Chapter 3
1486 Words
Sonia’s POV
The doctor’s words stayed lodged in my chest, like splinters I couldn’t pull out. A coma. Not alive, not gone, somewhere in between, trapped in a place I couldn’t reach.
The days that followed blurred into one another. Morning, night, sunrise, sunset, they lost their meaning. All that mattered were the steady beeps of machines, the rise and fall of mechanical breaths, the doctors’ daily updates that never seemed to change.
Molly became my anchor.
She hardly left my side. She’d slip into my room before dawn, bringing coffee I never finished, bagels I never touched, and a warmth I couldn’t refuse. At the hospital, she sat cross-legged on the stiff plastic chairs, distracting me with stories about ridiculous classmates, professors who didn’t notice our absence, small details from the outside world that felt so distant now.
Sometimes she’d brush my hair out of my face when my hands shook too much. Sometimes she’d cry with me, her tears soaking my sleeve until we couldn’t tell whose grief was whose. And sometimes, she’d just sit in silence, her hand in mine, steady and unflinching.
One night, after another long, wordless day by my parents’ bedside, Molly whispered, “You don’t have to be strong all the time, you know.”
I let out a hollow laugh, my voice breaking. “If I’m not strong, then what am I?”
“You’re human,” she said simply. “And I’d rather have my best friend break down a thousand times in front of me than watch her fall apart alone.”
Her words cracked something inside me, and I sobbed into her lap, while she stroked my hair the way her mother used to do when we were children.
The Lims were more present than ever. Clara insisted I stay with them, at least for a while. Their home, which had always felt like my second home, now became my refuge. Clara fussed over me as if I were her own daughter, cooking, checking if I’d eaten, tucking blankets around me when I fell asleep on the couch. Lewis, quiet and steady, drove me back and forth from the hospital when I was too exhausted to trust myself behind the wheel.
Their care was a reminder of what I still had, a family that chose me, even when my own had been torn away.
But Alexander was different.
He was always there, at the hospital, at home, passing through rooms like a restless ghost. He carried the weight of the company now, his father’s legacy pressing down on his shoulders, but it wasn’t just work that made him distant. It was me.
He hardly looked at me. When he did, it was fleeting, a quick glance that burned too much and meant too little. His words were clipped, practical.
“How’s the room temperature for you?”
“Have you eaten?”
“I’ll be late tonight.”
Always surface-level, never more.
I told myself it didn’t matter, that he was busy, that grief had different shapes for everyone. But in the quiet, when the loneliness crept in, it hurt. Because no matter how much Molly comforted me, no matter how warm Clara and Lewis were, it was his absence I felt the sharpest.
Weeks passed. My parents remained the same, still, silent, unreachable. Hope became a thin thread I clutched at, fraying more with every passing day.
One evening, Molly and I sat outside the hospital on a bench, watching the sun sink behind the city skyline. She leaned her head against my shoulder.
“They’ll come back to you,” she murmured. “They have to.”
I wanted to believe her, but my voice betrayed me when I whispered, “What if they don’t?”
Molly squeezed my hand. “Then you’ll still have me.”
It should have been enough. In that moment, it was.
But later that night, when I was finally drifting to sleep in the quiet of the Lim’s guest room, usually, I’ll sleep in Molly’s room but I just wanted my space tonight. My phone buzzed against the nightstand.
The hospital’s number.
My heart lurched as I fumbled for it, the glow of the screen casting pale light across the room.
“Miss Brown,” the voice on the other end said, urgent, clinical. “We need you to come to the hospital right away. There’s been a change.”
The line went silent after that, but my world had already shattered again…or is there still hope for our family?
The call yanked me out of the shallow half-sleep I’d been clinging to. My chest was tight, my hands trembling so violently I almost dropped the phone. The nurse’s words echoed inside me like the toll of a funeral bell: There’s been a change.
Change. The word could mean anything, hope or despair, life or death. My mind spun through every possibility as I shoved on my sweater, pulled my hair into a messy knot, and slipped out of the Lim’s guest room. The house was dark, silent except for the faint ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway.
I tried not to make a sound as I hurried down the stairs, but Molly was already waiting at the bottom, wrapped in a thin robe, her hair tangled from sleep. Her eyes, wide and frightened, met mine.
“They called, didn’t they?” she whispered.
I nodded, unable to speak.
“Wait for me. I’m coming with you.”
We didn’t waste time. Minutes later, Lewis was behind the wheel of the car, his hands steady on the steering wheel even as his jaw tightened in silence. Molly clutched my hand in the backseat, her thumb running small circles across my skin like she was trying to anchor me to the earth. The city outside passed in blurs of neon and shadow, but I barely noticed. My whole world was the pounding of my heartbeat, the suffocating thought: What if this is it?
By the time we arrived, the hospital’s sterile white corridors felt even colder than before. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, a sound so faint yet so grating it made my skin crawl. Nurses moved briskly, doctors murmured to one another in low voices. Everything seemed sharper, more urgent than it had been in days.
I pushed open the door to the ICU. The machines that had become too familiar to me were louder tonight, the beeping quick, uneven. My parents lay where they always had, but their stillness felt different now, more fragile, as if their bodies were finally tiring of the fight.
I pressed myself against the glass window, my breath fogging the pane. My chest ached so badly I thought my ribs might crack open.
Clara appeared a few minutes later, her face pale but composed. She placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Stay strong, Sonia,” she whispered, though her voice trembled. “Sometimes the body falters before it heals.”
I wanted to believe her. God, I wanted to. But when I turned, my gaze caught Alexander’s.
He stood a few feet away, tall and sharp in his dark suit, his expression unreadable. His eyes flicked over me for the briefest second before he looked back at the doctors through the glass. No comfort, no warmth, only distance.
And that distance was louder than the machines, louder than my own grief.
Molly slipped her arm around me, pulling me close. “Don’t look at him,” she whispered fiercely, as though she could read my thoughts. “Look at me. I’m here. I’m not leaving you.”
Her words were a balm, but they couldn’t fully stop the sting.
Hours blurred together. Nurses came and went, adjusting wires and IV drips, checking charts, whispering updates we couldn’t hear. My legs grew numb from sitting, then sore from standing. Molly forced water into my hands, Clara insisted I eat a sandwich I couldn’t taste. Still, I stayed rooted to the window, afraid to blink, afraid to miss anything.
Finally, a doctor stepped out. His expression was grave, his hands clasped in front of him. “Miss Brown?” he said softly.
My knees nearly buckled. Molly tightened her grip on me, her fingers laced with mine.
“There has been a significant drop in both your parents’ vitals tonight. We’ve managed to stabilize them for now, but…” He paused, his eyes flicking to Clara, then back to me. “…you should prepare yourself. There is a very real possibility they may not make it through the night.”
The floor seemed to tilt beneath me. I swayed, breathless, my vision blurring around the edges. Somewhere, I heard Molly’s voice break, Clara’s gasp, Lewis murmuring something low.
But all I could hear, pounding in my skull, was that single phrase.
They may not make it through the night.
- Writer
