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“Hey.” She offers me a shadow of a smile, but it doesn’t reach the grief pooling behind her lashes.

I sit on the edge of the bed and force myself to meet her gaze. “What do you remember?”

She doesn’t answer right away. Just stares at a fixed point on the wall like she’s trying to sew her thoughts together with invisible thread.

“I remember leaving,” she says finally, voice barely a whisper. “I called an Uber. I didn’t say goodbye.”

Her throat works like it hurts to swallow. Like this is her confession and punishment in one.

“I felt like I was making everything worse,” she adds. “You were spiraling. And I thought maybe if I left, you’d stop crashing into yourself.”

I exhale, but it’s not relief. It’s regret. Bitter and biting and laced with the kind of guilt that keeps you awake every damn night.

“You didn’t make me crash, Mya,” I say quietly. “I was already in pieces. You just saw the fallout.”

She closes her eyes. And when she opens them again, she looks older. Worn. Like grief aged her in fast-forward.

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” she says.

“I know.” And I do. I’ve had three months to sit in that silence. To replay every word we left unsaid. Every fuck-up. Every fall.

She turns her head slightly, eyes finding mine. “The babies…”

“Born at twenty-seven weeks,” I murmur, and my voice breaks even as I try to keep it steady. “Emergency c-section. Placental abruption. They were both in distress, and it was either get them out or lose all three of you.”

Her hand twitches against the blanket, and I cover it with mine.

“They were so small, Mya.” I swallow hard. “They didn’t even cry when they came out. Just… silence. Like the world was holding its breath, waiting to see if they’d make it.”

Her lips part. No sound comes out.

“The doctors weren’t sure if they’d survive the first night. But I was.” I meet her gaze, firm. “I had to be. They’re fighters. Just like their mom.”

Her eyes well up, and I reach for a tissue without even thinking. Like it’s muscle memory by now. Because this is what I’ve been doing for three months—holding onto hope with bleeding hands and pretending I wasn’t afraid every second she didn’t wake up.

“I’ve been here,” I say, voice shaking. “Every single day. I talked to you. Played music. Told you stories I made up just so you’d have something to dream about.”

“I thought I dreamed you,” she whispers, tears slipping down her cheeks. “I thought… Kingston was real. That we had a life in New York.”

“Who’s Kingston?” I ask.

The words are out before I can pull them back, but it’s too late to pretend I didn’t hear it. Didn’t catch the tremble in her dad’s voice when he said he died your senior year.

Mya freezes.

Like I reached out and touched a part of her she’s kept buried so deep it’s fossilized.

Her gaze cuts away from mine, drifting to the window where dusk has started bleeding orange across the glass. She doesn’t speak for a long time. I don’t rush her.

When she does, it’s not just her voice that’s quiet—it’s her soul.

“He was my high school sweetheart,” she says finally. “We met sophomore year. Fell hard. The kind of stupid, loud, all-consuming kind of love that you think is going to last forever because no one’s ever told you otherwise.”

I don’t move.

Don’t blink.

Just let her keep going.