Holding On To You

Chapter 2: First Meeting

Morning came too quickly. The light that streamed through the thin hospital curtains felt uninvited. Elena sat upright in bed, knees drawn to her chest, watching the slow drip of saline from the IV bag like it was counting down her time. Nurses moved in and out of the room, adjusting machines, checking vitals, offering polite smiles.

But none of them were him.

She didn’t expect to care—didn’t expect to remember his name. Liam. But the softness of his voice and that strange comfort it brought lingered longer than she wanted to admit.

Just after 10 a.m., a knock tapped gently on the door.

“You up for company?” Liam peeked in, balancing a tray with two cups of coffee and a banana muffin.

Elena raised an eyebrow. “Let me guess. This is from the ‘secret stash’?”

He grinned. “I take my promises seriously.”

She motioned for him to come in.

As Liam set the tray on the small table near her bed, Elena noticed something unusual about him. He wasn’t just being nice because it was his job—there was a genuine stillness in him, a way he slowed down the world when he was around.

“You don’t usually do breakfast deliveries, do you?” she asked, biting into the muffin.

“I don’t usually talk to patients about chocolate stashes at two in the morning either,” he replied. “Figured we’re both already breaking protocol, might as well commit.”

That made her laugh. It felt foreign in her mouth, but good. Really good.

“So, Elena the Artist,” he said, sitting across from her, “how long have you been drawing?”

“Since I was a kid,” she said, her fingers absently tracing the edge of the sketchbook on the nightstand. “It was the only thing that made me feel like I was in control of something. Even now… it’s how I cope.”

Liam nodded. “We all have our way. Mine’s poetry.”

Elena tilted her head. “Seriously?”

“Yep. Words are kind of my therapy. Don’t laugh—some of it’s actually pretty decent.”

“I’m not laughing,” she said, intrigued. “Got anything good memorized?”

He thought for a moment, then recited softly:

“We are stitched from the fray,

light between the scars,

learning to bloom

in the shade of stars.”

Elena blinked. “That’s… beautiful.”

“Thanks,” he said, suddenly shy. “I wrote it for someone once. Didn’t end well, but the poem outlived us.”

She didn’t ask about the someone. She just tucked it away in the part of her mind that had started collecting pieces of Liam Matthews.

After a moment of silence, Elena said, “I got diagnosed yesterday.”

Liam looked at her, steady and calm.

“I know,” he said gently. “Maya briefed me. I’m one of the oncology nurses on her team.”

“Oh.” She stared down at her coffee. “So you know what’s coming.”

“I know it won’t be easy,” he said. “But I also know you’re not alone. Not here.”

Her chest tightened, but not from fear this time. From something else. Something she hadn’t let herself feel since the moment Maya said cancer.

Hope.

Maybe not for a cure. Not yet.

But maybe—for connection.