Jacob
Hospitals strip things down to essentials.
No hierarchy. No leverage. Just numbers on screens and people waiting to hear whether they get to keep what they love.
Hospitals reduce everything to glass and distance.
I stood near the window of the ICU waiting area, my phone in my hand without really seeing it, watching the night press up against the building. The parking lot lights cast long, sterile reflections across the glass, turning the outside world into something flattened and unreal.
Bella was safe. My parents had her. That part was handled.
Everything else felt suspended.
That was when I saw Leah.
She stood just outside the main entrance, arms folded tightly around herself, her posture rigid in a way I recognized immediately. She wasn’t pacing. She wasn’t crying. She was
