of me like all that absence could somehow fit inside one room.
“The doctor will check on you again, but you’re stable,” he said softly, like every word needed careful placement. “My daughter.”
Something cracked inside me at those words. The way he said them reached somewhere deep and abandoned, somewhere I had locked shut out of survival. It was the voice of a father carrying too much regret and no idea where to unload it.
He sat beside me and took my hand.
My eyes dropped to his hands around mine. They looked rougher than I remembered; the skin hardened, faint blisters cutting across his knuckles like evidence of years I never witnessed. He held my hand with the same grip I used to imagine whenever the silence became unbearable, and I needed to believe he was still somewhere alive.
