Something inside him had already broken.
He slammed the car into drive before I’d even shut my door. We tore down the street. Rain streaked across the windshield in long, distorted lines.
I swallowed hard. “Dad… please. Tell me what’s going on.”
His jaw worked like he was chewing through glass. “She’s at County General,” he said. “She’s been shot.”
The words hollowed me out. There was no air left in the car. No air left in me. “It’s… bad?” My throat closed around a sob I didn’t let escape. Not yet. “Did she answer her phone?” I croaked.
He shook his head once.
“She said she wanted cherry pie,” he whispered, staring straight ahead when I glanced over at him. “This morning. Said she wanted to go to the beach and watch the sunset. Like it was just another day.” His voice folded in on itself. “We were supposed to have a date night when she came home.”
I bit down on my knuckle until I tasted copper. Inside, I was already coming apart.
Already drowning.
Already lost.
It felt like hours before County General rose out of the rain like a wound in the world—bright, sterile, and violently out of place. Dad cut across two parking spots and skidded to a stop. He was out of the car before the engine finished dying; the door swinging open behind him like a torn wing.
I scrambled after him. Every step was too loud. Too real. The automatic doors hissed open. Fluorescent lights sliced into my eyes. The smell of antiseptic hit me like a wall: cold, chemical and unforgiving.
A nurse appeared with a clipboard in her hands, sorrow already in her face.
“Natalie H-Harper,” Dad gasped. “Gunshot victim. She’s my—she’s our?—”
“She’s in rough shape. Not long been out of surgery. Conscious,” the nurse said gently, placing her hand on his arm. “But barely. You can see her before we take her up to ICU.”
Before. The word landed wrong. Like a goodbye pretending to be a promise. I followed behind them on autopilot, already forgotten. Dad’s breaths hitched and broke, and stuttered. Tears streamed down his face, but he didn’t seem to notice.
The hallway stretched on for too long. The tiles were too white. The walls were too clean. People passed in pieces like stills from a movie: a man vomiting into a sink, a woman whispering into her hands.
Grief hung in the air like dust.
It coated my throat.
When we reached the last door on the left, the nurse hesitated. Took a deep breath then pushed it open, and my world changed shape.
Mom lay on the bed.
It was her.
And it wasn’t.
Her body looked smaller, diminished by tubes and wires and gauze. Like she was folding inward, trying to take up less space in the world. The hospital gown laid over her was soaked in red. Blood had dried on her hands. Under her nails and flaked onto the sheets.
My knees locked. My heart stopped. But then she smiled—soft yet fragilely—at me. “Hey, baby,” she rasped.
Her voice sounded like paper soaked in rain. Like she was waking me for school and nothing was wrong.
I lurched forward. The need to touch her, to hold her, was visceral. To prove to myself this was a nightmare I could still wake up from. My throat closed and my body went numb. Blood moved through me like ice.
“You’re okay,” I whispered, too soft to even trust my own voice. “They’re going to fix this—you. I’m here. We’re here. You’re going to be okay.”
A lie I needed like air.
She blinked slowly, pale lavender lids heavy, obscuring her hazel eyes. Her fingers twitched, reaching for me or the space where I was.
