Sophia
The quiet between storms.
The hospital smelled like bleach and old metal. The kind of cold that settled in your bones and stayed there, no matter how many sweaters or cups of burnt coffee you downed. I'd lost track of how long it'd been. Days blurred into nights and nights into that weird empty space hospitals have, where time doesn't move right.
Ricci still hadn't woken up.
Machines beeped steadily beside him, all those little screens glowing with colors I barely understood but memorized anyway. Heart rate. Oxygen. Blood pressure. They were the only thing keeping me from falling apart. As long as they beeped...
He was still here.
I sat beside him every day. My legs are stiff. My back is sore from these damn chairs. My hand always wrapped around his.
His fingers were cold som
