Aiden
Hospitals had a way of making you feel like a kid again.
Like you were small. Like you didn’t belong. Like every bad memory you ever tried to bury clawed its way up to remind you that you weren’t as grown as you pretended to be.
I moved through the lobby with long, purposeful strides, the fluorescent lights overhead buzzing like an unwanted thought in the back of my mind. I could hear Anika’s heels clicking against the tile behind me, but I barely registered it. My focus was on one thing and one thing only.
Her.
She was here. She was alive.
And she was dying.
The irony wasn’t lost on me.
I barely noticed the people around me, barely noticed the nurses bustling from one side of the room to another, barely noticed the smell of antiseptic clogging my nostrils. But then, I notice
