A PROMISE IN THE DARK

Waking

Chapter 8

📘 Chapter 8 – Waking

White walls.

The steady beep of a heart monitor.

The sharp, sterile smell of antiseptic.

Gina stirred slowly, her eyelids heavy.

Her chest ached. Her throat was dry.

Everything felt... unreal. Weightless. Like floating between two worlds.

Am I dead?

She blinked again, squinting at the soft blur of light overhead.

“Am I... dead?” she croaked.

A voice answered—gentle, amused.

“Not quite. You’re in a hospital, sweetheart.”

Gina turned her head slowly.

A nurse in pale scrubs stood beside her bed, adjusting an IV drip. She looked calm and kind—like someone who’d seen too many people ask that same question and had lived to answer it, again and again.

“You were unconscious when he brought you in,” the nurse said, offering a small smile.

“He?” Gina rasped.

The nurse nodded. “Young man. Found you by the riverbank.”

A flash—

A splash.

Water.

Falling.

Her breath caught in her chest.

Flash.

I jumped... and someone saved me.

“Nurse,” Gina asked, her voice barely audible, “did they... pull anyone else out of the water?”

The nurse frowned slightly. “No. Just you.”

“That’s... strange. What about Mr. Handsome?” she whispered, confused.

The nurse chuckled softly. “I guess you got lucky.”

Just then—

The door burst open.

“GINA!”

A blur of curls and denim flew into the room.

Leah.

She looked frantic. Her eyes were red, her face flushed, her bag barely hanging off one shoulder.

“What in Christ’s name happened?!” Leah gasped, rushing to the bedside. “You got me out of my damn mind! I’ve been calling—no answer—then they say you’re in the hospital and—what the hell?!”

Gina stared at her, wide-eyed.

And then—

She started crying.

Not because she was hurt.

Not from fear.

But because Leah was there.

Because Leah always was.

Even when Gina didn’t know how to ask for help.

“Oh God,” Leah whispered, voice cracking as she wrapped her arms around her. “You scared the hell out of me.”

“I’m sorry,” Gina murmured, her voice muffled in Leah’s shoulder.

“I know,” Leah said gently. “You don’t have to explain. I got you.”

They held onto each other like two girls who had weathered too many storms—

and somehow always found their way back.

“I thought I was dead,” Gina whispered, her voice trembling.

Leah pulled back just enough to meet her eyes.

“But you’re not,” she said firmly. “You’re here.”

They sat in silence—

The kind of silence only best friends can share.

One filled with unspoken words, forgiveness, and the kind of love that doesn’t need perfect explanations.