Page 53 of Bitter Truths

Teakwood. Black musk. Bergamot. With a note of underlying rose... I feel the urge to throw up.

My whole body goes rigid, every muscle locking into place. All this time, all this effort, and one breath threatens to crack me open again.

But I don’t move.

“Get the fuck out,” I say, in a low and dangerously calm tone.

The footsteps stop. The door doesn’t close.

I don’t turn around. I don’t breathe.

Then I hear the door shut.

11

BIANCA

The makeshift shiv sits warm against my palm, edges sharp enough to punch through skin. I made it on day one from a plastic cafeteria knife, sharpened on concrete in the hospital courtyard until it had a wicked point.

I’m naked without the knife I always carry at home, surrounded by white walls that feel like a cage and the constant threat of them. I needed something that could bite back.

Day three in this fluorescent hellhole. Day three of their bullshit. They’re everywhere. What am I supposed to do? I can’t keep running around this hospital forever while they chase me like wolves.

They’re everywhere. Not together, never together, but always there. Freddie by the vending machines, pretending to read texts. Owen in the cafeteria, leaning against a wall. Tristan waiting for the elevator, casual as anything until our eyes meet for half a second before I bolt. Weller in the lobby, a book open in his hands, but his attention is nowhere near it.

Why won’t they just leave me the fuck alone? We’re not friends. We’re not anything.

They want to talk. Want to corner me somewhere I can’t run. But I’ve gotten good at running, good at slipping away before they can get close enough to speak. Good at never quite looking at them long enough to see how life with Whitney has changed them.

Not ready for that. Not now, not ever.

But their persistence is wearing me down, making me paranoid and jumpy. Every footstep in the hallway makes me tense. Every whiff of them makes me jittery.

I need to get out of here. Just for an hour or two.

The September sun hits me like I stepped into an oven when I push through the hospital’s main entrance. Early fall still feels like summer here, air thick and humid even at three in the afternoon. Downtown stretches across the street—trendy coffee shops and boutiques mixed with the old buildings that have been here since before I was born.

I spot Marigold first, the cafe where Whitney and I used to meet. Where she dropped the bomb about Emma and Tyler. Where everything started unraveling.

Fuck that place. Fuck those memories.

I keep walking until I find a different coffee shop, one that doesn’t come loaded with emotional baggage. The line stretches almost to the door, but I don’t mind waiting. Anything’s better than the hospital’s bitter sludge they try to pass off as coffee.

When I get my dark roast, I head back toward the hospital but detour through the small garden tucked behind the main building. Patients’ families use it—people who need fresh air and a moment away from the sterile anxiety inside. Flower beds line winding paths, benches scattered under shade trees. It’s peaceful. Quiet.

Winston’s showing good brain activity. That’s what Dr. Kelty told us this morning. The EEG readings are encouraging—his brain waves indicate normal sleep patterns rather than the deeper unconsciousness they were worried about. Blood flow to his brain looks good. No signs of major damage.

But he’s still not waking up.

It’s a waiting game now, he’d said. His body needs time to heal. These things happen on their own timeline.

Three days. Three days of sitting beside his bed, talking to him, waiting for any sign that he can hear me. Clara rarely leaves his side except when Ben or Matt force her to eat. Mom and Dad take shifts, but I can see the strain wearing on them.

I find an empty bench near a fountain, water trickling over stone in a way that almost drowns out the city noise. I pull out the cell phone Mom pressed into my hand when I arrived—I want a way to reach you, she’d said, like she was afraid I might disappear again—and dial the familiar number.

Ezra picks up on the second ring. “Bianca. How is he?”

“Better. Maybe. The doctors say his brain activity looks good, but he’s still unconscious.” I lean back against the bench, closing my eyes. “How are things there?”