POV: Violet
The hospital smelled like rain and lemon disinfectant, a strangely domestic combination for a place where lives were stitched back together and sometimes weren’t. I moved through the morning like a ghost with a purpose—check vitals, sign orders, reassure families with the practiced calm that came from years of practice. But underneath the motions my chest was a chamber of thunder, every step a drumbeat keeping time with a storm I couldn’t push away.
Kendra found me at the nurses’ station, exactly where she always did. A little less bright this morning, hair in its usual messy bun, eyes rimmed with the same fatigue I fought to hide every day. She slid into the chair beside me like she’d been waiting all night.
“Tell me you didn’t actually sleep in scrubs last night,” she said
