I didn’t sleep that night.
The ceiling above the hospital bed felt too white, too close, like it was pressing down on my thoughts and trapping them where they could echo back at me louder than I could bear. Machines hummed softly beside Leo’s bed, steady and cruelly calm, as if nothing in the world had almost shattered.
I watched my son breathe.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Each rise of his chest felt like permission to keep living. Each pause in between terrified me.
I reached out, my fingers barely grazing his small hand. He was warm. He was here. That was all that mattered.
And yet… my heart refused to be still.
Because Damien was here too.
I didn’t need to see him to feel his presence. It was like the air had changed the moment he stepped into the hospital earlier—heavier, sharper, cha
