I can’t do it again.
Not after this.
Not after her.
Not after Daisy calling me Dad, and then almost losing her.
Abby lifts her head, eyes searching my face. “Don’t leave,” she whispers.
The words hit me like a vow.
“I’m not,” I say, voice steady at last. “I’m not leaving.”
NINE
ABBY
The hospital smells like antiseptic and coffee that’s been sitting on a burner too long.
Daisy hates it here. She always has. Even when she was little and we came in for stitches after she tripped chasing a dog she absolutely should not have been chasing. She said hospitals felt too bright, like they were trying to pretend nothing bad ever happened inside them.
Tonight, she’s too tired to complain.
She sleeps curled against my side on the narrow bed in the pediatric exam room, wrapped in a blanket that’s at least two sizes too big. A pulse oximeter blinks softly on her finger, steady and reassuring. The doctor already told me her lungs sound good. That she’ll be fine. That kids are resilient.
I nod every time someone tells me that.
I don’t tell them that resilience isn’t what I want for her.
I want safety. I want boring. I want a life where she doesn’t have to be brave to survive.
I smooth her hair back, careful not to disturb her, and finally let myself breathe all the way out.
Across the room, Brendon stands near the window, his helmet tucked under his arm like he doesn’t quite know what to do with his hands now that the emergency is over. He looks wrecked. Soot still streaks his jaw. His eyes are red-rimmed, exhausted, alive with too much feeling.
He hasn’t left.
That shouldn’t matter.
It does.
“You don’t have to stay,” I say softly, even though the words feel like a lie I don’t want him to believe.
He turns toward me immediately. “I’m not going anywhere.”
The certainty in his voice makes my chest ache.
I gesture toward Daisy. “They said she’s okay.”
“I know,” he says. “I just… want to see her wake up.”
I nod. I understand that instinct intimately.
Silence stretches between us, not uncomfortable, just heavy with everything we almost lost.
“I panicked,” I say finally.
He doesn’t interrupt. He just waits.
